Honestly, I don’t have a problem with people who keep kosher (or do KfP.) If you don’t want to eat delicious cheeseburgers it’s no skin off my nose. It’s mostly the absurd rituals and guilt that I find annoying. A passover seder would actually be an enjoyable dinner party if it weren’t for all the fucking Hebrew.
Really? I haven’t really encountered that problem.
Only as long as no pigs have ever walked in the same park as you…
Me neither, but only because even the low-Hebrew Hagaddah is still (to me) insanely tedious.
Which is why I don’t understand why otherwise entirely-reasonable adults put up with it. I had a few Jewish-by-ancestry-but-religiously-agnostic/atheistic friends in college who were still devoted to keeping kosher (when their parents were looking), going to Temple (when they visited home) and bringing home a good Jewish boy/girl to meet the parents. Puh-fucking-lease.
As someone who made a fairly clean break with my insanely religious family members, I find it hard to understand why others don’t.
Heritage and unity I can understand, but I doubt I’ll ever fully understand the value of preserving traditions that are (as you said) entirely arbitrary merely for the sake of having something in common to preserve; it seems like circular reasoning at best. If the point is to be set apart from the rest, couldn’t it be just as easily achieved by wearing matching armbands?* If God doesn’t care who eats pork, why deprive yourself of it for a lifetime just so you can remain a member in good standing of the Doesn’t-Eat-Pork club?
- No Godwinization intended.
Because we don’t find them insanely religious. It’s a tradition, and some of us like to honor traditions and what they represent. I don’t keep kosher, but if I’m with my parents during Passover I certainly will keep kosher. It’s expected of me, it makes them happy, and that makes me happy.
Because it’s a cultural identity. Some people like belonging to a particular culture, even if they don’t believe in its supernatural attributes. Particularly if this makes their family happy - making a clean break with one’s family is pretty traumatic for most.
A former girlfriend of mine was like that. Didn’t believe in god in the least - but she did believe in the Jewish community. And she (mostly) followed the rules in order to not cut herself from it, its rituals, its customs and most of all its people.
She did draw the line at only having Jewish friends and lovers and not sneaking out on Saturday nights however.
Not that her parents or extended family would have tossed her out on the street or stopped talking to her if she didn’t keep kosher or anything like that - but in a way (even if it was only in her head) she would still have become an outsider, and that she didn’t want.
I didn’t quite get it myself either, but then I’m one of them goys so I don’t think I’m meant to 
If you can change them now, what’s to prevent you from chaning them again and again until they no longer really different from anyone else?
It kinda has to be something other people won’t want to do if you want it to remain special.
EDIT: No, I’m not Jewish, and I’m not trying to speak for anyone who is. It’s just how the concept makes sense to me.
I can think of worse vices. Like allowing my weight to drift north of 300 pounds. Or not getting my rental deposit back due to stank.
Sure, but the only thing this tradition represents is a lie.
I’m honoring the tradition that my grandparents passed on to my parents. It’s a tradition of family, of shared bonds, and of honoring your parents. I certainly don’t view that as a lie regardless of the underlying religious context.
Easy.
- The demand for Kosher for Passover chocolate is not enough to lower the price.
- Passover isn’t about you getting your chocolate. :o What is good is Kosher for Passover when it’s so easy you don’t notice that you’re changing your life for a week?
- Ever hear of non processed food?
- The law commanded us to eat unleavened bread. It’s evolved as matzo to make it safe for someone to not accidentally ingest chometz. And yeah, part of it is tradition. But that’s OK. There’s nothing self-destructive about keeping Kosher for Passover for a week.
Here, I think my six year old can answer this:
Matzoh reminds us that when the Jews left the slavery of Egypt they had no time to bake their bread. They took the raw dough on their journey and baked it in the hot desert sun into hard crackers called matzoh.
Passover can be one of those most joyful times of the year even for a non-observant Jew. Try it next year. Try without grumbling and do it happily, then tell us how it went. No one likes the wicked child. :o
//atheist h.o.
yup
It’s just like some Buddhist traditions. WHY would you want to RESTRICT yourself?
Answer: Because it makes you more mindful of what you’re doing.
For Jews, it’s a nod to the people that came before us.
it feelz good
(but I eat rice on Passover now)
bullfuckshit
If Jews only focused on a story about what happened 3,000 years ago, then it does seem silly.
But Passover is about Jewish identity. It’s about a people. And 3,000 years later, it’s about the mild shock that we’re still kickin’ it. Moses isn’t even mentioned in the prayers.
"I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.
It’s less about if God exists and more about how we still exist.
There’s no lie in the fact that we’ve survived.
Passover is a reminder of times of tyranny in the past, and the movement towards freedom. The point of the seder is to remember, to re-enact, to symbolize many deep and profound concepts: on the one hand, hatred of slavery and mistreatment of the down-trodden. On the other hand, appreciation of freedom, and identification with Jewish history and tradition. Depriving ourselves of normal food is to remind us, at every meal, of dedication to that history and tradition. The tradition is not just about what you eat: if it is, then you’ve missed the whole point. The tradition is to remember that we were enslaved and mistreated, and to turn that experience towards never mistreating others, being mindful of the oppressed in every generation. There’s no “lie” in that.
If your seder/haggadah is too incomprehensible, or has too much Hebrew, find a different one. There are plenty of 'em out there. Or write your own. Meaningless mumbling in a language you don’t understand, discussing concepts that are mysterious – that’s not a seder, that’s a travesty. Last year, we did only a few of the major seder points and we read an abridged version of the book of Exodus (I did the abridging.) The point of the seder should be to learn.
Would Prata or Roti bread (Ask the nice people at your local Indian restaurant if you haven’t had it!) be considered Kosher? That’s unleavened bread and it’s also very delicious- and inexpensive.
I doubt it, if only because you can’t know how long the dough sat before baking.