It's all happening quite fast

On Wednesday evening we had a bok group meeting with the rabbi, for which we read various books by Primo Levi. Harrowing stuff, but someone mentioned they felt "not quite right" the whole time they were reading If this is a man. Not just when actually reading, but for the entire period during which she read the book. That was a relief to me, as I'd felt out of sorts, and indeed not been able to read that book for more than half an hour in one sitting. This is quite odd for me, I can usually polish off a book in a weekend. The order I read the books in (If this is a man, The truce, Moments of reprieve) was good, as I started off with the most harrowing and progressed to the least disturbing. Not that any of them was a walk in the park, describing as they did life in a concentration camp during the Second World War,and the subsequent journey home to Italy.

Anyway, the book group was as ever a stimulating exchange of ideas and concepts, some of which I hadn't considered.

At the end of the class, the rabbi asked me and two other potential converts to remain behind. He said he thought we would be ready to convert in July, and wanted us to start attending classes on the weekly portions (of the bible which are read in bite-sized chunks every Shabbat in a specific order so that the entire bible is read during one Jewish year).

When we left the rabbi's house I was nervous. I'm still nervous. It's getting closer, and as I try to read and learn more, I find I know less and less. A couple of girls attended who had converted earlier in the month, and one compared it to re-sitting her finals. At least for this you don't have to do rote-learning, but you are questioned on very personal issues, and by three rabbis. So you're going to feel daunted anyway. I know two of the rabbis who sit on the beth din, but there's no guarantee they'll be the ones to examine me. There's also the issue of the ritual bath, or mikva, which most converts must undergo (I say most - I've read somewhere that reform Jews recently made this an option rather than a core part), and whilst I've been assured it's not too embarrasing, I have to remove my contact lenses and strip, and then get into a pool and recite three specific blessings.

Onward and upward, though. I've got my 30th birthday party on Saturday (after sundown, of course!) and after that I'll take stock and calm down.

What a nightmare

I am starting to feel more Jewish. I think my Pesach experience made me feel more like I belong, more part of the group. I've been reading a book by Anita Diamant it's incredibly informative both for prospective converts and anyone who knows someone going through the process (although mostly geared to family). This book is good, it covers how to tell relatives, what the mechanics of the conversion involve (including details on the mikvah, or ritual bath and the blessings that should be recited at the mikvah), possible reactions to conversion and how to handle them - and is generally an excellent reference on quite a personal subject. I had read sections of it before but now am reading it from the start, the whole way through.

The comforting thing is that everything is addressed, and one isn't made to feel odd or weird for experiencing strange feelings - or not experiencing them.

On Saturday night I had a nightmare. Now this isn't unusual, I have in the past dreamt that I died, so I'm used to having dreams that completely freak me out and leave me gasping for breath when I awake. This particlar dream was that Mr Wonderful, his parents, and I were packing a sportsbag each and leaving the country. We were fleeing, in the manner many Jews fled eastern Europe (and other areas) in the run up to and during the second world war. I don't know if it was actually the nazis we were running from, or a different bunch, but it was sufficiently serious that we had to leave RIGHT NOW. I remember I had my comfort blanket in my bag, along with about £50,000 in cash (I did say it was a dream). Greg's mother had all her jewellery, and we were all wearing trainers. The feeling I had was similar to the intense and complete seriousness that I felt the when we were in the Maldives during the tsunami scare last March (when no tsunami ensued, thankfully). The feeling that this is it; there is no time for histrionics or wailing, we are facing something so huge that all we can do is get on with it.

The phenomenon (of having persecution nightmares) is documented in my book; I read about it today. It was a relief to realise that I wasn't just letting my subconscious find new ways to give me a kicking.

Apparently converts start to identify with the horrific things that have happened to the people we are joining. Previously the holocaust was "just" one of the most appaling events in the history of the world, as I become Jewish it takes on a personal element, and I begin to identify with the persecuted on a personal level. Having never been in a minority before (most lawyers are now women, and being Welsh doesn't have the same connotations) it's a slightly unsettling feeling. It has however made me more sensitive to other minorities, which can't be a bad thing.

Am I sweating the small stuff? Microscopic doesn't even get half-way there

So, I'm getting married this year, not so long to go but still comfortably over the six-month psychological thing. My bridesmaid and I joked, in January, that we should probably get her dress sorted out before we turned 30, and had a right old laugh. Unfortunately, I'm turning 30 next week and she's following suit (copycat) in May.

All we have to do is go look at some dresses, right? Ah, wrong. My bridesmaid and I have been known to meet up at Covent Garden tube station (in the dim and distant past) and go clothes shopping - for about 10 minutes then spend the rest of the day in the lovely little pub just off the piazza. And this was when I really needed clothes, having a couple of pairs of fraying trousers to my name and holes in my shoes. So I can delay shopping with the best of them - and my blessed bridesmaid is indeed one of the best.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if her dress should match anything. OK, maybe the flowers, agreed? Good. What about the men-of-the-bridal-party's ties/cravats? With me still; I'm relieved. What about matching the dress to the kippot (those skull caps), Mr Wonderful's cufflinks and contact lenses? And the writing on the table stationery? And the chair covers? And when I say "match" do I have to find an exact identical match? I'm never going to manage it! I have the colour of the invitations sorted and know what flowers I want, and they aren't quite the same colour.

So I should start with the flowers (but I'm not meeting the florist until mid-May) and then find a dress (which, this time next week, I'll be behind schedule on) or start, as currently, with the card for the invitations and extrapolate from there and be happy if it doesn't start looking like some god-awful mess of clashing shades?

If I start trying to make everything go with everything else, we're going to end up with (a) what looks like a uniform worn by the bridal posse, and (b) one mad bride.

In re-reading this I have realised that I might have just qualified for the world championships in procrastination. I think that the ever-lovely L and I should bite the bullet and go dress shopping rather than spending our evenings in reading mediaeval history and the other book by that bloke who wrote Moby Dick. After all, we're nearly 30 and we don't want to get old before our time...

I wish I could say the same about eating all the matzo!

We are eating it off our new kosher-le-pesach dairy crockery, with our (yes, you guessed it) k-l-p cutlery. We had bought this stuff a weekend or so ago, as we knew we needed new stuff for pesach. When we had removed all of the chametz and non k-l-p items from our kitchen, or masking-taped them up, we got the k-l-p cutlery and crockery out, washed it thoroughly and dried it, then labelled it. Yes, we had made the decision not to cut out meat on pesach. It was going to be a restrictive time anyway without banning a whole food group. So we dedicated half our items to meat; except for the bowls and all of the spoons. We wrote “MEAT” in red on two of everything, and “MILK” on two in blue. The cutlery got two correspondingly coloured large dots to denote their status. The teaspoons were all milk so didn’t need to be marked.

Anyway, the consequences of so much matzo were that I couldn’t get to sleep on Friday night and when I finally managed to doze off, I awoke a couple of hours later with excrutiating pains in my stomach. Back to bed, wake up again. At about 8am on Saturday morning I realised I wasn’t able to go to shul, didn’t bother to wake Mr Wonderful, rolled over and tried to sleep.

About midday I finally woke up. Sat on the sofa feeling slightly strange, and developed odd stomach pangs, of which I informed Mr Wonderful. He made me, on my request, a mushroom omelette. Some omelette – it had cheese, cherry tomatoes, spring onion, and chives. Some omelette! Halfway through; I had to stop. Horrific stomach ache. Not stabbing or throbbing but completely random and acute. Mr Wonderful said I shouldn’t have had the food – that it was probably constipation. He has some stomach issues himself, so is a good person to reasonably conjecture. What a shock – I’ve never had that before. The pain got so bad I took some pain killers. I went and lay down and tried to sleep. It worked – when I awoke about five hours later, the pain had gone. But I’ve certainly now experienced a full on matzo-induced stomach upset. I can see how debilitating it is, and feel real empathy with my friends who suffer stomach issues.

The experience that is Pesach

Two very heavy and lengthy evening meals later, preceded by a good meal out in a top-notch restaurant, and separated by a heavy day at work (I’m currently negotiating a deal with a huge margin and have to conclude by Thursday afternoon), Friday was strange.

The Seder experience is an indulgent affair. Many are large, with upwards of 10 guests being the norm (and knowing of one of 20 diners!). All start with an hour or so of readings, in Hebrew and English. There is usually a small child, who has to read four sections in Hebrew (the four sons – clever son, wicked son, foolish son, and one who hath not the wit) and which invariably take longer to read than if the leader were reading it all. At most Seder tables there are a few who don’t know the Hebrew well but read in English (me; every single time but I did know exactly where we were in the service even though I couldn’t have read it myself). At every single one there is an elderly gentleman. Usually the father of the house reads and leads everything. Apart from the Friday night Kiddush, that is. And actually, that is the same as the situation we have here – the father of the house is necessarily the most senior male in the room. This would usually be the father of the children in the room, and the owner of the house. Seder nights are when families meet up. Brothers and sisters and their families all descend on one sibling’s home, the parents of at least one couple will turn up too. So usually the man of the house is not the eldest there, because either his father or his father-in-law (and the father in-laws wishes have to be respected as much as his own father’s) is in attendance. On Wednesday night, both sets of parents were there. Together with a brother and his children. There were a couple of non- relatives. One ex-pupil of my teacher, one life-long friend of my teacher’s mother, and Mr Wonderful and me. So you’ve easily got 15 people, as this set are fortunate to have all four parents still alive, which is getting rarer now for the generation above mine.

The Afikomen is hidden. This is a lovely tradition that I’ve seen properly executed this Seder, because I previously hadn’t been to any Seder night with small children. My friend’s husband, and his father-in-law both broke the matza into three pieces, and both put the Afikomen “in a safe place”. Within seconds I was laughing – the person sitting next to the guy who is assiduously putting the Afikomen in a safe place has now brazenly pilfered it and spirited it into the gleefully waiting hands of some small children who bustle out of the room to re-emerge a short while later with smug grins and cryptic statements. We then start the story, and the children’s part (the youngest child’s questions) are, at this Seder night, split amongst the four children, a couple of who back out due to stage nerves! How sweet! Then the service continues with the story and the kids are there, eating horseradish root when requested (more than I managed).

The end of the meal comes and the man who led the service (usually the same guy as put the Afikomen in a safe place) goes to find the Afikomen. Putting on a huge show, he becomes the centre of attention for all at the table. He pats down the area where hi put the Afikomen, confidently certain he’s going to find it and then with almost comic disappointment he discovers the absence of the Afikomen. Indeed I think the only more shocking and unbelievable event would be if the Afikomen was still where he had put it.

Everyone has such genuine love and affection when watching the children march back in, triumphantly bearing the Afikomen. It’s not fake either – these are the parents and grandparents of the children. It’s a wonderful experience.

Two Seder nights later...

From Tuesday evening it’s a bit of a weird half-way house regarding food. We had completely de-chametzed the flat on Tuesday evening, so didn’t have any leavened bread in the flat, and the first matzo (unleavened stuff) we’re allowed to eat *has* to be at Seder night, as Pesach came in on Wednesday evening. My Hebrew teacher and I talked about it in our last lesson, and she said that you can eat leavened until about 9.30 am on the day that Pesach comes in (as Jewish days run from sundown rather than midnight). So I’d figured that lunch would just be some yoghurt and fruit, which seemed weird; starting the restriction before the festival comes in. Maybe it marks the final stages of preparation and the prohibition on leavened foods is supposed to concentrate the mind on the imminent festival and rituals?

So all set to have a very healthy lunch, when my department went out for lunch to mark the last day of a colleague who had been there 6½ years, and was once my trainee. The original plan had been to go to Chez Bruce, the team would have left the office at 11.30am, and a PA and I would have stayed behind to man the fort, that idea was canned on Tuesday evening. The plan was canned on Tuesday evening because workloads were just excessive and because the boss really wanted us all to go and eat as a team. I wasn’t able to go to the Chez Bruce lunch because I would have had to leave part-way through to get home in time for Pesach. We ended up going to Novelli’s gastronomically excellent place in Harpenden. The boss pulled a three-line party whip on us, so we had to go. I was stoked at the idea. Until I remembered; no leavened.

Whilst the team was eating “pot of pain du jour” which was bread baked in a flower-pot and working out whether to have the rillettes or the carpaccio of beef, I was trying to find something, anything, on the menu that I could eat. First off the selection was any meat. It’s not kosher. Then any fish apart from cod and haddock. Then anything with flour in it. I was left with a choice between cod (served without the mussles that comprised part of the dish) and a goat cheese and potato terrine which contained no flour. In fairness, the only other dishes I would have been able to eat outside Pesach, if I liked everything kosher that I could like, were a mushroomy pancake which sounded incredible (but it contained flour) and two starters – one salmon and one tuna. Most of the fish on the menu were in fact sea food, apart from these starters. I have therefore decided that eating salmon is something I should do. So after Pesach, that’s on my list.

And the restaurant – highly recommend it.

Anyway, home later in the afternoon and out to Seder night. My Hebrew teacher hosted 17 for the first night. I read some of the service, some bits in English and a section in Hebrew (yay me!) – the “why matzo” section. Then we ate and ate. I chatted to my Hebrew teacher’s mother in law who has a great theory on how the ten plagues had (a) been evidenced as actually occurring and (b) been hypothesised as occurring other than through Godly intervention. This was hugely interesting and may well become the subject of the essay I have to write before going before the Beth Din.

Thursday night – another Seder night, with my future in-laws and some good friends of theirs. The whole experience again, with the eating and the Hebrew. It’s very amusing actually that both years so far Mr Wonderful’s mother says how much quicker it is this year than it has been in previous years. I think this is common with any memory of a repetitive event, the first memories of which are grounded in the mists of childhood. Having attended my first Seder at the age of 27, I can categorically say the service has never lasted more than 2 hours. Eating the meal can take longer, but it’s definitely never been an all-night affair. As a child though, a meal starting at 7.30 (I’m being optimistic here, no meal I’ve been to yet has started before 8!) and lasting 2 hours will take a child past its bedtime anyway, without the requirement to sit up straight and follow the Hebrew!

Cleaning the kitchen and other Pesach rituals

Well, last night we de-chametz-ed our kitchen. Not too hard actually. I took everything out of the food cupboards and cleaned the cupboards. I then replaced everything in the cupboards (you can tell I thought this through before I started, can't you!) and we sealed them up - having come to the conclusion that we have so little kosher-le-pesach foodstuff that it could live on the counter for the duration. We then cleaned the counters thoroughly. The toaster went into a series of bags and was taped up and hidden, and the microwave interior was thoroughly cleaned. Behind the microwave got cleaned, possibly for the first time since it took up residence in the kitchen.

The kitchen is now clean, and as our cleaner is in today she has very clear instructions to clean the oven thoroughly, to mop the floor thoroughly. I felt a bit bad about getting her to do this, but seeing as I have to get up at 6.15 in the morning and it was already 11.30 when we finished the other cleaning, I took a guilt trip on the chin and got some sleep. Plus, as Mr Wonderful pointed out, she's the cleaner and this is what she really should be doing anyway.

So I went to bed happy in the knowledge that we had done as best we could - as regards cleaning and de-chametzing (I wonder if there's a proper term for this...) the flat, at least.

However, now comes the Seder night meal. This is a meal filled with symbolic cups of wine and foods. The meal is governed by the Haggadah (good explanation on wikipedia), which is a book explaining the exodus from Egypt and why Seder night is different. It's a bit complex so I won't even try to summarise it, but suffice it to say that both Seder ngihts I have previously experienced led to a certain amount of debate concerning when exactly each cup of wine should be drunk. The Haggadah is supposed to present an order which is uniform but the multitude of different books always have slight differences. Some would say this encourages discussion and ensures nothing is done unquestioningly, but the first time I encountered this I was slightly surprised - disconcerted even. If these guys can't agree how to do it and they've had 50 years of adult experience of this, how was I ever going to work it out?

This will be my third Seder experience. I'm nervous. I remember having problems with eating the boiled egg in salt water (makes me retch if I'm not very careful), and the massive amount of Hebrew spoken. This year we're going to my Hebrew teacher's house, and she's having 17 people to her Seder night. This would normally get me apprehensive, but add in the boiled egg/ salt water (bleurgh) and the fact that I'm going to be reading a passage in Hebrew has led to the inevitable conclusion of butterflies of hitherto unprecedented levels nesting in my stomach. Now, I want to read the passage but I sometimes confuse the sound "o" with the sound "u"; mistake "r" for "v" and have been known to even (I'm proud of this) mix up "b" with "v" and "k" and "ch". In my defence, the letter groups I mix up do look similar but I really should be over this by now.

I've got to go home and practice this before making a complete banana of myself by either (a) retching at the table (not good manners, from my brief research into Debretts) or (b) reading my Hebrew worse than a small child, especially as one of the 15 other people could well be offended by action (a) or (b).

Hunt the Chametz

With Seder night and Pesach nearly upon us, it's time for us Jews to banish all leavened products from our homes.

First of all, and the most noticeable change you'll see in any observant Jew in this eight day period, is the switch to an almost Atkins style diet - very few carbohydrates for reasons I'll explain shortly. That's what it looks like, and that's the easiest way to explain the diet. Of course, as I've learnt in the past, using a simplification to aid understanding sometimes comes back to haunt, so bear with me whilst I elucidate.

We can't consume anything with leavening in it because way back in the day when our ancestors left Egypt following the culmination of the plagues visited on Pharaoh, we left in an awful hurry and couldn't even wait for the bread to rise before abandoning Egypt and going into the desert. So, it's out with bread, pasta, cereals, rice; in fact anything containing grain and water and which has been allowed to ferment or rise. No beer. And no pulses - because these could conceivably be made into some form of bready-type substance (by a better cook than me). "Chametz" is what this stuff is known as. And it's only a problem during the festival of Pesach.

Not all Jews do this - Sephardim (those originating from Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean) actually do eat rice and pulses, because, I gather, these items were such a staple food that there was never an ability to avoid them for 8 days. There aren't so many Sephardim around at the moment and (although I pronounce my Hebrew in the modern, Sephardic way) I'm going Ashkenaz for this one. That's the other main group of Jews, primarily from Eastern Europe.

But I digress. We can't eat anything with grain and water. We can eat interesting crackers called matzos which have been baked but for less than 11 minutes (and are supervised to ensure this is the case) and are "kosher le pesach" which means kosher for passover, and as they have only been baked such a short time, they aren't considered chametz.

We can't even have any of this chametz stuff in the house. We can box it up and leave it in the car boot (I've not yet told the future Mr Me I'm turning the car into a mobile baker wholesale store), we can sell it to a gentile which the rabbi can arrange. I'm not sure whether we can do the same as Christians and eat it all up in a Shrove Tuesday finale of pizza/ pasta/ rice/ hummus, but that sounds appealing. We are going to do what many of our friends do, which is put all the chametz into a cupboard and apply a liberal coat of masking tape. We are taping up the freezer because we've got bread in it, and we're putting all the unfrozen bread, pasta, non-kosher le pesach ketchup, krisprolls (hungry?), baked beans, chickpeas and cereal into a cupboard then we're going to close that cupboard up with masking tape too.

It's not enough to just remove the packets of flour and pasta and cereal - you have to spring clean the place - removing items from cupboards and wiping them down (both items and cupboards) to ensure no pesky chametz is lurking in corners or cracks. We did the bedroom and the bathroom (I kid you not - well we've recently redecorated and thoroughly cleaned so that's fortuitous!) and now have the kitchen left. Which could be a bit of a pain. The toaster has to go and hide in a bin bag. In an hermetically sealed bin bag. In a bin bag in the car boot.

The "no chametz" thing is an absolute. When cooking, for example, the usual laws of 1/60 don't apply. These laws are the ones applicable to dairy and meat foods in non-pesach time. Basically if you're cooking a meat dish and you happen to be waving some milk over the pan and some milk gets into the meat dish - you can still eat the food IF the amount of milk is less than 1/60 the amount of the content of the pan before the milk contaminated it - and that obviously works the other way around too. I'm not quite sure how one would guesstimate this, because I have problems working out anything smaller than 1/8, but the rule does exist. It does not however exist on pesach. If you contaminate your food, even with less than 1/60, then that's it – you have to go and start again, and (now this is where my knowledge gets *slightly* hazy) re-kasher your pots and pans and anything that was contaminated.

So that's a whirlwind tour of the practicalities of removing chametz, ensuring none is left behind, and the stricter than usual dietary rules. Now, what you must get hold of. Everything must be kosher le pesach. So all the kosher beths din which supervise the "hecksher" (kosher stamp on foods) now have an even less than zero percent tolerance. And it's not like they were relaxed to start with! Things which would normally be fine are now forbidden. Salt? Buy new, kosher le pesach. Tea? Ditto. Ketchup. Mayonnaise? Hell yes. Get the idea?

Whilst you can buy kosher le pesach pretty much anything if you go to the right places with enough cash (and a big enough larder and appetite - remember this only lasts for 8 days, folks), everyone has different standards.

Most people would agree you buy a new packet of something that can't be chametz, and start it on pesach. If you buy a new packet it can't have been sitting on your shelf with flour dripping into it unnoticed over the past few months. So I'm off to buy salt and tea this evening. But when it comes to mayonnaise, ketchup, in fact anything with vinegar in it, you have to buy kosher le pesach or avoid that item for pesach. Vinegar is one of those dodgy areas (like limitation of liability in a contract) as it's made from wine, and I’ll not go into it here but suffice it to say that Judaism has some very strict rules on wine.

I decided not to buy ketchup during pesach because I don't think I can eat (a) non Heinz and (b) about a kilo of the stuff in 8 days. But I'll be eating mayonnaise and all kinds of goodies off our brand new kosher le pesach crockery, with our brand new kosher le pesach cutlery, having prepared it in our steamcleaned kosher le pesach kitchen. And then falling asleep and dreaming of bread.