israeli xmas

It's that time of year again. The holiday season. And the parallels between Pesach and Christmas are striking.

Shopping, for one. It's commercial bonanza time, the malls and main street packed with spendthrifts buying food, new clothes, presents for family. And the proper punctuation for each sale is "Hag Sameach" [happy holiday] -- the "Merry Christmas" of Israel. I've been saying (and been said to) hag sameach all week to (and by) people I normally never talk to or don't even know.

A week of holiday, shorter hours, or just not taking work all that seriously. Pesach is a week, beginning with seder night; the next day is a holiday, and the next 5 days are like the days between Christmas and New Year's, when nothing much happens. Then there's one last day, another holiday (if it's not a Saturday like this year), and then it's like Jan. 2. (And if you want to drink beer or eat bread, pasta, and a whole lot of other contraband-for-Pesach items during this week, you have to make sure to stock up before seder night, because no regular grocery stores sell it. Although now there's a really great totally-treif, non-kosher, deli in Raanana, which may well be selling it, wouldn't be surprised. The days of all-matza, all-the-time are, I think, over.)

And holiday bonuses. Pretty much all employers give their employees a holiday gift of some kind, even if it's a modest food-and-wine basket. Hi-tech companies give more generous gifts, commensurate with their sense of solvency. We got a choice of 500 shekels (about US$115) in coupons that can be used in many of the big food, clothing, or homewares chains, OR a cordless phone, vacuum cleaner, or food processor (more or less of the same value). I took the coupons, intending to buy my choice of cordless phone at Home Center. When I went there, I found the exact phone I wanted, for exactly 499 shekels. Brilliant. Took it to the cashier and was told, no, look at the limitations on the back of the coupons: you can't use them on electric products, electronics, carpets, or lighting fixtures. Well, blow me! What the bloody hell did they think I was going to buy -- plates??? Some tools, maybe? Damn, I was pissed, and walked out without it. But after looking around at a few other stores, I couldn't find a phone I liked as much, so eventually returned, albeit disgruntled, and bought the phone AND a clock-radio-phone for the budding teenager. Very cute contraption and does what I love best: kills two birds with one stone (clock+radio being one, for waking and keeping her awake in the morning, I hope; phone being two).

Seder night is a lot like Christmas Eve, too, in that one feels one absolutely must not be alone. "Why is this night different than every other night?" Because even loners like the Squarepeg feel like losers if they choose to be alone on this night. I tried it once, maybe three years after moving here. I had no desire to be stuck again for the evening making polite conversation with some family-of-an-acquaintance, just so that I was somewhere. I had a couple of invitations, but told the inviters I was already set, mesuderet. I grew up in a non-observant family with no Jewish education, and didn't care much for tradition. I would enjoy my quiet evening alone. But I was surprised to find that my choice had pushed me, for the evening, down a misfit well that was too deep even for me. I'm comfortable sitting on the edge, but falling all the way in by refusing to be somewhere on seder night was too much. Since then, I've pretty much conformed to something or other -- getting married basically reduced my options, in any case, as my mother-in-law made it clear that seder night was always and forever going to be with her. I don't fight it. This year it's actually going to be at our place for the very very first time ever. Just us and the in-laws, no big production. They're bringing most of the food: the gefilte fish, the hard-boiled eggs, the main course. I'm making the chicken soup and kneidlach (matza balls), salad and dessert (chocolate mousse). My mother-in-law, at 70 (next birthday), no longer has the energy to take her turn with her sister every other year, so she preferred to lie to her and say we're all going out of town, and doing the seder at a hotel. I'm happy to take my turn from now on, as long as it's not with a big group. Kind of a shame, though. Pesach has become the only time we see that other half of this tiny family.

The one thing that differentiates the Pesach season from the Christmas season -- apart from the baby Jesus, of course -- is the blessed absence of mass-bingeing on alcohol. Despite the seder's traditional 4 glasses of wine (they're usually very small glasses), and notwithstanding my childhood memories of getting tipsy at my aunts' seders with my cousins, drunken revelry is not a seasonal feature.

Can't imagine why not. As far as I can see, all the requisite factors for a good fugue-binge are there. Anybody out there getting drunk at a seder this year? And if you already are, read B2's musings on the parallels between Pesach and quantum physics. A decidedly more kosher view than the Squarepeg's, but a mind-bender.

Have a good one, y'all, and hag sameach, if at all possible.