Yes, I’m a shiksa. I fit into a group of women of the likes of Ruth, Tamar…Rahab. As you can see by my colleagues, none of us are perfect.

You see, “shiksa” is a Yiddish word that describes a gentile woman who is married to a man of Jewish descent. Some rabbis agree that the word means blemished, but when you think about it, really, there isn’t anyone who’s flawless.

My in-loves (in-laws) have always said the name with a smile and used the word in an endearing way and I know they love me, in all my gentile ways. I’ve heard the epithet several times throughout my 17 years of marriage, like the time when I asked if matzah was just a big saltine cracker or if you could serve tartar sauce with gefilte fish. I heard my father-in-love whisper the word when I once made the remark that ground sausage would go great in matzo ball soup and when I used birthday candles in the family menorah, but never in my life was the moniker more deserving than the time I made Passover dinner.

Like I said…NONE of us are perfect.

A friend had given my husband a gift of a couple of large, vacuum-sealed packages of delicious smoked meat in November of the year before. Just a month later, I opened one of the packages for Christmas dinner and the beef brisket we prepared was an incredible treat, so I saved the second batch for the dinner that was to follow the Springtime Passover which was only a few months away. Traditionally, lamb is served at Passover, but being the Texas-girl that I am, beef brisket would be a perfect ending to a beautifully symbolic meal.

The frozen meat sat thawing in the sink as I set the table for the seder that was to begin in the evening. Thankfully, it wouldn’t take too long to warm up the main course in the oven while my husband presided over the traditional reading of the Haggadah.  This particular year, Passover fell on Easter, so even though stores were closed I was pretty confident that I had everything checked off my list. Kosher wine-check, matzah (not saltines)-check, gefilte fish (no tartar sauce)-check, horse radish-check, charoset-check; lamb shank, roasted egg, parsley…check, check, check. It was all coming together beautifully!

There was one thing, however, that I had not put on my list that I was about to discover. One…unwelcome guest…was lurking in our home. Even though it was small, this was in fact, really a huge deal. Forget the title of Shiksa, the following event was something that could have nominated this girl for the ‘Gentile of the Year Award’, if there was such a thing.

My husband stood, frozen in front of the sink, looking down as he was shaking his head. I had just laid out the last place setting on the large table and walked over to see what he was looking at. That’s when he asked me, “So, do you know what that is?”

I looked down and was trying to decide what he was inquiring about. There were several unwashed bowls and utensils on one side and the almost fully defrosted meat on the other. He was either asking about the meat or a ladle…I couldn’t decide which.

He looked up at me and asked, with a little bit more clarity, “Do you know what it is that you’re serving for Passover?”

I was rather excited about our well planned meal and joyfully answered, “Yeah! That’s the delicious brisket we had at Christmas! I saved the second one for tonight!”

He moved his lips to one side. I couldn’t tell whether he was hiding a smile or wanting to cry when he replied, “Honey, that’s a pork butt.”

Shiksa.   Shiksa, shiksa, shiksa…

It was a beef brisket, I was absolutely sure.  The package looked identical to the one that I had opened on Christmas Eve, just four months earlier. How did that brisket mysteriously transform into something else while sitting in my kitchen sink…on Passover?

My husband, still shaking his head, walked over to the table and sat down quietly. I knew what he was thinking…that’s my shiksa who is putting a pork butt on the table for Passover.

I’m so thankful for the humor that Lance exudes in almost every situation in life. He sat at the table fiddling with the three letters that spelled ‘I AM’. They were a center piece on the beautifully set table that I had our boys paint from the previous Passover. They look like this…

I was staring down at the sink trying to figure out how I was going to magically change a pork butt into anything else. I looked closer at the package. It was DEFINITELY not a brisket. Almost all of the stores were closed and there was no saving this one. Lamb, ribeyes, chicken, salmon, a salad…tacos…heck, at this point I would have gladly served gefilte fish as an entree because anything was better than pork butt at Passover. Even I knew that.

A couple of moments later, I glanced back at my husband, who was now chuckling at the table. When he saw me looking he motioned to the letters which now said…

He’s always been a big supporter of mine.

I sat at the sink thinking about several things at once. Boy, I had blown this one big time. Honestly, at this point we could have brought out fluffy dinner rolls wrapped in bacon and it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing else on the dinner table was going to overshadow the blunder that was screaming at me from the sink.

I glanced back at Lance, who was still chuckling and once again pointed to his ‘hammy’ joke when he caught my eye.

Of course, then that made me think about ham. We serve ham at Easter almost every year. I kind of wondered if that was how early Christians celebrated the fact that Jesus’ blood abolished the Law. So, not only did Jesus die to set us free from our sins, but, because He died, we could freely eat a big slice of ham. Yes, that’s it…Jesus died for all of our sins and maybe that covered breakfast bacon too!

Yup, I’m a shiksa and I know I’m not perfect, but I know the grace of God goes beyond any pork butt that ever made it to Passover and He still loves the shiksa who served it.