Last night was the first night of Passover, and since I wasn’t in Berdychiv last year for Passover and the town is full of Jews, I figured hey, I might has well try out a seder in Jew town. I actually ran into the Rabbi’s wife on the street and she told me that the seder would start at 9pm. My first thought- “oh crap. This is going to go on forever!” And it did. We didn’t actually start until 10pm and I got home at 3am. I have to say, a bunch of drunk Chabads trying to pressure my new sitemate David into missing work the next day to go to services is pretty friggin’ entertaining. Now, for you Jews out there, or others who have been to a seder, you all know that you have to drink 4 glasses of wine. The difference? Well, in my family at least, we “drink” the four glasses, meaning me take sips. Last night? We poured red wine to the top of juice cups so that it spilled over, and then each glass we had to chug. And let me tell you, chugging red kosher wine is not fun! But it gets you drunk! Especially since you don’t really eat until the end of the seder. So by the end, everyone was singing and laughing and having a great time. It was mostly men, but as long as we avoided the topic of religion they were super nice. Although there was a bunch of innocent teasing the Americans.
I have to say, my favorite guy there was this Chabad named Zalman. He was a student of the Berdychiv rabbi’s (there used to be a Yeshiva in Berdychiv) and is this cute little 50 year old. The first thing I noticed were his prison tattoos from being in a Soviet prison. He was taken there for being an enemy of the state, aka. a Jew, and kept talking about how no one could understand the problems and terrors of the Soviet Union unless they’ve lived through it. He kept talking about the Soviet Union and how it felt to be a Jew during that era. Then he started speaking Yiddish to everyone at the table, and kept forgetting which language he was speaking. It was the first time since training that I truly didn’t understand what anyone was saying, because Yiddish is not anything like either Russian or Ukrainian.
Zalman and the rabbi’s other student, Israel, then started talking to David about how he should miss class the next day to go to synagogue. David said he couldn’t miss school, and Israel went on to talk about how he and Zalman would go to David’s school and tell the director that he couldn’t come to school because it was a Jewish holiday. David and I looked at each other and both whispered, “this should be interesting to see.” I wonder how that one’s going to turn out!
At 3am the Jewish boys walked me home like the nice, drunk guys that they were and asked me to come to seder again tonight. Actually it was more of a demand. That demand is going to be one that I follow willingly (I know you’re all shocked to hear me say that, and I’m sure I wouldn’t if David wasn’t going to come to help take some of the “American Jew” blame for me- it’s nice to have other Americans around because I don’t get as harassed as I used to).
Man I have a hangover.
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