Fasting and Food

So you may have noticed I left class not to long after it began on Wednesday. Thanks to Professor Kramer's understanding I was able to attend class and Yom Kippur services this Wednesday. I spent the morning at services. The rest of the day, actually starting at 6:30PM Tuesday, I was fasting, until 7:30PM wednesday- a full 25 hours. Fasting means no food or drinks, including water, for the entire 25 hours. This fasting is part of the major tradition of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. The idea is that you are repenting for your sins and hope to be written in the "Book of Life" for the coming year.

Photo by: Gather the Jews Staff

At the end of the fast I went to Hillel, the main Jewish group on campus, and had some bagels, like every good Jew does, along with some other  delicious additions. Although slightly different from my usual tradition of going to my aunt's to break fast with bagels, whitefish, and lox I still got to eat bagels so I was happy.

Alright, enough with the not eating and let's talk about my favorite Jewish holiday, which involves plenty of eating, Passover.

Passover is when we remember when the Jews were slaves in Egypt and their journey that took place to leave. Our family holds two seders every year with my aunt and uncle, cousins when they are in town, and my uncle's family. These are basically services with dinner tied in- they are held at the dining room table.  This holiday probably has the most traditions of any holiday so let me focus on the key ones and my favorites as to not make this a never ending blog- my favorite tradition is the last one so keep reading!

First off, a major part of Passover is the fact that we eat matzah. For those of you that don't know, this is a non-rising cracker, similar to a communion cracker, that is finished cooking within 18 minutes of the water touching the flour. This is the only type of "bread" we can eat for 8 days. During passover, you can not eat anything the rises- such as bread, cake, pasta,ect. Therefore, matzah becomes the way you make sandwiches and matzah meal the way you make other foods-it acts as similarly to flour.

Photo by: Paurian

For those of you that have tried matzah you may love it. But let me tell you after eating the bland, hard, dry, cardboard-like cracker for a week it is not something you enjoy eating any other time of the year. However, everyone loves the matzah man and his song! We always loved listening to him sing at my religious school when growing up, and when I was working there this past year.

There are also the standard holiday traditions of always eating gefilte fish, boiled eggs, charosoet-chopped apples, cinnamon, and grape juice- among other foods.

Photo by: Slgckgc

Most of these foods have specific reasons behind why they are eaten. However for the point of this blog I want to focus on the traditions that are specific to my family. So here are my favorite two parts of Passover.

First off, there is a prayer called Eliyahu HaNavi. The song is used to welcome the prophet Elijah into our seder through our open door to have some wine from the cup we left filled with wine just for him. One year, my dad pointed out Elijah would be pretty drunk by the time he went to all of the Jewish households. So every year, we add in hiccups between certain lyrics to act as though we are a drunk Elijah. It's almost as if the melody of the song was created for the hiccups.

Elijah's Cup- Photo by: World of Judaica

Finally, I saved the best for last. We end every seder with the song Chad Gadya. This song is sang in English and pretty much means one little goat. The lyrics are pretty simple and act in a similar way to the 12 days of Christmas by building up and then going through the entire list of what happened in the song's story again. 

Throughout the entire song my dad has come up with sound effects for each part of the song that our entire family now sings. Towards the end of the story the songs says "then came the water, that quenched the fire..." Well for some reason when my cousin was little, he is now in his 30s, he decided to dip his hand in his glass of water and flick some water at my father. For anyone who knows my father, they know this was a bad idea. On the second night of Passover that year, my dad secretly brought a water gun and when my cousin flicked my dad with water again he soaked my cousin as much as he could with a water pistol. 

Well this became a yearly battle and continues to this day whenever my cousin is in town for Passover. As my dad says he always had my cousin beat since he bought the first water gun and had the debit card; he was always one level ahead. Each year this water gun battle has escalated. One year my dad came in dressed in a garbage bag with a backpack filled of water and pretty much a fire hose- as he called it "the finger of G-d," another year he brought a water gun so large it needed a kick stand, and this past year he brought a gun with clips to replace the water. My cousin seemed to never be able to keep up. However, they have worked together on a few occasions, such as the year they both had bubble guns to get my paranoid uncle with.

The only rule that has ever existed is my father will never shoot first; my cousin must start it. 

Here is a video to help explain how Chad Gadya works in my family. This was created by my cousin who thought he finally had my dad beat. Be sure to listen to the sound effects and of course watch for the water gun fight. 

Pictures from last year:

As always I can't wait for Passover this year and hope my cousin will be in town, as it always makes for an interesting night.

My Interfaith Family

My mom was raised Catholic, my dad was raised Jewish, and my brother and I are Jewish. Many of you may have just gone, what? This tends to confuse people since many people are under the impression that in the Jewish religion, along with many others, the child's religion is based off the mother's religion.

Photo by Joseph Saraceno

While this is true in many religions, let me explain how it worked for my family. Before my parents were even married, they decided to attend a few courses about being an interfaith family and how to decide how to raise their children from a religious standpoint. After taking the course, they decided they would raise any potential future children as both Jewish and Catholic and then let their children decide when they got older how they wanted to continue either faith. My parents ended up getting married and before my mom got pregnant with me, she decided she was no longer comfortable raising any kids in both religions - she wanted them to choose one or the other. She felt that her kids needed an identity along with something to relate with, and she wanted religion to provide this for them. At this point, my mom attended a weekly introduction to Judaism class because she had a feeling it would be easier for her to accept raising her children Jewish than my dad to raise his children Catholic. After all, Judaism is the basis with which Catholicism is based off of, since it is the Old Testament. While taking the class, she decided she was comfortable raising any child as Jewish. However, she was not comfortable enough with the decision to let my grandparents, both quite religious in their own ways, know until she was 8 months pregnant with me. When she finally told them, both her parents and my dad's parents were accepting and happy with the decision. Since then, my family on both sides has always been accepting of the fact that my brother and I are being raised Jewish.

I will get more into how this has impacted our traditions in just a moment.

To make sure there were no religious issues later on, such as when my brother and I went to have our b'nai mitzvot or get married, our entire family participated in a Mikvah when we were both young. This is pretty much a conversion for the children so we would be considered fully Jewish. However, my mother has not converted and I'm not sure if she ever will. She always said she wouldn't convert while her parents were alive since they were devout Catholics and raised her to be one her entire young adult life. We have recently lost both of my grandparents on her side, but either way, I respect her decision to either remain Catholic or convert to Judaism. She has been very involved in our Jewish lives and has always pushed us to seek out the faith more. I cannot think of any time she made me feel like I wasn't Jewish or should consider not being Jewish. I respect the choice she made to raise us Jewish even when it was not her tradition, and I am grateful she made the choice to do so and follow through with it all these years.

Now that you know my history of being raised Jewish in an interfaith family, let me briefly explain how being interfaith has formed my traditions- don't worry, you will hear about the traditions in more detail when the holidays roll around in the blog in later posts!

Photo by: SpiffyArmbrooster

For the most part, my immediate family follows Jewish traditions and celebrates the Jewish holidays. An exception is around Christmas when we decorate our house with both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations and host our annual Glatzer Family Holiday Party. There will be a post dedicated to this event- it is one of my favorite things we do during the year, so keep your eyes peeled!

With my extended family, we celebrate holidays with both sides of the family, depending on the time of the year. The Jewish holidays are with my dad's side of the family and Christmas and Easter are with my mom's side of the family. Sometimes the holidays of one religion overlap with the other, but we make it work. For example, one year Passover and Easter overlapped. We went to my cousins' house on my mom's side to paint Easter eggs and brought along kosher for Passover snacks so we would have something to eat and still be able to celebrate Easter. Also, we would go to my grandfather's for Easter Brunch so my immediate family would be very careful about what we chose to eat, to make sure there was no bread, and we were still able to enjoy a fabulous meal with my grandfather. Other times, Christmas and Hanukkah overlapped so we either lit the Menorah before going to my cousins for Christmas Eve or just brought the Menorah with us.

Easter Dinner Without Bread

There are also certain times where both sides of my family join together,  such as the surprise 50th Birthday Party I threw for my parents, our holiday party, my brother's Bar Mitzvah and my Bat Mitzvah.

I would like to end by talking briefly about my Bat Mitzvah. This event is very important in the Jewish religion because it is when a child becomes an adult in the eyes of Judaism. It meant a lot to me that all of my extended family that could make it from both sides of my family were present at this very special event. It meant so much to me that I made sure to include my family from my mom's side in ways they would feel comfortable during the service, such as opening the Ark, in addition to the honors my dad's side of the family had, which often included Hebrew. I had my one cousin read from the New Testament a section that tied into my Torah portion for the day. It was a wonderful way to be able to connect both sides of my family and both religions.

The pride I saw in everyone's eyes that day will stay with me and always remind me of how lucky I am to have such a loving, supporting interfaith family.

Although not from my Bat Mitzvah, here is a video from my cousin's Bar Mitzvah of my grandfather, the cantor, singing " If I were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. I decided to include this video to give you an idea of the spirit of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for those of you who have not been to one.

Please feel free to share, in the comments, any interesting circumstances you may have within your family that help form your traditions- they don't have to be religious.

L'shana Tova Tikvatevu!

By now I'm sure I've confused most of you by the title of my blog post. No worries!

The purpose of my blog is not only to share my traditions with all of you but to help you understand holidays you don't celebrate. (I'm Jewish so for some of you this might be quite a few.) For those of you that do celebrate the holidays I talk about, I hope to hear your stories in the comments!

This first blog comes at a perfect time because this Sunday starts Rosh Hashanah. Since most people don't know about Rosh Hashanah, besides it being a day some public schools get off for, let me give a brief explanation. Rosh Hashanah is pretty much the Jewish "New Year". The word Rosh Hashanah means "head of the year." The reason it is celebrated this weekend is based purely on the Jewish calendar. This Sunday is pretty much "New Year's Eve" since it is the last day of the year, and of the month of Elul. On Monday, "New Year's Day" is celebrated as the month of Tishri begins. This Rosh Hashanah will begin the year 5776. Rosh Hashanah is one of the high holidays and is considered one of the holiest days of the year.

Photo by: My Jewish Hartford

Now that you have a basic understanding of what Rosh Hashanah is I'm going to explain the rest of the holiday through my traditions since many of them are traditional throughout Judaism.

Before I start explaining my traditions of the holiday it is very important to emphasize the other reason I chose to write about Rosh Hashanah this week, besides the proximity of this post and the holiday. I wanted to be sure to explain in my first post how traditions change over time and for me in particular Rosh Hashanah is a great example of this. It's quite interesting how one tradition becomes so ingrained in a person that it becomes part of their personality, but then this tradition can morph for a variety of reasons through the years and help build a new, more experienced attitude on the same event.

Now let's get to the fun part, celebrating! Many people on Rosh Hashanah's "New Years Eve," called Erev Rosh Hashannah, will have a big dinner with their family. My immediate family, local aunt and uncle, grandparents on my dad's side, uncle's side of the family, and any cousins that are in town either go to my Aunt Judy's house or everyone comes to ours, depending on the year. When people arrive at the dinner we greet each other with "L'shana Tova Tikvatevu" meaning "may you be inscribed in the book of life for a good year." Everyone greets each other this way throughout the holiday. The whole idea of this is after the high holiday, Yom Kippur, the following week, which is the day of repentance you are either inscribed in the book of life or not; so, you wish your friends and family to be inscribed in the book of life. This dinner is pretty much just a way to celebrate and welcome in a good year. You may have noticed in the HUB on Thursday Hillel, the Jewish club on campus, was giving out apples and honey. This symbolizes the start of a fresh, sweet new year. Apples and honey are found on every dinning table during Rosh Hashanah. Another special food during Rosh Hashanah is a circular challah, a braided bread. This challah is round to show the cycle of each year. In my family my brother and I compete to rip the knot on top of the challah off. This always leads to my uncle rolling his eyes at us. The rest of our family then eats out the center of the challah since it is so soft and leave the crust behind until the very end. The rest of dinner is normally chicken and kugel, a pasta dish.

Photo by: Ledger Online

This Rosh Hashanah I will attend services on Erev Rosh Hashanah and eat dinner with Hillel which will be very different for me since I won't be with my family. On Rosh Hashanah day I will also attend services at Hillel. The major part of my changing traditions I mentioned earlier involve services; let me explain. Growing up, we always attended services at my synagogue Kol Emet. My immediate family and aunt and uncle were members at this synagogue. I went to religious school there and grew up meeting all the kids and adults that belonged there. Eventually, my dad became president of the congregation. However, within a year politics happened between the Rabbi, the service leader, and the executive board so he stepped down along with most of the board. We then left the synagogue along with about 50 families. The next high holidays that came around we needed a place to celebrate. So my dad along with several other adults who had left began a ritual committee and started planning the service. The 50 families that left plus some had high holidays together. We had started a havarah, a group that prays together. My dad ended up leading services that year and for the next 5 years.

Rosh Hashanah became my favorite service of the year because they were held under a pavilion in a state park, near my home. It was really cool to see over a hundred people show up all dressed up and sit in lawn chairs under a pavilion to celebrate the Jewish new year. After services we would walk down to the lake and throw bread into the lake to "throw away our sins" which was very entertaining in my heels, yes I did fall once. One year during services it began to pour and thunder cracked louder than I have ever heard. It is my favorite memory of  services because it was as if G-d was talking to us. Another cool part of being outside was watching the expressions of people walking their dogs by the pavilion, some even stopped and listened. Part of the service includes blowing the shofar, a rams horn that rings in the new year. When my dad and others blew the shofars the sound echoed through the trees and across the lake; it was truly amazing. Plus the looks we got from the sound were priceless.

Recently, the havarah ended and my family returned to Kol Emet under a new Rabbi, just in time for last year's high holidays. For me this was a full circle of tradition. While it was a strange feeling coming back to Kol Emet after being away for so long and leaving the people I had grown close to over the past several years it was like coming home. For our family, it was a relieving to finally be back at a synagogue and feel as though we had a place to call home.

Although not the most entertaining traditions these are all very important as they are the beginning of the Jewish new year. I wanted to start with Rosh Hashanah to show although traditions can change but you can still be connected to the holiday or the event, no matter what you do. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about the Jewish new year and my traditions. If you want to know anything else please feel free to ask me and/or check out this website.

As an ending note I would like to share my favorite song involving tradition to get you in the mood for future tradition stories. L'shanah Tova Tikvatenu!