Week 5, Spring 2023

As a child, I was never religious. My parents both grew up Catholic, but abandoned it as soon as they moved out of their houses and became adults. We never went to church, though my grandma on my mom’s side insisted on my sister and I being baptized in a Catholic church. There are only two distinct religious experiences that I can remember growing up. The first and only time I’ve been to church was the result of a sleepover. I had slept over at a friend's house on a Saturday night and, in the morning, they took me to church with them. There was singing and lots of preaching. Afterwards we went to Sunday school. I don’t remember much, but I do remember it was around the holidays and they gave me a whole jolly rancher candy cane and I thought that was awesome. I went home to my parents and asked,“Mom, why can’t I go to Sunday school too?”. My other religious experience was also sleepover-related. When I slept over at another friend’s house on Friday nights, I would join them for Shabbat dinner. I loved lighting the candles and getting to drink grape juice. All in all, I had very little experience with religion and I still don’t. It wasn’t until I left my own house and went to college that I became a spiritual person. I wouldn’t say I follow any organized religion, maybe I’m loosely Pagan or Wiccan, but mostly I feel my spirituality through my deep connection with nature. And, in all honesty, spirituality is still something that is very unclear to me, and a part of myself I don’t talk about often. 

Being here at ZA in a Jewish community has made me realize how important my own spirituality is to my sense of self. On Wednesday night, I was invited to my very first Seder for the Passover holiday. We spent the day cooking and cleaning, getting ready for the sun to set, and to sit down and come together. We started by going over the Seder plate and the meaning of what was on it.Ours had a beet and horseradish (Chrein) combination, which was in place of the traditional shank bone (Z’Roah), symbolizing the loss of life on the road to freedom; a rhizome of turmeric, our bitter herb (Maror), representing the harshness of oppression; parsley, our greens (Karpas), which is a reminder of hope and spring renewal; garlic (Shoom), a reminder of safety and protection; olives (Zayit), which represents sovereignty for the Palestinian people; a mix of nuts, fruit, and wine called Charoset, representing the bricks used to build Pharos pyramids; a mushroom to represent interconnectedness and interdependence with one another and nature; and an orange (Tapuz) in the center of the plate to remember those that have not traditionally been welcome in Judaism. After this custom, we did the Kadesh, the blessing of the first cup of wine. Throughout the Seder we had four cups of wine to represent the four verbs used to describe the Israelites journey to freedom. 

Next, we washed our hands, the first time without saying a blessing. Then, we blessed theKarpas and dipped our greens (in our case parsley) in salt water which represents the tears shed on the journey to freedom. After eating them, we also took time to express our gratitude for this land. Next was the practice of Yachatz, which is breaking the middle piece of matzah in two, which I had the honor of doing, and Acacia sneakily took one half to hide (which I’ll come back to later). 

Then we started the Magid, the retelling of the story of the journey to freedom. The Magid started with the four questions, a revaluation of why these traditions are carried on each year. Then we went into the four siblings, telling of the wise, the evil, the young, and the one who does not know how to ask. After this, we went through the 10 plagues that Moses brought upon egypt: blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the slaying of the first born. We took some time here so that everyone could explain the whole story of liberation to me since I didn’t really know it (my knowledge of this was purely based on the animated movie The Prince of Egypt which I promptly told everyone and we agreed to all watch it together at some point). Then we sang Dayenu, and read a lovely poem by Mary Oliver. After the conclusion of the Magid we poured our second glass of wine, and did the Rachtza- a second washing of the hands (Remi said the prayer for me). And then we got to break into some matzah, which was delicious, accompanied with Maror (horseradish) and charoset (the mix of nuts, fruit, and wine). 

Then, we began the festive meal. We had vegan matzo ball soup (made by Remi), roasted veggies (made by Felix), roasted cauliflower (made by yours truly), more charoset (made by Acacia), and tzimmes (made by Lexi). We ate, laughed, told stories, and enjoyed our wine. After the meal was over, with some amazing cake that Remi made, we did the Tzafun, or the finding of the afikomen. Earlier in the night, Acacia had taken the half of the Matzah I had broken and hid it somewhere in the house. We all set off and scoured all the dark crevices and corners (even looking inside the dryer because who knows??). In the end I found it nestled between books on a bookshelf and Acacia awarded me with a dollar coin that I shall no doubt cherish forever and never spend. We then poured our third glass of wine, sang Miriam’s song, and then followed that with our fourth and final cup of wine. This was the conclusion of our first night’s Seder!

I feel honored to have been welcomed into not just this community of regenerative agriculture at ZA, but also whole heartily into a religion that I know next to nothing about. Everyone was so excited that it was my first Seder and let me stop things so many times to ask questions. I did not feel like I just happened to be there, I felt like everyone wanted me to be there. I felt a sense of community,ritual, and history like I’ve never experienced before. It felt like something important, something vulnerable. To have that be shared with me with open arms is something I will not forget any time soon. 

So much of my life has been devoured by the logic that religion and traditions like these couldn’t matter to someone like me—I didn’t grow up with them and it was too late to start learning. The first time I told my dad I felt like becoming a more spiritual person and about the deep connection to nature I felt, he told me that “he raised me better than that.” And, don’t get me wrong, my dad is my best friend and someone I look up to, but, at that moment, I thought that maybe he was right. That I should rely on the things that I do know, the things that I can see. I still have a complicated relationship with religion, to say the least, but having been welcomed into this Jewish community and seeing the light and meaning it has brought to so many lives, it becomes so clear to me that cultivating that part of myself— that side that doesn’t have to see to believe, the side that questions everything, that side that dances and speaks with the trees, the side that loves tradition and learning, the side that looks at the moon and feels it look back, the side that sat at that Seder and wished for more nights like these, the side that maybe wasn’t raised by my non religious family but rather was raised by the world itself—that part of myself should be and is celebrated in this community, and I should start to celebrate it as well.

-Claire