the day of my mother's seder i drive over to my brother's house to pick up our seder plate and our set of haggadahs. we have these really nice haggadahs with pretty watercolor illustrations and excerpts from anne frank's diary and blurbs about civil rights and justice and all this other good stuff. i love our haggadahs. so it was very upsetting when i went to my brother's house and he confessed that he had searched far and wide and could not find our haggadahs. then, like a super sleauth, i tried to figure out where the haggadahs might be. were they still at my mom's ex-boyfriend's house, never to be seen again? did we leave them at my mom's cousin's house after last year's seder? at this point i realized i had completely forgotten all the details of last year's passover celebration. so after several phone calls, a few family interrogations, and many vain attempts to retrace my steps, i realized that there was no way we were getting our haggadahs any time soon.at this time my mother informed me that if i went to king kullen they have these "free" haggadahs from maxwell house. so i went to king kullen and indeed there was a display of haggadahs put out by maxwell house. in reality they were more like pamphlets than haggadahs. and they were not free, you were supposed to buy coffee and then take ONE complimentary haggadah. i bought no coffee, and took 5 haggadahs. here is how i rationalize that one:
stealing = sin
reading from the haggadah = mitzvah
stealing = sin
reading from the haggadah = mitzvah
sin + mitzvah = okay
ahhhh, reformed judaism ... how i love your ethical relativism!
so i went back to my mother's house with my stolen maxwell house haggadahs, and finally the seder could begin.
turns out, maxwell house haggadahs suck. none of the stuff we usually talk about was in there. so we were all shouting out stuff that we were supposed to have discussed, asking things like "mom, what about the part with the egg?" or "mom don't we need to bless the wine?"the whole thing was kind of a mess. but it was kind of funny. and the food was awesome (i made this excellent cauliflower leek casserole). so in the end, i think everything was fine. but damned, we really need our old haggadahs for next year.
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2 comments:
Moral Relativism,
or why we are Reformed Jews.
I feel the presence of extra spirituality, now that the Pope is around. Maybe that is why I told you to go forth and steal those Haggadahs. Either that, or I'm a bad mom. But, I think Maxwell House got a good deal, because look at all the publicity you gave them on your blog. That in itself is a Mitzvah!
Boy, I love you crazy Jews. I'm still dying to what a haggadah is (&, no, wikipedia will not suffice--I want it straight from the source). Of course, now I'm also questioning the meaning of a Mitzvah, which I imagine comes with it's very own pixie dust, at the very least, if not rainbows. Religions are weird, but my wild imagination usually doesn't do them justice.
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