Getting Multicultural

Today our office held a Mexican-style pot luck. I brought matzos.

What... There's Jews in Mexico.

There are not, however, any Jews (and darn few Mexicans) among the 200 employees where I work. There's a Muslim over in sales, and the guy who sits next to me is married to a non-practicing Jew, but that's it.

I do what I can to expand my co-workers' cultural awareness. Last spring we were decorating the office, and everyone else was cutting out paper eggs and bunnies to hang over their cubicles. I cut out hammentaschen. In December, my computer wallpaper alternated various menorahs (and one shot of the Grinch -- I've worked in retail customer service for 20 years and have developed a real dislike for the season.) And I kvetch with abandon.

So --- Passover begins tonight at Sunset. I'll be attending the community Seder at B'nai Israel tomorrow night. Getting kind of excited, it being my first time. I'm afraid, though, that after a week of matzoh I'll need 4 cups of prune juice instead of 4 cups of wine.

Matzo, matzo man.....

So, here it is a few days before Pesach, and I'm getting excited. Went to Target the other day and bought 5 pounds of matzoh. (They didn't have any single boxes, just 5-box shrink-wrapped bundles. ). I'd never tried matzoh before, and find I rather enjoy it.

Next Thursday is the Seder at the synagogue, and this will be another first for me. I've been reading up so I'll know what to expect. (See this extremely clever Facebook - style Haggadah)

Celebrating Passover here has its share of challenges. I know last year someone went to Minneapolis (300 miles) to obtain kosher lamb bones. This year one of the members is planning to make gefilte fish for the community seder, and has to go to Winnipeg (150 miles and an international border) for ingredients. I don't know if she made it, what with all the roads closed by the floods. With the river so high, you can't fish for gefilte around here. And what would we use for bait? There's not a decent bagel in the entire state.

Most of the congregation here are Reform or liberal Conservative, and I don't know how fussy they get about chametz. We're having a drive for the local food pantry, but will be putting the donations in the upstairs closet to keep it away from the dining hall. Being a Goy, I'm not bound by that mitzvah, so don't have to worry about disposing of my 8 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Still, I think I'll try to follow the diet just to see if I can.

In other news, I got a copy of Jewish Literacy the other day, and am totally engrossed. A veritable Encyclopaedia Judaica - 800 pages of logically arranged references. It has 1-2 pages on each topic. Here's an Excerpt.