It's Shabbat right now, but the first Seder on the eve of the first day of Pesach begins tonight. Every Pesach is a bittersweet time for all of us Jews because we remember the days when we were in bondage. As we remember those terrible days, we also celebrate our freedom by reading and talking about our exodus from Egypt, which began our forty-year journey through the wilderness to the Promise Land. In addition to our exodus from Egypt, we also remember our Jewish ancestors who were persecuted for their beliefs and practices over the many years that followed our exodus. In mine and Micaiah ben Malachi's case, we add to our remembrance our Black, Native-American, and Asian ancestors who were enslaved in the same way Jews were in Egypt.
Even though we are no longer technically enslaved, we are still held in bondage psychologically and socially in that we're still treated as second-class citizens. Our income is, certainly, not equal to Whites or the middle and upper class. When people of color move into a primarily White neighborhood, that community often doesn't make the attempt to make people of color feel welcome. They do all they can to make people of color feel isolated. They use the laws against them to push them out of the community by making sure that people of color follow everything to the T--the grass cut a certain way, our house looking a certain way, no garbage in the yard, etc. If people cannot follow those things that are of the status quo, then the idea is that, "If you cannot meet those standards, then you don't belong here among us." Even when you can meet those demands, the community finds other means to get you to move out of the community by refusing to help you or charging you more for their services than they would their White counterparts. They also hire you for the jobs they don't want to do. The one other thing that the community will do is to begin selling their houses one by one and move as far as they can away from people of color. That is the case where Micaiah ben Malachi and I live. People of color work at the turkey plant. They clean and cut the turkey to be packaged. Meanwhile, the White people hold the managerial jobs at the turkey plant or work at the other businesses in town. Neighbors will charge each other seventy-five dollars to have a tree cut down while they charge us over three hundred dollars. Not only are we unwelcome where we live because I'm Asian and Micaiah ben Malachi is Black and Native-American, but we're also Jews. It seems that the townspeople's idea is that we must have a lot of money than what we're telling them because we're Jews. Yes, beef is expensive, but the grocery store down the road from us makes sure that most of the meat items in stock and/or on sale are made of pork, not beef or poultry. Year after year, Micaiah ben Malachi and I always feel like we're in bondage psychologically and socially. We have to fend for ourselves because we don't have people or family to help us. Year after year, we celebrate Pesach to reflect and remember, but we always say during the Seder, "Maybe next year." The next year arrives only to still be in the same boat we were in the year before. We still continue to hope and pray, though. Despite our own feelings of bondage, however, we don't forget about our Jewish and non-Jewish ancestors.
I awoke today to hear the Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keilor on the radio. It's always fun to hear what happened on each day in history. Today was different. What I heard was not fun, but it was interesting. Today marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It was the largest uprising in World War II history. The Jews were rioting against the Nazi soldiers who were shipping Jews to Treblinka. When the Jews ran out of bullets in their guns, they used furniture, knives, and anything else they could get their hands on as weapons. After I relayed to Micaiah ben Malachi what I had heard, I started reflecting on the past, our ancestors, and what we, ourselves, have gone through and continue to go through. As I was reflecting, tears welled up in my eyes. Shabbat is supposed to be a joyous time with no tears, yet I found myself in reverie. How is Shabbat supposed to be a joyous time when you awake to hear something horrible in history and start to reflect on the ways that bondage took place even before Pesach actually starts? Then, I had to look up the spelling of "Treblinka" on the Internet in order to write this blog entry. To do my search, I had to type "Concentration Camps in Poland" for my category. Not only did the web search results show the listing of camps in Poland, but the long list contained the list of concentration camps in the other countries of Great Britain, France, Germany, and more. Sure, I've read and watched numerous documentaries about all these different camps over the many years, but the number of camps and the atrocities never cease to floor me. As I read through the list while in continued reflection, the year that we burned the shankbone in our grill returned, as it always does every Pesach. It's been three or four years since we burned that shankbone, but the memory of that horrible smell of death and blood is still fresh in my mind as if we just burned it a moment ago. When we burned that shankbone, the smell made me nauseated and I almost threw up. It permeated the air outside and into our house. To Micaiah ben Malachi and I, burning that shankbone that one time was enough. We don't need to burn it every year to remind us. When we reflect during this time of year and every day year around, we realize that what we go through today is not as bad as it could be.
Makedah bat Leah
