In Which Other People Write Better Than I Do

Simcha Fisher (I kind of want to be her), who blogs over here, posted a lovely story about growing up in a Catholic Jewish household and the way in which it gave a special preeminence to Easter:

All during Holy Week, my father could be heard practicing the Exsultet
to chant at the Easter vigil, as my mother fried and ground up liver and onions in preparation for the Passover seder....I can’t imagine eating leftover gefilte fish without a chocolate bunny on the side; and I can’t imagine hearing “Christ our light!” without echoes of “Dayenu!” – “It would have been enough!” still lingering, both exultant prayers of thanksgiving to the God who always gives more than we deserve.

I enjoyed the read, and the right at the very end, she gave me goosebumps.  There are some things only Catholics who know our Jewish roots can understand, as I am constantly learning:

But what always stopped me in my tracks is something my father discovered one year. Imagine, he told us, the Hebrews in their homes, painting their doorpost and lintel with the blood of the lamb as the Lord commanded. They would raise their arm to brush the blood on the top of the door, and then down again to dip again into the blood; and then up to the left, to mark the post on one side, and then to the right … does this sound familiar?  Act it out: up, down, left, right.  It’s very possible that, thousands of years before Calvary, the children of God were already making the sign of the cross.