The more I write the less successful I know I’ll be in getting my point across. But try I must.
Yes, this is a rant against making Pom Pesachs. No, I have nothing against Pomegranate per se. Yes, if you go to a hotel for Pesach you aren’t even on the map as far as making Pesach is concerned. No, I am a RW’er who is talking out of his boich; it’s almost impossible to celebrate a koshere Pesach in a hotel. OK. Disclaimers aside, let’s get cracking.
Info Notice: For those of you who haven’t heard of Pomegranate (yes, they take email orders, according to their site), it is a gourmet supermarket located in Midwood (that’s in Brooklyn, NY) on Coney Island Avenue. They’ve got anything and everything a kosher pays merveilleux should have. Dedicated fine cheeses created exclusively by them and for them, a high-end deli with hot pastrami that will make your eyes roll, a bakery, coffee section, valet parking and more make it a one-of-a-kind shopping experience for the kosher consumer.
To paraphrase Elan Kornblum’s tagline on TFusion Steakhouse (also located in Brooklyn):
“It is not like Manhattan; it is Manhattan”.
Pomegranate isn’t a shopping experience, it’s an adventure.
A massive, wildly pervasive (and successful) ad campaign coupled with innovative marketing (think a Lipa concert on its one year anniversary) only fueled its meteoric rise to the top of every Flatbush housewife’s grocery grocery list.
To begin with, I’m a massive Pom chossid. I shop there, spend time there, and browse the spacious mahogany floors with wide eyed wonder like some out-of-towner who landed in NYC for a day (or a Bein Hazmanim). Slowly wheeling my heavy, exotic fruits and food laden cart through the rows of gastronomic, gluttonous gashmiyos, I freely admit to being hypnotized by the endless array of kosher food on display. Admittedly, I am only there a few times a year, and I am not certain if I would shop there on a regular basis. Then, too, there is the fact that I am not the primary shopper for my household; that responsibility lies with my Angel Mother. Personally, I am not sure I could justify spending the money on the slightly inflated prices just for the extra geshmak that shopping there brings, but who knows. Maybe I would. But I digress; the financial fressing isn’t what bothers me. Not at all.
It is the chisaron of the traditional Pesach experience that the Pom crowd is lacking. I am determined not to launch into the “our ancestors prepared for Pesach through months of hard work yada yada” speech, so suffice it to say that this is not our way…
Prepackaged seder keoros? Not our mehalech.
Buying Shulchan Aruch seudos from start to finish? Not our mehalech.
Endless plastic containers of 100% pesach’dik candy? Not our mehalech.
And the final, unspeakable horror?
The endless assortment of cakes and cookies from multiple bakeries.
Rabbosai, permit me to wax poetic here for a moment. (Or don’t- I’m going to anyway). Pesach is, and always has been, a time of going back to the basics. Of fundamentals, if not fundamentalists. Ever hear of m’mish nisht? No?
That’s the worst symptom of a society gone increasingly goyish in an insane attempt to keep up with the Goyimses. Don’t you see? We’ve got it… all. Our Pesach tradition of returning to the nuts and bolts of gastronomy, and in a more metaphorical vein, of life, was not created as a response to any need or desire on the part of G-d. It is an endgame unto itself.
People, just roll with the basics for a couple of years. Try it, and you’ll see the (candle)light.
Less is more.
(Photo Credit to Eating in Translation)
