Hillary Clinton and Passover

After Passover in the year 2000 I remember driving back from New Jersey to Manhattan after teaching a Hebrew School class. My classmate, Faith Friedman, was sitting next to me in the car telling me about how a fellow rabbinical school student had just had Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at his family's Passover seder. I listened intently to this second-hand story that David Fine had told Faith.

I couldn't believe what a great story this was. To have the First Lady and Chelsea Clinton sit at your family's Seder and participate must have made for a very impressive evening. President Bill Clinton didn't attend the Fine Family seder because he was meeting with Yasser Arafat at the time.

A few years ago I was in Berlin on a trip with fellow Conservative Rabbis and Rabbi David Fine was one of the participants. On the first night in Berlin, David offered to give me a guided walking tour of the city. After a two-hour walk he asked if I had any questions. I said, "Yes, tell me about that time the Clintons came to your parents' home for the Pesach seder."

Do We Go Overboard Cleaning for Passover?

There are two funny images I like to circulate this time every year as we approach the Passover holiday. The first is a cartoon of a truck with large text on the side reading "Morty's Passover Cleaning." On the driver's side door is the word "chametz" inside a circle with line struck through it. Underneath the large "Morty's Passover Cleaning" text on the side of the truck it reads:
Orthodox $89.95, Conservative $49.95; Reform $19.95.

The second image is of a person's office cubicle and it's completely covered in aluminum foil. Even the desk chair, computer, keyboard and mouse are completely covered in aluminum foil. Most likely this photo was taken of the scene of an office prank, but I like to circulate this photo with the question, "Do we go overboard when it comes to Pesach cleaning?"

Let's look at the first photo. Is there some truth to this? I always maintain there has to be some truth to a joke for it to be funny, so let's say that on the whole, yes, Orthodox Jews would spend more money for Passover cleaning than Conservative Jews and Conservative Jews would spend more money for Passover cleaning than Reform Jews. Perhaps, this image strikes us as offensive, but we'll unpack that in a moment.

I remember as a kid before we got granite counter tops watching my mother cover all the counter tops in aluminum foil and then redoing this process each morning of the holiday because some of the aluminum foil had ripped the night before causing little sections of the white Formica counter to be revealed. This was done despite the fact that our house was completely spotless after having been thoroughly cleaned for the holiday. The thinking was that the counter is of a porous material and would have retained some of the chametz from the year which would contaminate our Passover food.

Do we go overboard cleaning for Passover?

The White House Passover Seder Tradition (As Told By Eric Lesser)

I led a Birthright Israel trip in December 2004 with half of the college student participants on our bus from the University of Michigan and the other half from Harvard. Before the trip I was a little concerned as to how the two groups of students would get along on the ten day experience.

However, not only did the Harvard and Michigan undergrads get along great in Israel, but there were some lifelong friendships that were formed. I had a wonderful time co-leading the trip with Gabi Soble, a kindhearted, talented staff member from Harvard Hillel. I also got to know some really impressive young people from Harvard including Eric Lesser. It was clear to me that Eric would go on to do big things in his career and the former President Obama aide is currently on leave from Harvard Law School to run for State Senate in Massachusetts. Of course, he has my full endorsement.

On a Birthright Israel trip with Eric Lesser packing food for the homeless in Israel

Make Passover 2014 Fun

I was inspired by a workshop I attended last Shabbat by the very talented Jewish educator Noam Zion. For well over a decade, I've been using his haggadah ("A Different Night") and his son Mishael Zion's haggadah ("A Night to Remember") to inspire my students to think about the Four Children in new and different ways through art.

Noam Zion, who teaches at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, is an advocate for making the Passover Seder more fun. I couldn't agree more. If we seder leaders make the experience more enjoyable and fun for the seder participants, they will get more out of it and look forward to the holiday more in the years to come. Some of the tried and true seder activities like "The Plagues Bag" will continue to work well for younger children, but after a few years of showing the little toys that represent each of the plagues, it will likely be time to try some new tricks. In that vein, I've put together a list of ways to make not just the seder, but the entire Passover holiday more fun.

PASSOVER SEDER STEPS FOLLOW-ALONG

Passover Seder Steps game from Holidays in a Box

Ellen Zimmerman of "Jewish Holidays in a Box" has come out with a new children's game for the seder called Passover Seder Steps Follow-Along. The new activity is designed to help families have more fun and keep everyone more engaged from beginning to end of the Passover Seder. The game comes with 5 gloss-coated boards, 5 game pawns and instructions for use. It's available from Amazon.com for $12.97 and can also be downloaded as a mobile app (the digital version is under $6). Inspired by her daughter's creation when she was 8-years-old, Zimmerman redesigned it to show the progression from step to step (using stone imagery) of the seder. The game is a great teaching tool and will help keep everyone at the table engaged.

POP HAGGADAH

Artist Melissa Berg's Pop Haggadah for Passover

Each year I acquire a new Passover haggadah to add to my ever growing collection. This year's favorite is the Pop Haggadah by Melissa Berg. This bright and colorful haggadah is one of the best I've seen in years. The different fonts and artwork on every page make it an exciting haggadah to thumb through or use at the seder. It's honestly perfect for both of children and adults, which is odd when it comes to haggadot. Melissa Berg, who is an artist and has worked in the marketing and filmmaking industries, really hit a homerun with this haggadah. Each section of Berg's haggadah has the traditional Hebrew with English translations, but even these texts are considered artwork. Each vibrant page is a surprise with completely different colors and designs. To borrow a term from the graphic design world: The Pop Haggadah really pops! As a bonus, Berg has included many "extras" on the Pop Haggadah website that can be used for seder activities.

BRONFMAN HAGGADAH APP

Bronfman Haggadah App from the late Edgar Bronfman and his wife Jan Aronson

Jason Bateman Schools Jon Stewart in Yiddish

The great Yiddishist Leo Rosten was hopefully rolling (with laughter) in his grave last night. The late author of the book "The Joy of Yiddish" worked very hard during his lifetime to bring the dying Yiddish language into the mainstream.

Last night's five minute dialogue between actor Jason Bateman and Jon Stewart included more Yiddish words than we typically hear on television. It was as if Bateman wanted to drop some of his well-rehearsed Yiddishisms during his interview on The Daily Show. As soon as Jason Bateman sat down he told Jon Stewart that his "It's nice when nice happens to nice" opening comment sounded very Yiddish. And from there it became a Yiddish word competition between the two men.

Jason Bateman explained that he recently learned the Yiddish word "chazerai" which seemed to confuse the Jewish host of The Daily Show (the former Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) who mistakenly said the word means a guy who's a bit of a chazer (pig). Bateman correctly defined chazerai as garbage, but Stewart disagreed. At the end of the show Stewart actually returned to publicly apologize to Bateman for correcting his Yiddish since chazerai indeed does mean garbage.

Bateman then threw out mishegas and Stewart responded with meshugena. The conversation then turned to Bateman's self-identification as a goy (gentile) and his experience at a friend's Passover seder. Here's the video of them shmoozing on the show last night:

Zei gezunt to Jason Bateman and Jon Stewart... and thanks for the early freilich Purim gift! 

Haggadah Feeling - Some Fresh Haggadot for Passover

I began collecting different versions of the haggadah, the Passover seder’s playbook-script-manual, when I was in college. It all started by ordering a new one each year in anticipation of the holiday and somehow my collection now exceeds 100 and has demanded its own bookcase. This pales in comparison with the vast haggadah collection of Irwin Alterman of blessed memory, a brilliant community leader in Detroit who passed away earlier this month and had an exquisite library of some 1,500 haggadahs. His son, a childhood friend, tells me that plans are underway to allow the public to admire his collection soon.

For many Jewish families the version of the haggadah is as much a family tradition as the food served during the seder meal. Just ask many Jewish Americans and they’ll tell you about their deep connection to the Maxwell House Haggadah from childhood seders.

The 21st century, however, has seen a seismic shift from the rather bland (and free) Maxwell House Haggadah to more creative versions. And that transition has also afforded many Jewish families some poetic liberties with the seder script. The more traditional families have always tended toward the keva (Hebrew for rote or routine), while more progressive families allowed for more kavvanah (that unscripted spontaneity)  while telling the Passover story. Truthfully, the seder was always intended to be a symposium or talk-feast with an ample mix of both keva and kavvanah. A famous rabbi quoted in the haggadah believes one must only mention the paschal lamb, matzah and bitter herb to fulfill the obligation of the seder. The rest as they say is commentary.

Fun Passover Activities for the Seder and Beyond

Passover, which begins on March 25, is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays. Each year during the Passover seder, Jewish people attempt to integrate the old traditions of the holiday with innovations. Mostly, these innovations are meant to keep the children (and many of the adults too!) alert and engaged during the seder.

Innovations in the Haggadah are certainly valuable for keeping things fresh at the seder while still sticking to the centuries-old script. However, for young children it can be a frustrating and kvetchy experience as they watch each adult at the table take a turn reading the midrashic commentary of our ancestors' exodus from Egyptian slavery -- no matter how lovely the artwork is in the newly published Haggadah.

Rabbi Vicki Tuckman, on the ReformJudaism.org website, writes that the "most important thing in leading a Passover seder is feeling that you have the freedom (pun intended) to be as creative as possible." These days many families -- especially those with young children -- are scrapping the traditional seder symposium and opting for fun activities that keep everyone participating. Some families I spoke with pitch tents in their living room and tell the Passover story while pretending to be the Israelites camped out in the desert.

In the weeks leading up to Passover, which arrives quite early this year, I had the opportunity to review a few games and activities that I plan to use to keep my kids having fun at the seder this year. Some of them I've been using for years and others I've only discovered this year.

Clint Eastwood Talks to Obama's Empty Chair

Watching Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Committee convention last night I just knew it would turn into a meme and a Twitter frenzy. And it did.

Clint Eastwood performing an old comedic routine of talking to an empty chair made international news immediately. Some called it funny, while others thought it was disrespectful to the sitting President of the United States. Most people thought the shtick made Eastwood look a bit crazy.

This morning I tweeted the following joke: "Flipping through channels last night & watched few mins of Gran Torino. Confused. Don't remember scene where Clint Eastwood talks to chair." That tweet immediately got this funny response from Twitter user ‏@skii_bum1985: "@RabbiJason I learned something important the other night: Don't invite Clint Eastwood to a Seder, he might yell at the empty chair."

That would turn out to be the first of many connections made between the imaginary seat of Barack Obama to the empty seat of Elijah. My colleague and friend Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz submitted a wonderful post to the PopJewish.com blog that compares Obama's empty seat with Elijah's at every bris. She writes:

Elijah's Chair was the original empty chair. It shows up at a Bris (circumcision) in particular, but there are other community occasions when the idea of an empty chair - an extra seat that indicates openness to receiving an unexpected visitor or guest - is commonly referred to as 'Elijah's chair'. On Passover, we also have the tradition of 'Elijah's Cup'. The story behind this tradition is that there were certain questions that the Sages of the Talmud were unsure how to answer, specifically with regard to how they designed the Passover Seder ritual, but on other occasions as well. Elijah, who is held in Jewish tradition to return to announce the arrival of the Messiah, would be able to resolve our unanswered questions when he did so.

Of course a meme has been started based on Clint Eastwood's performance last night. I thought this one was pretty funny:

I created my own contributions to the meme using Photoshop. Here is Clint Eastwood at Barack Obama's bar mitzvah as he hoists him up in the chair during the Hora dance:

 And here's the imagined conversation if President Obama were actually sitting in the chair:

As Rabbi Gurevitz notes, the idea of an "Elijah chair" for Obama isn't such a stretch. Tablet, an online journal, related a few months ago that some of Obama's donors use the term "Elijah's Chair" to refer to the empty chair left at the tables of certain major donors just in case the President comes by to sit and shmooze.

Well, at least Clint Eastwood brought some fun to what are usually pretty dull conventions.

Monday Morning Caption Contest

Beginning today I'm including a Monday Morning Caption Contest on this blog.

To participate leave your suggested caption in the comments section below:

Photo Credit: Lichterman Family