Am Yisrael - One big humus eating happy family

Every Pesach since I first became religious I've essentially had a repeat of the seder experience- a well groomed black hat sporting North American kiruv rabbi sitting at the head of the table spending the night sharing light-hearted parables tied into the story of Yetzirat Mitzrayim, everyone calmly getting their fill of matzah and maybe a cute performance from the kids. This year however due to me now having Israeli in-laws, I merited getting an up close view of the Moroccan and Yeminite worlds of Israel not so commonly available to those in the English speaking circles of Jerusalem.

The cultural challenges included things like trying to keep up with a table full of people who can read Hebrew 5 times faster than the speed of light and trying to reach halachik agreements over how to handle the intricacies of the Pesach laws with people who were often less then thrilled to have some yeshivish American kid come and start telling them what to do. In fact one thing I've noticed of quite a few of the non-Charedi Sephardim in Israel is that for many, opening up a Shulchan Aruch, Mishneh Breur or Yalkut Yosef and stating the halacha point blank seems to be no match in their eyes against claims of, "Who are you to tell me what to do? I was born in the neighboring town to where the Baba Sali lived!" Or, "My great grandfather was the Ben Ish Chai's milkman! You think I don't know what I'm talking about!?"

As difficult as it was at times to bridge the culture gap, I witnessed something really beautiful that put the whole idea of Am Yisrael and family in perspective for me. During Chol Hamoed one day we had a bbq up in Haifa. Here I was, wearing my frummer-than-though black and white "penguin" uniform surrounded by sabras in jeans and flip flops when my wife and I looked into a neighboring yard nearby. We saw another Israeli family quite similar to ours grilling their own food "al-ha'eish." Smack dab in the middle of the group was a man with a long beard also sporting the "uniform" with his super-tznious wife helping direct the festivities. My wife smiled and commented, "I guess there has to be one of those couples in every family!" Then it hit me, I looked at the people surrounding me that were in many ways so entirely different and yet had totally welcomed me into their family. I also looked down the street at the guy whom I'm sure had such similar Pesach experience to mine that he could probably write this post for me. I realized that's the story of Am Yisrael. As corny as it sounds, no matter how different we may look or feel we are all as Jews bound up by some common thread. What the thread is and how it works I'm not exactly sure bit it's definitely there and doing its thing. My rabbi gave several classes in Jerusalem in the last week or so and during one of them said that he never calls himself religious, just a Jew. People tell him things like, "Well look at your big beard!" He replies, "Goats can grow beards too, so what of it?" No matter how different we may look speak or act, we really are just one big family.