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.