Thoughts Over Matzo Balls
We wrapped the eight day observance of Passover on Easter Sunday - once again the monotheistic lunar calendars aligning. But the thoughts of the season continue to live on.
When one is in the process of prepping for Passover, one finds herself with time to reflect on a few of the core themes of the holiday - both slavery and freedom. If you take the requirements or rules of the holiday even moderately seriously, then there’s some hefty cleaning that takes place, along with significant food preparation to greet the holiday. It’s the OG of Spring cleaning with a range of customs or traditions surrounding food.
There are the matzo balls of my father in law - the dense type from Hungary. There are the assorted Moroccan spiced dishes of my mother-in-law’s family from Tangier. And in addition to the 4000 year tradition of telling the story of the Exodus, we use a seder plate from cousins Allegria and Ghimol, made by Moroccan brass craftsmen in 1936. Lots of history - many eras - and that makes my mind wander while I’m cleaning or cooking.
This year, my mind was wrapped around concepts of Freedom - what did it mean to the ancient Hebrews? What did it mean to our cousins who grew up and lived in Tangier from the 1930s through the 1990s, and who commissioned the Seder plate? And what does it mean to us today?
OK - stay with me on this one.
Those who study ancient history posit that not all of the Hebrews living in slavery in Egypt had the gumption to stand up and leave when Pharaoh finally relented following the final plague wrought by the hand of God through the staff of Moses. I think Charlton Heston’s version in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, is still my favorite.
Most assume that all who got a pass to leave slavery would have quickly packed to go, but historians believe nearly eighty percent of the enslaved Hebrews remained in Egypt. Why is that?
Perhaps it was preferring the known to the unknown. Sure it’s bad to be a slave, but what’s “out there”? What dangers await us as we walk away from all that’s familiar?
The twenty percent who sought freedom and were brave enough to leave their homes fueled the stories within the Bible’s Book of Exodus, and we celebrate that bravery even today with songs and stories about tables. Of course, the question for us is would we have been brave enough to leave? To become migrants wandering the desert with little clarity of where we were going and how we would be received once we arrived?
Is the desire for self-determination, the freedom to live without the literal and perceptual shackles of laws and rules over which one has no input or control enough to push any of us away from the known and comfortable?
Our cousins in Tangier chose to remain when the city lost its international status and became part of Morocco in 1956. That meant the departure of many of the Europeans who had enjoyed the free port status of the city and a shift to the rule of the King and his ministers. Although the sisters were of Portuguese heritage, they were accustomed to life in this North African city overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar. It was comfortable and familiar and they chose to remain rather than migrate with other family and friends.
Sitting around our table in 2025, the questions arise again. What is important to us about our freedom today? Which of the freedoms we now take for granted are most important?
Is it the freedom to speak out and disagree on important issues? Is it the freedom to own a gun? Is it the freedom to gather with whomever we wish and worship as we are called to worship? Is it the freedom to protect our privacy? What type of enslavement today would push us to leave this country? Is it the same circumstances that drove nearly all of our ancestors to migrate to this country in the first place?
My family arrived on this continent in the 1700s seeking financial opportunities from England, and as mercenaries from Germany. My husband’s family arrived in the 1950s, seeking sanctuary from the European theater of war that had torn apart the world they knew. Both pursuits brought our children’s ancestors to what was known as the land of opportunity for immigrants who were willing to work hard.
For my ancestors, there were no laws governing an immigrant's process to becoming a citizen until 1790. And by then, all had passed the two year threshold of living in this country - and they were white - so they automatically qualified to become citizens. For my husband’s family, the rules required five years of residency - not even continuous - just a total of five years in order to apply to become a citizen. Done and done.
Today we watch immigration becoming a lucrative business. Whether running from or running to, America has been a beacon for immigrants seeking opportunities. And depending how our culture feels in any one era, we’re either welcoming or contemptuous of newcomers. It may go without saying that we’re in one of our contemptuous phases.
And that leads to the last pesky questions that remain a distraction - when did this land of immigrants become so angry at immigrants? And why don’t we fix the laws to make immigration a rational and reasonable process once again?