It’s a Seder, Y’all

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/6975/it_s_a_seder__y_all/

March 26, 2013 3:58pm
Post by DANIA RAJENDRA

I’m a New York Jew living a year in Jackson. Mississippi is a place where religion is everywhere, all the time, up in your face. Even the mall has a sign with a red ticker visible from the highway that features the time, temperature, and today’s Bible verse. For these reasons and all the rest—including that this is the year Mississippi finally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment—I expected it to be a heady thing to have a Seder here. It’s my family tradition to play the Paul Robeson rendition of “Go Down Moses”—it’s that kind of Seder. I expected it to be strange and moving. I did not, however, expect buying the seder supplies to feel so much like, well, wandering the desert.

First stop was (where else?) the only upscale grocery store around. (We have to schlep out to the fancy suburbs for decent meat.)
Me: I need a brisket. And, y’all have shank bones?
Grocer, a middle-aged-looking black man: How much brisket? And no, we don’t.
Me: I’m feeding six or seven.
Grocer: I’d say four ounces a person.
Me: Do you have kosher meat?
Grocer: No. But did you see my Kosher table?
Me: Hunh?
Grocer: I think you can get shank bones at Mac’s. Know where 51 is? Take it, and turn right after the McDonalds.
Me: OK, thanks. I’ll take five pounds of brisket.
Grocer: We have the red horseradish, too.
Me: hunh?

The grocer took me on a tour of all the things he thought I might need for my Seder, including prepared horseradish (he knew to order extra) and the “Kosher table” which was piled with boxes of matzoh, borsht in a bottle, gefilte fish (only the sweet kind), chocolate-covered matzoh and... yahrtzeit candles. All the while, he explained that he used to live in NYC and one of the rabbis was his customer when he worked at a brokerage firm, and thus he knows Passover is “a very special time.”
Me: It sure is. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. You have a great Easter.
Grocer: Mazel tov!

Then I went to the wine store next door, and told the guys I needed one bottle of sweet-ish red, two bottles of red for drinking, and one white. The guys nodded. Guy one made the brilliant suggestion of lambrusco for the charoset. The second guy came back with a highly-recommended red; I was nodding as he did the wine-guy spiel, mentally moving on on to the next hectic Seder-prep chore. I looked up. The label had a pitchfork. The brand includes the word “devil” in big, capital letters.

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