The most memorable Seder
Chabad Kathmandu
As an early icebreaker just before we began to read from the Passover Haggadah Friday night, my wife Jody asked the assembled family and guests to name their most memorable Seder. For me, there was no question.
Exactly one year ago, our family was sitting in a luxurious ballroom at the Yak and Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu for what is billed as “the largest Seder in the world.” Organized by the local Chabad, this massive Seder hosts over 1,000 guests, nearly all of them Israeli, young, and pierced. My wife and I, young at heart but decidedly non-pierced, were clearly the odd folks out.
The ballroom was laid out with about 100 round ten-person tables. Perhaps wanting to seem less conspicuous, we sat next to another older Israeli couple: Claude and Ilan, who had hiked not only the eleven-day half Annapurna circuit that we did but the full three week loop that climbs as high as the 5,400 meter Thorong-la Pass.
What was remarkable about the pair was that Claude is completely blind. His partner literally led him through the route, up and down 5oo meter-at-a-time climbs on rough steps, past water buffalo and into the deep snow at the top of the world. They slept in the same hard beds we did and used the squatter toilets and bucket showers that are the norm in the Himalayas.
The two North Tel Avivi’s were quite enjoyable company; I wish I could say the same about the Chabad rabbi and his cadre of ten or so yeshiva bochers who had flown in from as far away as Israel and Thailand to lead the Seder.
It feels unfair to complain about Rabbi Lifshitz: putting on a Seder that size is an logistical nightmare – from taking payments over the Internet to securing a location where the gas generators are large enough that there’s sufficient electricity for the whole evening. They even put signs in Hebrew all over Kathmandu directing Seder-goers from the Chabad House in touristy Thamel to the Yak and Yeti, located on the road out of town.
The problem was that the way the Seder was run seemed (to me at least) like such a wasted opportunity. Rabbi Lifshitz essentially speed-read the Haggadah as if it was a “greatest hits” album; we finished the entire story and were washing for matzah in under 50 minutes, including “breaks” for the most popular songs such as Ma Nishtanah.
Why couldn’t the Chabadniks have engendered some discussion? “Who is the evil son today?” would have been a good question to ask. Or “What is the nature of freedom when we have our own state?” After all, they had 1,000 captive Israelis and, other than the crowd in the lobby smoking its way through the magid while waiting for the matzah-ball soup, we all know how Israelis like to argue. This was a chance to bring the Seder alive for these certainly secular Sabras who might otherwise have been camping out in the mountains on the holiday.
Instead, to keep the attendees’ attention, the rabbi kept things interesting by running a raffle right in the middle of the dinner. First prize was a bungee jump off a 160 meter high suspension bridge over the Bhoti Kosi River near the Nepalese-Tibetan border. And unbelievably, Jody held the winning ticket! We never win anything, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to take advantage of our unlikely luck, as we were leaving back for Israel the day after the holiday. So we let another intrepid Israeli enjoy the plunge.
Perhaps the prize should come with a few strings attached, so to speak: as the jumper is plummeting towards the water, he or she would be required to sing dayeinu. That just might be enough to redeem the Seder.
Foto Friday – Assaf Pinchuk images Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
It’s the morning of Erev Pessach, Passover eve, and the country is in its final involuntary shopping, cooking and cleaning spasm. This evening, a blessed quiet will fall over Israel and for a few moments, all will be clean, orderly and in place.
That sense of balance, of everything being as it should be — dare I say it, of seder — is present in these images by commercial photographer Assaf Pinchuk, who specializes in architectural and industrial subjects. In his work, Pinchuk gives us a glimpse of the Israel we aspire to be. Even the unruly building blocks and winding streets of an old Tel Aviv neighborhood fall into place…
A office building lobby becomes a composition of light, shadow, contrasting colors and structural elements…
The city’s famously dynamic night life is omnipresent in the saturated green of a rest room…
A Tel Aviv rooftop apartment glows against a darkening sky…
In daylight, through the windowshades, the harsh Mediterranean sun paints white walls with shadow…
As always, the best days end with sunset on the Tel Aviv beach.
Assaf Pinchuk studied photography at Hadassah College, Jerusalem, after which he interned and worked with Cologne-based photographer Hans-Georg Esch. Together with wife and business partner Miri, Pinchuk opened his own studio in 1998, with the goal of producing unique, dynamic, smart and inspiring images for a client list that includes some of Israel’s leading companies and institutions.
The mad rush to the Seder
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Religion
The exodus to Seder night.
It’s not just a religious holiday here, it’s a national one, with surveys citing 90% of the Jewish population attending Seders, far higher than the rate of religious observance in the country.
The country has been in overdrive this whole week, with households driving themselves crazy cleaning and shopping for the holiday which begins Friday night. We thought we would beat the rush and arrived at our local Rami Levy supermarket at 8 am Wednesday morning. And while there weren’t lines out the door, it was clear that we weren’t as smart as we thought, as the parking lot and the shopping aisles were pretty full, but not in a manic mode.
Since we’re having our Seder with our daughter’s future in-laws, we didn’t have an overflowing shopping cart, and the whole ordeal was pretty civilized. In the checkout line which was getting longer by the minute, the cashier took a breath between customers and said with a shake of her head, “It’s going to be like this until midnight.”
I’m sure it was, and it only got worse the next day. But come Friday afternoon, an aura of serenity will descend on the country, and families will start getting dressed for the big night of the year. And around 6 pm, there will be a different kind of exodus as cars fill the nation’s highways bringing families and friends together for their Seder. It’s one of those times where living here feels just about right.
Nostalgia Sunday – Old fashioned cleaning
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
We are in a cleaning frenzy! Not just me. The whole country is getting scrubbed fresh and ready for Passover.
In days gone by, the lady of the house — unsurprisingly, most house-cleaning in Israel was and is done by women — would “raise the house”, literally upending all furniture and more or less flooding the house so as to do a proper sponja.
Ah, sponja! How to explain the concept? To the outside observer, doing sponja may seem like taking a sopping wet rag, flinging it over a sponjador — a giant squeegee on a stick — and then flinging it madly back and forth across the endless surface of 20 cm by 20 cm balatot.
But no. Doing a proper sponja is what separates the men from the boys — surprisingly, many Israeli men take great pride in their sponja technique — knowing just how much to wring out the rag on the first pass, how to wrap it around the squeegee so that it doesn’t fall off, and of course, how to wipe the floor on the last pass so as to leave no streaks.
Sponja is so much a part of being Israeli that no one has ever thought seriously to change this system, generally considered the only way to get floors really clean, far superior to new-fangled methods like mops, Swiffers and Dyson vacuum cleaners (now advertising heavily in time for the holiday).
Of course, all of this would be meaningless without the holiest of holy waters, the apex of all that is clean, that which burns your nasal passages and lungs, and leaves you feeling that you’ve truly sacrificed yourself on the altar of hygiene: economica, known to the outside world as bleach.
Economica is a cult – either you’re in or you’re out. If you’re in, you can’t go to bed at night without a few splashes in the sink, the tub, the shower, the whatever — just to kill off the germs that must be lurking there. And if you’re out, you think your spouse is crazy. But I’m not. Really. Just a few more splashes. Please.
Before cream cleansers, bathroom cleanser was commonly known as cleaning sand — and with good reason, too. Not only did it leave scratch up ceramic finishes on bathtubs and sinks, it also left one’s hands red and raw, or truly clean, as pain and cleanliness must go hand in hand.
Before there was liquid dish soap, there was the old fashioned dish soap paste with the consistency — and bouquet — of axle grease. A few handfuls would be glopped into a dish and cut with water to make it usable. Later on, special dispenser were invented to accommodate this unwieldy activity. And bizarrely enough, some people still prefer the paste to the liquid, out of a feeling that it has more cleaning action.
A small consumer awareness note: Those people are apparently right! A quick look at a Ministry of Finance chart on cleaning products shows that the paste has 20% active ingredients while most liquids contain between 18-24% active ingredient. I bear a personal grudge against Palmolive, which used to contain 36% active ingredient and now contains a mere 18%.
Back to cleaning! Before Persil, before Tide, before even Sano, there was Soad (or Sod, as it was written then). For some reason, in Israel it is the laundry soaps that traditionally had the best mascots: the Textil Shampo boy, the Or boy and my personal favorite, the Ama lady. As I’ve written before, she owes a great deal to Betty Boop, and in fact, could be Betty Boop — if Betty Boop were born in Poland, came over to pre-State Israel in the 1930s, got married and lived in Givatayim.
And if she did live out that life, don’t you think she’d be in the midst of “raising the house” right now?! Enough dilly-dallying! Back to cleaning! Pessach is almost here!
Picture of sponja is from Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Ama and Or images courtesy of the wonderful and highly recommended Nostal.co.il
Foto Friday – Haifa Flower Show preview
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, design, Entertainment, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, News, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Technology, Travel
Spring has definitely sprung. No more sudden snowstorms for us! The sun is shining, dogs are shedding their winter coats (believe me, I know) and a new crop of wildflowers decorates the fields, streets and sidewalks. With perfect timing, the city of Haifa will relaunch the annual Haifa International Flower Show, which will take place during the Passover holiday week at Park Hecht from April 7th-14th.
The nine halls and 25 outdoor exhibits will feature works by international and Israeli designers, including 14 top designers from Zuidkoop Natural Projects of the Netherlands.
Israeli firm O*GE, the creative directors, architects and lead designers of the Flower Show, have created nine huge exhibition halls — each one a world unto itself — which will feature flowers of all kinds, flown in from all corners of the world: rare flowers, genetically engineered flowers, wild flowers, greenhouse-grown flowers, dwarf trees, flower topiary, flower carpets and more.
The more than 500,000 blooms will be presented in very different environments: World of Flowers, Land of the Rising Sun, Hanging Garden, World of the Senses, Secret Garden, World of Fantasy, and World of Water. These photomontage illustrations give a sense of how amazing the show promises to be.
This exhibition covers an area of 30 dunam (7.5 acres) making this the largest flower exhibition in Israel’s history. In addition to the the flower worlds, visitors can enjoy wandering through herb gardens, a flower market and attend various workshops. Spectacular lighting effects at night will give additional enchantment. For more information: http://www.haifaflower.co.il/
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