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Miss Conduct

Advice: Can I skip my wife’s Seder?

A spouse who isn’t Jewish checks in with a timely question.

lucy truman

My wife is Jewish and I am not. I enjoy spending time with her family, but I find the Passover Seder tedious, and I am sick of doing it every year. Also, the Haggadah they use frames relations between Jews and non-Jews in an “us vs. them” manner, which I find off-putting. And on a weeknight, the traffic can be bad. My wife says I should go, but I think it is OK for us to have different interests and do different things. What do you think?

Anonymous / Cambridge

I received your letter months ago and tucked it away in my “future” file. As Passover 2015 drew near, I recalled your question. I thought about tribalism and the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the universality of the metaphor of deliverance from bondage and whether I was even really up for writing about all of that, given this winter’s demoralizing weather and the fact that I haven’t even started my own Pesach cleaning yet.

And then I went back and reread what you wrote and realized my brain had whipped up a giant meringue out of nothing. So you’re not into Seders! Particularly the way your wife’s family does them. That seems, as it were, perfectly kosher to me. (For those who don’t know, a Passover Seder isn’t like saying grace over the Thanksgiving turkey and digging in. It’s a two- to five-hour participatory session of what can be irreverently but accurately described as dinner theater. I love them beyond reason, but you can see where not everyone might. The quality and content of both food and script can vary.)

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We don’t need to go deep with this topic. There’s nothing to problematize. You don’t have to go, as far as I’m concerned. You gave the Seders a decent shot, but it’s not for you.

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As regular readers know, this is the part where I say, “Of course, I’m not your wife.” I don’t know what your wife’s family dynamics are or what your attendance might symbolize in the longer narrative of your marriage. There may be other factors at play besides your preferences. It’s legitimate to not like the Seder, but sometimes we make sacrifices for our spouses. I don’t know if this is one of those times. You need to decide that between the two of you.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.


WHAT DO YOU AND YOUR PARTNER ARGUE OVER? Send your questions to Miss Conduct at missconduct@globe.com.