I stood in line alongside my cousins and Zayde, patiently awaiting the carved duck, lamb, and roasted chicken. We are staying at the Hilton Hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, celebrating Passover with our entire Family. Suddenly, I heard screaming erupt at the front of the line where my Zayde stood. It appeared someone had passed us in line, too eager to get their hands on one of these delicacies. At that moment, I got the sense that we were not where we were meant to be, despite the overwhelming comfort and abundance of kosher food.
This was my first of many Passovers in Mexico. Since 2018, my extended family and I have gone back to Mexico four times, Florida twice, and now Arizona twice. At first, we decided to go to Mexico because my Zayde had just been taken off chemotherapy, and it was his final trip with the family. It’s unclear whether my family intended to make attending Pesach programs a tradition, but since the first trip, we have returned to programs year after year.
For countless years of my childhood, I can recall spending the long weekend at my Savta’s house, bathed in the smell of brisket and Matzo brei. Now, the joyful memories of the holiday have been replaced by the niche experience of sitting by a pool, as if Pesach is just another vacation. With or without the lavish foods, drinks, and facilities, not being at home for the holiday has taken away its sanctity.
Passover is often the only time extended families can spend uninterrupted time with one another, as everyone’s breaks line up for a week. There is no issue with families wishing to get away for a vacation when their children have days off from school. In fact, removing oneself from the standard sequence of everyday life is healthy and necessary, and in the spirit of the holiday. Plus, the stress of cleaning an entire home can be avoided if you choose to attend a program. However, these tasks we loathe have been a part of the Passover tradition for centuries. Dusting every corner, boiling the pots, pulling out the haggadot, and fostering homegrown seder traditions are all what make the holiday special. Today, countless Jews relinquish this duty, exempting themselves from the process by flying far from home and checking into a pre-cleaned hotel room. While Pesach Programs can be enjoyable and relaxing, the deeper meaning of Passover is not only blurred but lost altogether.
Every year, the Jewish people refrain from eating chametz, or leavened bread, for eight days during the holiday of Passover. The Jewish people do this to commemorate the time when God took them out of slavery, brought them into freedom, and their bread did not have time to rise before leaving Egypt. However, there is a deeper significance hidden inside the restriction of Chametz and the holiday’s story. Chametz also represents something more; its physical existence is comparable to the human ego: fluffy and expanded, like individuals who think too highly of themselves. By ridding themselves of Chametz, the Jewish people break down their psyche to its most primal state, understanding that God is the one true provider of freedom.
Every year, new recipes emerge online describing how to mask the taste of matzo. People continually desire to conceal the nature of struggle present during Pesach, a time void of egotistical focus. This active effort to bastardize the meaning of Passover is most prominent in Pesach programs, where individuals, like my family and I, waiting in line for meat, cannot differentiate between the food we eat during Passover and the rest of the year. In this environment, how can the Jewish people ask: What makes these nights different from all other nights? After several years in programs, it is clear that these 7 nights are not different from any other. Passover has become perverted by the 21st-century desire for comfort and convenience.
At these programs, the ego is more pronounced than ever. People push and shove for a better seat at the comedy shows, argue over beach chairs, and distance themselves from family in the enormous resorts. Because our homes are far less luxurious, the holiday’s true purpose is more apparent. We sit around our dining room tables for seders, not in a giant hall with hundreds of other families. Here in our homes, we have spent days sweeping clean, eating matzo and maror, we understand the miracle that only God could have done for us.
When devising the concept of ego, Sigmund Freud stated, “The ego is not master in its own house.” Freud reveals that a higher force acts upon us alongside the ego. Our subconscious desires and external pressures rule us. Today, competitions have broken out in the Jewish world of who can attend the nicest and most expensive Pesach program. Consequently, the ego is coerced to take the reins of the mind, returning individuals to slavery, controlled by the perceptions of others.
Through this competitive process, the Jews, during the period when they are meant to celebrate freedom from slavery, have become shackled to their egos. In the end, to truly celebrate the holiday of Passover, the Jewish people must recognize the power of the ego and relinquish its hold. Abandoning the ease and comfort of Pesach programs may not be easy, yet in doing so, the beauty and purpose of the holiday will ultimately be revealed.
