How to treif your Seder

Hi again,
I still owe you an email about our McFelafel, but it involves pix and I can't find a cord that will hook my phone to the computer.  In the meantime, you'll have to settle for our very exciting seder adventures.
For those of you who have been paying attention, you will recall that we had a seder here, with our good friends the Wines and the Richters.  We were a total of 7 adults and 11 children.  Our friends from across the way lent us their apt for some of our friends to sleep, and the rest were here.  
Seder preparations were fun.  The kids were really eager to have a car door, which has been our tradition since Ross brought a car door back from the dump a few years ago, to display in our living room ("so that if we get hot in the desert we can roll down the window...").  We told them in no uncertain terms that we were not going to bring a car door into our little apt, but tradition is tradition, so Abaye made one out of this big spongy gray foam thing.  It was better than having the really thing!  (Literally!) 
Once in the past we had bought a pinata for  seder (to smash the idols...).  We decided we would do that this year again.  The problem was, we couldn't find one for sale anywhere.  So I thought I would make one.  Now, the traditional way to make a pinata would be to cook up a flour and water paste for paper mache.  But the thought of cooking this up as I was cleaning the house from chametz seemed most unattractive, not to mention the question of having dried chametz fall all over the floor when we broke the thing, so I found a recipe that involved a lo-ho-hot of glue (so much that I had to send Ross out a second time for 2 more huge bottles).  Two nights before the seder I stayed up late glueing strips of newspaper to a balloon, while listening to late night radio with a psychaitrist interviewing a famous musician about why he doesn't have any friends.  The next day, the thing was still wet with glue, and the newspaper was cracking off the balloon.  I looked on line and discovered that I was supposed to actually dilute the glue, and then dip the newspaper into it (unlike what the lady in the store told me).  I piled layers upon layers, and left it to dry, not feeling too confident.  The next day it was still wet on the inside, but very firm on the outside.  We baked it all day in the sun, and it came out perfectly.  Rivital designed it into an adorable snail (I was going for a lamb or something when I arranged the smaller and larger balloons together, but she was totally right that it looked like a snail...).  She also stuffed it with candy and toys in a way that, as she explained to everyone, made sure each kid would get an exact even amount of everything.  Which did not at all inhibit their ability to scream and fight and grab for the booty....
The story telling part of the seder was great.  The kids were all so excited to participate.  They had words of Torah to share on different things they had learned, and they even listened respectfully to each other.  The highlight of the afikomen hunt was when someone hid the afikomen in the actual matza bag.  That was totally unfair.  And brilliant....
Dinner was delicious.  The highlight was the matza ball soup.  People couldn't get over how much it tasted like real chicken soup.  They wanted to know my secret, and I said it had to do with the very diverse and plentiful veggies (augmented by a bit of soup powder).  The soup was followed by what has become our traditional eggplant parmesan and mashed potatoes.
The next day people were still talking about the soup, and the kids were begging me to make some for lunch.  The pot was full of cooked veggies, but there was hardly any broth, so I figured I would just add some more soup powder and water to replenish it.  I pulled out the powder and noticed for the first time that it said across the front in the most enormous letters ever, in a size you could have read from across a highway, "REAL CHICKEN SOUP POWDER."  Oops.  Thank G-d we were with friends!!  After we finished throwing away the soup and all our dishes and pumping our stomachs, we had a delicious lunch of creamy orange soup and spinach patties (ala Debby-- you know Debby and her spinach!) and quinoa and fish ala the Richters.  And it was all kosher, as far as I know. 
Okay, okay.  We didn't really pump our stomachs, and it turns out that most of the dishes ended up being either fine or kasherable.  IN the end, I think all we really lost was a ladel, and trust in our friend Emily.  OK, okay, just the ladel.  I guess everyone still trusted me since they ate here again the next day (well, what choice did they have, the suckers?) and the Richters are letting us bring food to them tomorrow (mwa ha ha...)  
[Don't worry Camille-- I am not making fish.]
So that was exciting, and we get a breather for the next couple of years, as we will go the the Richters and then the Wines for seder.  And they won't ask me to bring the soup....
Now a little vacation update:
The day after the seder (count 'em-- ONE seder), we all (Wines, Richters and us) went to Rosh Hanikra.  The original plan was to buy a group ticket to three sites in the area, but in the end it is quite miraculous that we managed the one.  Next year we will be following the lead of our friends the Slotnicks, kashering our house early, and doing our vacation BEFORE the holiday starts (In Israel you get a week off before Passover for cleaning, etc).  The Slotnicks were there the week before, breezing through everywhere.  We spent half the day waiting on line for Space Mountain.  Er.... Rosh Hanikra.  It felt the same while we were on line for over two hours.  The only difference is there were no helpful guides in Disney suits to keep people from cutting in line, and if I were there by myself I would still be waiting in line as everyone would be pushing past me.  
The line was for a cable car that took us down (eventually) to one of the most stunning natural sites.  You walk into tunnels, and see more tunnels that have been carved over the millenia by the combination of water and salt in the white and blue crashing waves, creating the most beautiful rock formations.  Unfortunately, seeing the site on Passover is not enough different than going to the Museum of Natural History on winter break, and being swept by the crowd from one exhibit behind a rope to another.   Roni, who is an amateur photographer, was enjoying the scenes and capturing them with her phone camera (which is unfortunately all she had with her).  For me, I think to personally really enjoy the site I would need time to be alone with the scenes, and surrounded by the sounds of the waves instead of the sounds of the tourists.  But the kids were enjoying running from scene to scene, and that definitely made it worth it.
Unfortunately, Ross wasn't feeling great, and he stayed back at the car, but when we were came out, he was starting to feel better,  We decided to try to find a place to eat in Neharia (not simple on Passover).
As we were driving into the city, we saw the ocean, and the kids starting begging to go into the water.  My kids were somewhat prepared with changes of clothes (just because I always try to travel with changes of clothes), and the other guys all had their whole weekend's luggage with them, including bedding, and even a couple of towels.  So we let the kids go in, and they had the most thrilling unadulterated fun-- the kind you can't plan for because a plan would have involved 11 kids arguing about what they want to do, but this was just the spontaneous exhiliration of doing something unplanned, that felt maybe even a little wrong (indeed, some parents tried to forbid the kids going in past their knees in their clothes, but in the end everyone was soaking wet anyway), and would be highly inconvenient for the grownups (getting everyone dried up and dressed for dinner)..  It was just awesome!
As the kids were drying off and changing, we were asking all passersby if anyone knew of a place to get a kosher for Passover dinner.  We wanted a "shipudia" (a place where you choose what kind of meet you want grilled on a skewer, served with millions of beautiful salads).  We were not having much luck with finding any restaurant at all, and some guys were going to go to the supermarket to find something they could put on matza, when somehow I found someone who gave us great directions to an actual shipudia!!!  When we got there, we told the waitress we were 15 (a few had dropped out and gone home), and she ushered us straight into the back, where we had an enormous party room to ourselves.  The little guys could run around like crazy without bothering anyone, and we could have a nice hot and unbelievable delicious meal. 
 Halfway through dinner, the waitress came out with little toy trumpets which she proceeded to hand out to all the kids.  The kids started blasting the trupets, as Roni and Ross looked at each other and said in unison "There goes her tip!", but in fact, the trupets blasts were ever worth it, and we tipped them the great tip they deserved for being exactly what we needed, and for being really amazing hosts
If you still have patience for a bit more, I'll add that the next day, just our family went to a small hike down to a waterfall in the Golan.  It was stunningly beautiful, perfectly challenging, and we were amazed by many things.  First of all, it was just amazing how many families were out hiking.  Second, I love the hiking culture here.  In stark contrast to our wait in line for Space Mountain Rosh Hanikra, here, when we got to the hard part of the hike, when you had to climb down a particularly steep part by holding onto handles that had been put into the rocks, the people formed a line and everyone waited patiently.  Someone took it upon himself at the bottom of the line to help little guys down, and at the top someone was offering a hand to help people up.  One guy tried to push ahead of the line, and everyone appropriately rebuked him as he took his place and waited in line with everyone else.
The other amazing thing was that EVERYONE was eating matza.  I mean EVERYONE.  That goes for Rosh Hanikra and the waterfall.  In fact, it was really interesting to watch people comparing the different things they had prepared special for Passover.  One guy had corn and chumus, and another guy had rice, and this started them all on a discussion of where they were from.  
There were yeshiva guys swimming and singing with their tzitzit flowing in the water, and there were women in bikinis (though not at the same time), and everyone was out hiking on Passover.  And everyone was eating matza.  So cool!
Tomorrow we are off to spend the last day with the Richters (and to reunite with Rivital, who went home with Adiel on Thursday).  Hopefully we'll find some fun thing to do on the way.  Stay tuned!
Happy Holiday!!!
Love,
Em  

Pesach Sameach

Hey gang, There are so many things I have been meaning to write about, and each one deserves its own entry.  I don't know how you anglos are feeling, but I was talking to someone in the playground on Shabbat, and she told me that she read my blog entry from Purim (I sent a link to it on the Maale Gilboa listserv because I thought people here might enjoy it).  She told me that she enjoyed it so much and that it was a great way for her to find out what happened here on Purim (they were away), as I really covered everything, but then she remarked that it was so long, and do people really read such long entries?  She is not at all a native English speaker, so I'm just going to chalk it up to that, and presume that I am not at all long-winded.... But even if I am long winded, I can't really do justice to this last week if I include the mundane things that happened before it, so I will try to come back to the saga of our electric grill and our adventures getting a "McFelafel" at McDonalds (complete with pix when I figure out how to add them). In the meantime, I want to tell you about what I learned about our kibbutz community through a heartbreaking tragedy and a most heartwarming celebration.  Our kibbutz is an unusual community, having been first a kibbutz, then privatizing, and than re-kibbutzifying in a way that it is still not clear to us exactly what makes it a kibbutz.  When we ask, we receive different responses from different people.  It is clearly more privatized that what is usually thought of as a kibbutz.  There is no dining hall.  Most people work off the kibbutz, and salaries are not pooled (there is some sort of taxing on salaries, but not the sort of thing where you have the same as everyone regardless of what you earn, and there are definitely no meetings about who can go to college and who can go on vacation.  In fact, most of the people who live here are not members!  We have friends who live as residents on another kibbutz who describe that there is some tension around people living there who are not becoming members, and therefore having different status and benefits, but we have never seen anything like that here.  In fact, it is hard to know who here are the members and who aren't, unless they tell you.  Everyone is invited to meetings to discuss and make decisions about the future of the community.  In fact, Ross was surprised when he discovered that the head of the membership committee has lived here for over a decade but is not a member!  The other day one of the kids complained that on kibbutz "everyone knows everything about everybody (which has not been my experience.  I don't even know everyone's name!).  But we saw the other side of that this week, when a baby of one of the families (who happens to not be "members") died in his crib. I heard the awful news when I was out for a walk.  As I was getting close to my return home, I was walking by the park where Shmuel and Abaye were having an activity with the kids house (Building benches out of mud).  As I approached, the kids came running up to me to ask what happened..  They didn't know, but they saw several ambulances and police cars pouring into the kibbutz, so of course they were concerned.  One of the mothers who knew what was going on told them that the news wasn't yet public, but tried to give them a sense of the nature of the tragedy, and assured them that it didn't affect any of them directly.  She saw their concern and agreed to sit with them until the news could be shared.  I decided to sit with them, and shortly after, she sat them all down and had a long talk about what had happened, She took all of their questions and then made sure everyone had a home to go to where there would be a grown up to be with them.  The news didn't affect any of those kids directly because the family only has younger kids, but it happened to be the baby brother of a good friend of Adin's.  We talked to Adin about what happened that night, and then they talked about it again at gan the next day, with the big brother.  Of course the kids took in what they could understand (Adin came home from gan insisting that he had to go over to the boys house to make his baby alive again).  Anyway, the whole week, a heavy sadness fell over the whole kibbutz.  The funeral was massive-- it seemed like everyone from the community was there, along with a lot of their extended family and friends.  We gathered for some words of eulogy (the grandfather spoke about how G-d seals the book of life on Yom Kippur, but clearly there had been some sort of a typo, because how could this baby have been inscribed to die?  SO heartbreaking...), and then we drove two minutes down the road to the tiny cemetery that serves our kibbutz and the kibbutz next to us.  I think there are fewer than 10 stones.  It was insanely windy and it was hard to hear what people were saying, but all around us, everyone was bawling.  Everyone seemed to be really present and focused on being with them.  When we returned to the kibbutz, the rabbi's wife immediately arranged for minyans, meals, and helpers (to clean and just be with the family around the clock).  I was asked to take Adin's friend home with us after gan the next day, but he didn't want to come.  He wanted to go home.  Since then, however, I have seen them (him and his little brother) around the kibbutz with lots of different friends and family.  A couple of days later, when the kibbutz made their own matza factory (which was just awesome!), the gan teacher had picked up the two boys, and brought them to bake matzas.  They seemed to have a great time. When Shabbat came, it had been almost a week since the tragedy.  In the meantime, a few days before, a baby had been born, and the bris was scheduled for right after Shabbat services.  The place was tense with the sadness of the one event and the joy of the other.  The baby's father was out of the house for probably the first time all week.  The rabbi who gave the d'var Torah spoke very briefly, and only about the recent events.  He talked about the difficulty of living in the tension of such sadness and such joy.  He talked mostly about the big hug and the love that we all are giving the grieving family (the dad was in shul).  He ended with saying there aren't words, but that we are there with them with love and with hugs.  After services, they began the bris.  Irregardless of recent events, it was by far the most moving bris I had ever attended.  Ross said exactly the same thing right afterward.  They brought this baby into the covenant with a endless string of songs and lullabyes.  People were singing and dancing, and again, a sea of tears.  Tears of joy, tears of sadness, and I am sure for many, like for me and Ross, sobs that gave voice to the powerful tension of the two. Shabbat afternoon I attended the woman's class, and still the sadness and the joy and the tension were first and foremost on everyone's mind.  The woman who taught the class (who happened to be the mom who sat with the kids that morning as they waited to hear the news), taught about a few interesting customs related to the seder and the hagaddah.  She ended by talking about the idea that everyone goes through what she called "their personal Exodus from Egypt."  Women shared how sometimes the most horrible events help to make us stronger, while sometimes the most irrelevant and mundane things can knock us down.  The teacher concluded with a beautiful poem about how everyone needs an "Egypt."  I can't possibly do it justice in my feeble attempt at a translation (if you can check it out in Hebrew, it's by Amnon Divek (?) and it's called "Everyone needs Egypt.", but towards the end it says something like Everyone needs some sort of Egypt To redeem himself from it, from the house of slavery To go out in the middle of the night to the desert of fears To march straight into the waters To see them open before him to the sides. Everyone needs a shoulder.... The reason I attempt to translate for you despite the inadequacy is because amazingly, just now I opened my email and found that the parents of the baby had just sent out an email thanking everyone for their help and support.  They said that they were overwhelmed and comforted by it, and that they felt very both hugged and loved.  They concluded the email with the above excerpt of that same poem.  I could feel all week that this was indeed a huge part of what made us the community that we are.  We are so blessed to live in a community of unbelievably creative, talented, intelligent, thoughtful and loving people who have very independent lives, but who also want to be part of something bigger.  I cannot think of a place on earth where I would rather live.  This week has got me doing a lot of thinking about seeing my life's challenges as opportunities to grow.  It has also to me thinking that I still have a lot of names to learn and I lot of people I want to get to know better. I wish everyone a holiday of growth, strength, health and joy.  I look forward to sharing with you about our seder (which promises to be exciting, with the Wines AND the Richters!!), as well as our McFelafel and our grill.  And I would love to hear about yours!!! Love, Emily