One of the many beauties of the Jewish calendar is that there is something in it for everyone.
Like to pray? There’s Rosh Hashanah. Like to fast? Welcome to Yom Kippur. Is outdoor living your thing? You’ve got Sukkot. Dancing aficionado? Simhat Torah is made for you.
For those who enjoy celebrating miracles, there is Hanukkah. Tree lovers have Tu Bishvat; drinkers can look forward to Purim; those who savor freedom relish Passover; Ashkenazi vegetarians have got to love Shavuot with all its dairy dishes; and the morose among us have Tisha Be’av to look forward to.
And that is to say nothing about the spiritual meanings of the holidays. Regardless of the state of one’s soul or emotional state – happy or sad, contemplative or frivolous – everyone can connect to at least one holiday.
Ask any number of Jews to name their favorite holiday, and you’ll get a wide variety of answers.
But tell me, have you ever met anyone who, when asked about their favorite Jewish holiday, answers Shvi’i shel Pessah (the seventh day of Passover)? Have you ever met a kid who can’t sleep on the sixth night of Passover just waiting for that seventh night to come?
“Why can’t you sleep, Junior,” asks the father.
“Because I just can’t wait for Shvi’i shel Pessah,” Junior replies.
That conversation never happened. Ever.
Why not? Because if the holidays were The Beatles, Shvi’i shel Pessah would be Ringo. If the holidays were a nightly news show, Shvi’i shel Pessah would be the weather report. And were the holidays an American sports league, Shvi’i shel Pessah would be the National Hockey League.
Shvi’i shel Pessah is the unsung, unacclaimed, underappreciated Jewish holiday, seemingly just tacked on as an afterthought to the very end of Passover. By that time, most people have already tired of matzah and an over-abundance of family time, and are counting down the minutes until they can dip pita into hummus and openly bring hametz into hospitals once again.
I’m always amazed at how a week without bread, though with plenty of other stuff to eat, is made into this major sacrifice, and how people queue up in long lines the night after Passover at the bakeries, and the next morning at the local grocery store, for that first post-Passover baguette. As if they’d never seen bread before.
“Jews,” I feel like screaming, “it’s only been a week.”
What is Shvi’i shel Pessah, the last day of Passover?
SHVI’I SHEL PESSAH is a continuation of the week of Passover, just with longer davening, the Yizkor memorial service for deceased relatives, and fancier meals. But there is nothing that really makes it stand out from the pack.
It’s not, however, as if nothing memorable happened on this day.
Tradition holds that this is the day God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites fleeing Egypt. As a result, the tale of the splitting of the sea, including Miriam’s poem of praise to God for this singular act of deliverance, the Song of the Sea, is the Torah reading for the day.
That’s a pretty impressive pedigree. But still, the holiday never really fired up the Jewish imagination because we do not do anything unique or special on that day.
While each holiday has something that will pique the children’s interest, this holiday does not. That probably has something to do with the fact that after Seder night, where everything is geared to keeping the kids interested, the custom-making folks just plum ran out of any more ideas.
Let’s see. Dipping parsley into salt water so the kids ask, “what that’s for?” Check. Let the children take center stage to sing four questions in front of the whole family? Been there. Have the kids hunt for a piece of matzah in exchange for a present to keep them interested? Done that.
After having myriad customs designed to keep the children engaged and interested on the first night of Passover, come the last night, there is simply nothing left.
So what were the Jewish communities to do? Some came up with this idea: putting a bowl of water on the floor and jumping over it in the afternoon as a symbolic reenactment of the parting of the Red Sea.
But that custom, practiced in some communities, never took off in others; it never became the Jewish people’s universal practice. For kids, this can’t compete with eating a fish’s head on Rosh Hashanah, getting gelt on Hanukkah, or staying up all night on Shavuot.
“Come, Junior, let’s jump over a bowl of water,” a father entreats his son.
“Nah, sounds boring. You do it,” the son responds.
But the father in this case doesn’t need a prop. Unlike the children, the father – and parents in general – do have what to look forward to on this day.
And what’s that? That this marks the end of the holiday. That in two days the kids will go back to school; that the endless search for things to do will have ceased; that bucking all those traffic jams and sharing every piece of open space around a trickle of water in this land with 50 other people is over.
Kids may not look forward to Shvi’i shel Pessah, but parents with school-aged kids most definitely do. Because if today marks the Seventh Day of Passover, that means that the end of the long spring break that inexplicably begins a week before Passover is just around the corner.
Granted, this is not a very admirable reason to look forward to a religious holiday. But let’s face it, not everything we feel is always admirable. ■