From smells to significance: Appreciation of Passover grows with writer

When I was 12 years old my parents and I made a deal: After my bar mitzvah, I no longer had to go to Sunday school or be involved in anything Jewish.

Back then, I had more important things with which to concern myself, like skateboarding with friends and trying to be cool. I didn’t think being Jewish was cool, and skateboarding was much more fun than Sunday school and Hebrew school — or anything for that matter.

I was a very recalcitrant boy when it came to doing Jewish stuff and I was only amenable to doing anything Jewish if there was something in it for me. For example, the High Holidays were okay because it meant no school for a couple days — yippy!

The most important thing in my eyes about Chanukah was not the story of Judah the Maccabee or the menorah staying lit for eight days in the Temple. I was more interested in the eight days of gifts coming my way.

I wasn’t totally lacking in Jewish pride. For example, I took great pride in Chanukah, gloating to my non-Jewish friends that I had eight days of gifts coming to me to their one. Take that Santa! Ha!

But whenever Passover rolled around I’d find myself looking forward to the seder. What was it about Passover that made a recalcitrant, stubborn, immature, self-centered non-believer like myself get so excited? Other than chocolate coins or maybe a two-dollar bill for finding the afikoman, what was in it for me?

Looking back on it, part of my enthusiasm for Passover was on a very basic level. Notwithstanding the meaning of the holiday, I enjoyed having my large family gathered together in one home.

Passover was and still is the biggest “crowd gatherer” in my family, and there is something exciting about entering a relative’s house and seeing the living room rearranged to accommodate a large number of guests.

Appreciation grows

Then there are the smells from the kitchen and the flavors of the traditional foods that I have always loved. I could be put in a state of suspended animation, woken up during Passover time, blindfolded and led to a home where a seder was being held and I’d know exactly what occasion it was.

I also grew fond of celebrating my idiosyncratic Passover traditions, like building matzah sandwiches consisting of all the symbolic seder foods, or seeing how much horseradish I could endure before my head would explode.

Additionally Passover occurs every year around springtime, and that seems to engender a festive mood in everybody. I must have picked up on that as a kid, and it was another reason the holiday appealed to me.

But as I matured — albeit slowly — my thoughts on Passover began to expand beyond the realm of matzah sandwiches, heaps of horseradish and chocolate gelt.

As reading skills improved, I began to focus more on the meaning of the words in the haggadah rather than on the mere struggle to pronounce them correctly. As the story of Passover penetrated my thick skull, the holiday took on new dimensions.

Never one to believe in miracles or divine intervention (I always thought “miracles” were tales invented by adults attempting to appeal to children’s imaginations; later on I realized I was actually expected to believe them!), I found that I could still celebrate Passover while remaining true to my lack of faith.

The story of freedom from bondage and tyranny struck a. Having been a student of public schools, I related my people’s ancient enslavement to Pharaoh — and later on, other tyrants — to what happened to the recent ancestors of my fellow African-American students. By relating the two tragedies, I developed a greater appreciation for what my ancestors went through.

The haggadah’s emphasis on living in freedom helped to develop my appreciation for American democracy. As I became increasingly political-minded, the Passover story strengthened my abhorrence of dictatorships.

Finally, as I grew to appreciate the importance of the modern state of Israel, the exhortation: “Next year in Jerusalem!” made me thankful that the Jewish people finally had a homeland with Jerusalem as its capital. I became thankful that I, an American Jew living in freedom, could go and spend the next year or rest of my life “in Jerusalem,” if I wanted.

In all, Passover enabled me to reconcile my secular world outlook with that of my Jewish heritage. It helped me to realize that despite my assimilated lifestyle, I could still benefit from the accumulated wisdom of the Jewish people.