As Passover comes around again, we're thrown back into the yearly routine of Seders and seeing family that we don't usually see otherwise. Passover is a huge deal and while we have the highest respect for the holiday and the story of Passover, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. There're quite a few things about the holiday that are, for lack of a better word, struggles. So let's take a few minutes away from our festivities and revel in the struggles of Passover, shall we?
1. Eating Kosher Food for Passover
This one is probably obvious, but the struggle of Kosher for Passover food is so real. Since we can't eat bread or anything leavened, we either live off of Matzah and products containing Matzah Meal, or cry internally while trying to stay away from any yeast and flour related food for a whole week. Much easier said than done; especially since we're known for our infamous "bagels and lox" combination. Passover means no bagels, and that's the worst part for some.
2. The Seder
Ah, the Passover Seder. There's nothing quite like it. We all sit around the table with our families and retell the story of our exodus from Egypt all those years ago. Or, possibly more accurately, we sit there and wonder when it'll finally be time to eat. If your Seder is anything like my family's, you don't even finish reading the Haggadah after eating (oops), but the anticipation of food is still so much to handle you probably find yourself wondering how you manage to do it.
3. The Four Questions
As is customary, the youngest child asks The Four Questions at any Seder in existence, but here's the part of that, to this day, which still doesn't make sense. These "four questions" we ask, aren't really four questions. Really, it's one question with four answers that we like to pretend are four separate questions. They would still serve the same purpose if they were actually questions, so why not just call it what it is? Wouldn't that be easier for everyone?
4. The Four Cups of Wine
Another one of our Passover customs is drinking four cups of wine throughout the course of the Seder, which stands to possibly create quite an interesting situation. There's no doubt that every Jewish family has had, or will have, at least one wine related incident in their Passover history. The interesting part is the parameters of that said situation, who it includes, and of course, the struggle of dealing with the consequences.
5. The Afikomen
As a child, the most exciting part of the Seder is probably the act of finding the Afikomen. For those who don't know, the Afikomen is a piece of matzah that's hidden somewhere in the house to be found by a child and then eaten for dessert. When there's more than one child looking for it, it can become quite the competition. Some families hide enough so that all the children can find one, like my grandparents did, but the families that only hide one have a lot to deal with. Children will run all over the house trying to find it and be a sore winner when they do, because it usually involves a prize. In my family we had to negotiate with my grandpa to settle on a prize, but other families are more straight forward.
6. Dayenu
Dayenu is the song we sing that says how what we were given when we were freed from Egypt is so much more than what would've been enough. Dayenu itself means "it would've been enough", but there's a catch. The catch is that the song seemingly goes on forever and the chorus is literally just singing the word dayenu over and over again. After about 3 times of singing the chorus, it tends to get a little annoying, so it's pretty fair to say that if the song was a bit shorter while still getting the point across, it would've been enough.
