I am conflicted about most of Judaism, but I am the most conflicted about Passover. It is a historical fact that the Hebrews were never slaves in Egypt. So, is the Passover story a story of cultural appropriation, of stealing the pain and suffering of others to create a fake historical claim on a piece of land? Or is it maybe an exercise in imagination, an invitation to check one’s privilege, to constantly view yourself as though you could be oppressed, and so must work for the freedom of others?

The Hagaddah has weirdly fun dream-like phrases, “An Aramean destroyed my father,” and also un-fun advice on how to abuse your child for asking a question the wrong way. The food is the best (matzo balls! flourless chocolate cake!) and the worst (dry kugel, matzo, matzo, more matzo). As I said, I’m conflicted.

For me, the best parts of Passover are the stories. Not the stories in the Hagaddah, which as discussed, are problematic, but the stories people tell about Passover. Every family has them. When my great grandfather, Benjamin Katz, traveled to New York on a buying trip for his furniture store he met a young man, a poor immigrant Yeshiva boy. A stranger in a strange land who had come to this country with his grandfather and sister. My great grandfather invited him upstate to Troy for the Seder. At the Seder, the young man met my grandmother, a “beautiful girl,” what could he do? They were married in June of that same year.

Years later, at another Seder in the same big house, my great grandfather, a little fed up with the afikomen shenanigans of his grandchildren (my father, uncle, and cousins) took matters into his own hands. Instead of hiding the piece of matzo for the children to find and re-hide when he went to wash his hands, he put the piece in his vest pocket and took it with him. My father tells this story every year, and every year, I tell it to whomever I am with for Passover.

My mother has a story as well. Her father was a career Marine. One year, long before she was born, at her uncle’s Seder they went to open the door for Elijah, and in walked my grandfather, on surprise leave from the Marines.

Most years we spend Passover with my in-laws, and they have their own way of doing things. Sometimes at Passover I miss home. I miss my family’s Seder, and I think about the differences in the way I was raised, fully steeped, almost to the point of suffocation, in Jewish tradition and stories, and the way I am raising my children, exposed, but not immersed in tradition. Before I even had children I knew that while raising them to know and understand their culture and tradition was important to me, raising them to become Jewish themselves was not.

Judaism and Jewish education has been a fact in our lives, but not a priority. We hae Shabbat dinner every week, unless someone has plans. Hebrew school can be missed for hockey or basketball. Bar/bat mitzvah training is something you fit in around the rest of your life. Hebrew school can be quit once your bar/bat mitzvah is over. Sometimes, when they ask things like, “Wait, which one is Yom Kippur again? Is that the one with matzo or the one where you fast?” it makes me a little sad.

This year, we had Passover with my parents. As we went around the table, reading the Haggadah, a different one than the one my in-laws use, my kids started telling their stories. There was a story about Grandma and her play that we are not allowed to act out, and the tambourine she insists on using to sing “Dayenu.” There was a story about the fight that Grandma and Cousin Sarah have every year about Miriam’s Gourd. There was a story about Nancy, a family friend who died this year, and the amazing desserts she always made for the Seder.

My parents told their stories, I told my stories, my husband told his stories, and my children told their stories.

I don’t know if my children will grow up to have Seders of their own or not. But I do know they’ll remember the ones we’ve had. I know that they’ll remember their parents and their grandparents and the stories of their great grandparents and even their great-great grandparents.

They have the stories. As we say on Passover, Dayenu.