Bonsoir! I hope you all are having a splendid spring holiday season.
Pesah, the Jewish Passover, is in part a story about being strangers in a strange land, the need for tolerance, welcoming guests, and remembering one's roots. It seems particularly fitting this year to be in France sharing some of my family's traditions, while also learning more about Easter and the traditions of the family with whom I am living here.
Easter chocolate eggs, animals, etc.-- virtually edible pieces of art, much more exquisite than I had ever seen in the U.S.-- are infinitely more exciting than hunting for a piece of afikomen (the crumbly piece of unleavened bread--matzo-- that kids search for at a Passover Sedar meal). Also, a fifth question to add to those infamous Passover "4 Questions": why does French matzo taste so much better than American matzo? One can even find it in an orange/wine flavour here, apparently from an Algerian recipe!
Sweets aside, though, it is fascinating to see our shared traditions and values and also the interesting differences, both between Judaism and Catholicism, but also between America and France....
Today my mother, who is visiting for the week, and I chopped up some haroset (the apple/cinnamon/wine/walnut mixture typical during Pesah) to complement the Easter lamb meal we shared with the Soufer Family.
I am quite lucky to have been welcomed by this wonderful family, in this wonderful country. I don't know how to express that without simply sounding corny (no pun intended for you observant Jews of ashkenazic descent who do not eat corn during Passover). Seriously, though, I am very thankful for this experience of this spring semester in France. Naturally, spring is always a season of rebirth, of the earth blossoming again. This year spring feels all the more acutely a time of renewal, though. Is this partially a function of the precarious times in which we find ourselves?
I grow pensive...introspective...and that is independent of my visit earlier in the week with my Dutch friend Sanne to several museums, including the Rodin Museum http://www.musee-rodin.fr/ , where the pictures in this long overdue blog entry, including one of the famous "Thinker," were taken.
On that (thoughtful?) note, I have to start contemplating which courses I will enroll in next fall back at UMaine Law, so I am going to conclude the present post. A happy and peaceful spring to you all!
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