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Apr
15
To be Jewish and on vacation, ostensibly for the holiday of Passover, and wake up to see the front page of both the New Haven Register and the New York Times consumed by the image of Jesus nailed to the cross (in the former, it’s actually a re-enactment by teenagers, with a 15 year old “nailed“ to the cross; in the latter, it’s a cross without a Jesus, entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem), after having just been thinking about how many leavened items you’ve eaten, against the rules of Passover, and having forgotten that yesterday was Good Friday (even though less than twenty-four hours before, you’d noticed how empty the Italian pasta restaurant looked), is harsh.
Not because of the image itself (although I do find the image harsh, but then I couldn’t watch most of The Lord of the Ring movies because of the violence, I’m a wimp that way), but because it reminds me of one of the main differences between Judaism and Christianity: To Jews, Jesus is a person in the history of humankind. But to Christians, from what I know anyway, he is the history of humankind – everything else comes from his existence and demise and resurrection.
Of course, to be a Jew in Israel betwixt these two holiday cycles – Passover and Good Friday/Easter – is even more extraordinary, and memorable. If you have the good fortune to be in Jerusalem at such a time, I can’t urge you enough to find a way to partake in both holidays and feel what the individuals – of both faiths, of all faiths (since it’s Christians of all faiths there) – feel during this time, observing in their own ways.
During my year, 1984-1985, in Israel, Good Friday occurred on 4/5, the first seder occurred on 4/6 and Easter (and the second seder) occurred on 4/7. This procession of dates allowed for a once in a lifetime procession of observances for me of all three holidays.
My friend Jean-luc’s visit to Israel for five weeks fell during this time and amplified this convergence. He’d been living and studying in Geneva since fall 1984, having graduated with me that May. He took a break to visit and travel and site-see. Being a fairly devout Catholic, who had been to Catholic school his whole life, college included, John couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit the Holy Land, especially with a friend there for a year.
John traveled to many sites alone, primarily because I was either working or had already seen the sites several times with all my other visitors, or as part of my program. But for the Good Friday-Passover-Easter weekend, we had plans to travel together.
My friends Kenny and Susan lived in Jerusalem and we stayed with them first, Thursday evening before Good Friday. Then, on Good Friday, a postcard perfect blue sky day, we bussed, then walked into the Old City until we found the throngs. John wanted to walk the stations of the cross, and I went with him. I didn’t go into the Sepulchre – there are more than 200,000 people in the Old City during this ritual. But I got carried and pressed along the path, a path I’d walked hundreds of times just to traverse from one quarter to the next within the ancient walled community.
John and I both viewed the mass, as in people not as in service, with awe, never talking about it. We didn’t speak. What can you say when you’re a Jew observing a crowd shouldering a wooden cross the size of a slightly smaller than average utility pole?
Walking the stations took about six hours, we finished sometime in the early afternoon. John and I split up then so that I could help prepare for Shabbat (Good Friday being a Friday) and he remained in the Old City. We re-connected at Kenny and Susan’s apartment, where several other friends met us. Being the non-Jew in the crowd, John served as a our Shabbos goy, doing things we weren’t supposed to do, like turn on lights, stoves, hot water, and so on. He’s a jovial person to begin with and admirably served his role. We also really enjoyed not having to set as many automatic timers, or else freeze during the evening. Jerusalem is still more or less part of the desert and, being on a hill, also gets very cool in the evenings. April 5 is also very early spring there.
On Easter Sunday, John attended mass (the service) in Jerusalem. Afterwards, we took a bus to a Mediterranean development town where my friend Amy lived. Her field placement (we were on the same Peace Corps type program, as were Kenny and Susan) was located on the beach, near Caesaria, an archeological site north of Tel Aviv, and a lengthy beach walk one day while we were there provided for one of the most remarkable and intimate discussions I‘ve ever had with any male friend – and it had nothing to do with religion – ever, as I tried, at age 22, to understand how the genus thinks (I can‘t say I’m much further along 21 years later, though). Amy actually met and eventually married a man from that town, after she graduated from law school and moved back to her hometown of Miami.
Amy and I prepared a traditional seder, with a few Sephardic modifications I no longer recall. What I remember the most, after the long beach walk with John, is how awful my matzah balls tasted because I improperly translated the Hebrew instructions on the mix box. If you’ve read my writer’s website, you’ve already heard the story about how a trilingual child – who lived on the kibbutz where I volunteered – asked me why I spoke like a retarted person, except that I couldn’t understand what he’d said because I spoke Hebrew like a retarded person and had to ask one of my native co-workers (who laughed before translating for me).
So, it’s no surprise that my matzah balls came out like wet clumps of mortar intended for a sandcastle. Someday, I must get John to write down his recollections of these three or so days, from his Catholic perspective. I’m actually shocked that I’ve never asked. Maybe we need to return to that beach near Caesaria to finish what we started. But then, John and I have a history of taking twenty years to finish things we’ve started.
In any case, no Passover has passed since then without me thinking about that particular seder by the sea, matzah clumps and all, and the confluence of these very special holidays, observed with a variety of cultures and religions, in the place where they all began.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:31 pm April 15th, 2006 in Politics
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3 Responses to “What do Jews do, Passover, Part V”
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What a neat story! My wife and I hope to visit Jerusalem someday. I always love hearing stories of life in Israel.
Thanks, Steven. As we say in some part of the liturgy, I forget where, if not now, when? Right? The NYT apparently has a travel section on Jerusalem today I think (I had an email from the NYT Travel Dispatch that was titled, Jerusalem, Now – you might take a look online).
[...] I’ve written before, I’ve walked the stations of the cross in Jerusalem and I went to a Catholic university. Most of my roommates were Catholic, though I had [...]