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[personal profile] raybear
Its been a fairly amazing weekend, mostly in its simplicity of activities and my ability to enjoy them. Spring might not be fully here in the weather of Chicago, where a chance of snow is threatening us in a day or two, but my depression lens has been flipped over. Tonight I went to a Slightly Late Seder and this afternoon I wasn't really feeling it -- it was Sunday, I wanted to lounge and hide in my smelly lounging clothes aka my post-workout pants, but I motivated because it was important to the people organizing it who invited me, and therefore it is important to me, even if I wasn't feeling it right that second. And fairly soon after walking in the door, I had forgotten any of the initial sloth and social anxiety and it was a lovely evening and pulled up all these memories of past rituals in my history (even if they were not remotely connected to seders) and also connected to my few present day rituals (the burning of defilements is so similar to the removal of chametz). There were several parts during the haggadah I was moved, but here a couple specific things I wanted to type out and say again, not just wait for next year to stumble upon them.

"There is nothing more whole than a broken heart."
-- Chassidic Kotzker Rebbe

"If your own suffering does not serve to unite you with the suffering of others, if your own imprisonment does not join you with others in prison, if you in your smallness remain alone, then your pain has been for naught."
-- The Jewish Organizing Initiative Haggadah (1999)

Date: 2008-04-28 04:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] unscrambled.livejournal.com
I'm really glad you were there.

I'm pretty sure that particular ritual of chametz removal was the burning of defilements reinterpreted Jewishly. It could be someone's Jewish tradition, but not one that I knew before using that particular haggadah. Regardless, I like it.

Those two plus the famous quote from Rabbi Hillel (If I am not for myself, who will be for me? etc.) are some of my favorites.

Date: 2008-04-28 09:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] raybear.livejournal.com
It was interesting to find familiarity and parallels in the ideas that were in the haggadah we were reading and in dharma i've read too. I felt I understood a bit more why there is a significant percentage of jewish buddhists! Or buddhist jews. Or, you know, however they wish to identify and/or present.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to stay til the end, especially after you wrote about it in your journal -- next year I will pace myself a bit more on the wine and also take a nap the afternoon before. Or maybe it was because I hadn't been drinking a lot of wine lately, so I was off my game. I like the idea of training for next year's seder. I drink one cup a night for a week, then two cups, then three cups....


Date: 2008-04-29 11:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] unscrambled.livejournal.com
You train for passover on Purim, I think.

I think there are some clear good (g-d wrestling in both) and really crappy reasons (cultural appropriation and exoticism) there are tons of people who were raised Jewish and become Buddhists. I have a lot of ideas about this, as I'm sure you're surprised to hear.

I've crapped out on a seder or two--it is LONG. And we don't even do one that's all that long. Every year I say, we should start early, and it never happens.

May 2010

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