off the rails the court all court recognize that can i ask you what one think you you in your view all of the items in said issue stand or fall together you don't have any separate thanksgiving dinners are widely cultural celebrations where we fell short is because this thing on that these are cultural ritual celebrations specific specific specific regard to carving the bird know what i think that's precisely the point where i thought this is what is there and is there what specific act the u s sociate with the thanksgiving same thursday and the month that no i am exactly thanks jamie day i just as children we know we go to our grandparents house we get a little older we go to our parents after that maybe at our house if you don't have grandparents if you do h i think that's correct i think different cultural influences played a part both in this ritual and the seder ritual if i want orthodox to i may follow more scripted formalities that if i'm a reform jew living in virginia if i'm  celebrating that is whether or not their rituals and i supposed all of this started thanksgiving and new england and then i mean there wasn't a tantalus where i come from and in the beginning of these celebrations i don't think i don't think the native americans celebrate thanksgiving do we know that well i could say or i think we hearken back to the days when the pilgrims and it is first got together tomorrow and try to get out as it's possible that there could be regional versions of the rituals for thanksgiving and christmas i think there can just as as with the seder it celebrated differently in israel than the standards areas in the west bank has come to no wonder that after this after the damage that was done and mid west of cannonballs and then this particular ritual requirement was put and it's no wonder that the customs came and said please get rid of all that well because of the what what under your view of the interpretation of this provision and what kinds of judgments with the customs officer have to make well i think that these are articles said a customs officer would would have to do what he would normally necessarily have to do in cases that involve a list of articles descriptions such as this in the head he's going to have to look at the i didn't see the belong to the same class or kind of items that are numerated he's going to have to make it to that point i think he's got he's going to in a way he's not going to be a religious scholar and know all of the rules of the seder to know that that this item aside from say a plate is it means within his provision good that's going to require a little more study but i think if you're going to be able to adjust to it and adjudicate in your mind as administrator that these are items that are usually used in the ceremonies in these celebrations then i think you know and the more alas not other west and not used otherwise that's created not people and not used otherwise i think that one of the things that struck me is the co describing there's no evidence that the plain white plates that come out for passover and are used only for passover just because you're supposed to use different plates would i think there's something something close to the truth about that i'm not sure i would not come under this because those very same plates could be sold for any number of other occasions there's nothing that if you look at them says these are pass we use in that way i think what but also strange really inclusion is the fact that your honor seems to be suggesting they don't have any special symbols that make their use in another time  parent as as was the case in festival arcus are you looking to see when i was a festival article that was one of the issues that you were looking for i'm not so certain that's the case here i don't agree with the government that you have to first meet a festive t about how with the current the two thousand and seven regime came to be before that there were as i understand it you know this better than i but my understanding is in two thousand and six there was the chapter ninety five and in particular heading ninety five i don't know point ten or what not and that's pretty broadly covered festive articles and congress or the change says we're not going to have that anymore in particular we're going to add an exclusion for tableware and kitchenware and i'm going to have fun because of what you said at the very beginning of the argument i'm going to include lamps in there here last category everything else is clearly and it feels to me like you're making an argument for reinstating under the new regime what is pretty clearly carved out from the old regime because how is the customs officer going to make that distinction between anything that's you know christmas ornaments nativities scenes articles for christmas festivities and parts and accessories are there of the answer is going to be know it it's not used in a cultural ritual necessarily unless you say the birthday party is its cultural ritual so i think that narrows it that narrows in a lot of what happens to already fall are not listed in the listing and ninety  and promulgating nine one seven point nine five that there are only like nine or ten subheadings that were identified to deserve that ritual treatment yes roger because those are as article discussing earlier is a history here two thousand and seven becomes the break point prior to two thousand and seven anything that would manage to be a festival article under ninety five zero five didn't matter whether or not you interpretation of a group of rich sufficient ritual here for thanksgiving that would have allowed these good special rugs for what what was the ritual ever to be your honor i'm not aware of any ritual but if i were to design one i would have to be that there was a blessing that was given in sixteen twenty two or twenty three when the pilgrims devised this this event this thanksgiving event that there was a blessing and a prayer and that before anyone maybe you come to the table and before you can sit down everyone stands up all right everyone has to be male female male female hold hands across around the table and then you say the prayer and the first person says the first work and the second person says a second more and again i'm inventing something here but we're looking at it and the reason i invent it that way is because i'm looking at the example ors of this heading and we're talking about a  talking about a menorah we're talking about glass and cups and we're talking about a cholera those for example ours are telling us what this heading is being to put back because remember all these utilitarian articles have just been excluded  from ninety five or five and there's a footnote to one fee that says but you can go look in the special condition and it's not a heading by the way it's a subheading so before you could ever get to ninety a seventeen point nine five you go first show up and see whether or not you would have been in the old regime of of a festival article of ninety five zero five and when you walk into that that heading and you say oh no i am actually a cup on a plate on table where i am i'm a candle i'm a lamp if i fall into that then i would not allow to be in that heading any more but i might just might fall into an exception to the exclusion and this  specific ritual that's true your honor but how in the hell is a margaret customs supposed to know what does he have a book that tells him what rituals are for every holiday he does it your honor that i'm aware of and she doesn't that i'm aware of but what does exist is the remark act it is the importers obligation to make sure if i'm going to assert that i fall into ninety eight seven hundred ninety five that in fact i'm telling you what the ritual is and that in good faith i have an obligation so most of the time as the court is aware most of the goods that are coming into the united states were relying on the trustworthiness of importers and of brokers to tell  celebration ritual maybe even celebration plastic pumpkin bucket for trick or treating yes buckets are included in the list before you get to the specific ritual thing included if they're the shape of a pumpkin they are your honor why i mean they're not exempt except for the three words trick or treat there's not any words spoken and crapo bully some extremely small percentage of trick or treaters carry these things right maybe even the particularly small ones right your honor they're actually not in this heading there is the other subheading why why are they not in this setting they're not understanding because for the very reason your honor states that for example the bucket is not necessary to the performance of th specific holiday in the united states so if one were to make that bucket in the shape of a frankenstein head in the shape of a pumpkin and you see this all the time you see little kids walking they have a little pumpkin every little or form with a black place the candle of though before right into the second point so the first point is a very restrictive and the category they're trying to fit into here with just a follow up why couldn't it fall within both categories why isn't the active trick or treating saying trick or treat i mean it's very minimal ritual for have but a ritual nonetheless because you're all right this cultural celebration it's a i don't know that it's a cultural celebration per se is a cultural event and it doesn't have the face it doesn't have the formality associated i guess that's the real next question i have is why it's it felt perhaps like the court below and and the government really is expecting something formal something solemn something borderline religious if not actually villagers and it's not clear to me what in the text really demands that so long as there is something that is ritualistic in the sense it's just something you definitely do that there's a certain act that you that you do and saying trick or treat you know or doing that be easter egg hunt on easter and you have those little hollow plastic eggs that you know you hide around in your backyard why isn't why aren't those things considered rituals because your honor i don't think that it rises to the level of a form of a tradition it's more of a custom it's something that people have done over over time i mean the idea of putting the plastic bags out that's a recent advent of easter i mean easter has been around two thousand years and th i think it goes back to when we talk about the formalism we're looking at the exemplars we're looking at a seder plate there's a hunger that does have certain prayers that it does have a story that's being told and there is it's it's more formulaic there is a blessing that's occurring there are specific foods i mean if one were to limit say that how we if you were to be limited only to saying you know trigger treat i mean little kids would come up and they'll just stand there and the trade and you and you are taking a position requiring a a very high degree of specificity and formality and it's not clear why one should that into into this into this language i think it's because the language includes in the performance of specific ritual or cultural excuse me religious or cultural particular ethnic group right but the thing what happens there is that you have a tradition and you have perhaps a custom but that's not rising to the they're choosing this war very specifically where they're choosing the word ritual and they're also including in the heading performance performance of specific religious or cultural ritual celebrations so you need to understand what we're talking about performance so performance is generally that word we understand to be scripted and that is supported by your first time say that if i had a call for all the store you know cultural celebration that didn't have any performance element we wouldn't qualify i think that's right your honor i think you have to have some performance you know yes in the plain language of of this heading there's it's call it there it's calling for the performances calling for the article to be used in the performance and that goes to the concept of ritual ritual all the definitions that we see talk about a scripted event that has a form of middle of the formal i don't i don't want to make sure that the quite understands what we understand formal to be is that it is preset that there's a certain sequence of events that has to occur are and if it doesn't occur then it falls out of the realm of a ritual i guess i'm not sure i can think of examples but your friend on the other side i think w adverting to what intuitively seems is probably right which is that there are certain ritual celebrations in which there is not just one thing you can say or one set of acts you take but a menu of choices you have you have to make i guess he was referring to in israel seder may be one thing that may be a different thing in some other place does  your it feels like your approach to this would exclude that that you're you're suggesting that there has to be a unique set of acts or words that pretty much everybody involved in the celebration has to follow without choice yes i think that's right you're out of that there are certain fundamentals to that ritual event now can one do a risk on that particular ritual event and maybe you know add to the story that might be possible but there's an underlying fundamental there has to there's a foundation here of what the event will be that would be for example  to do it but that's going to be our very specific ritual and that may be within that group a specific tradition of a ritual it may be their cost of their specific custom but there is still underneath so we still have the six foods and someone's going to have a seventh well that that's an episode accretion that doesn't change the function the foundation of the event the fundamental event is still ritualistic it is still preset placed in a certain way the candles are color is on one side you know there's red all that red black candle and then green candles you can't mix that up now i mean if you tried to reform that you're changing that so the konar is holding those candles in a certain way there's a formula ism to this there are symbols and words there intonation about a fourth of july and launching of fireworks every fourth of july every town city they have to buy a whole bunch of fireworks and maybe there's some foreign country that is trying to import them into that and every town every city nine twenty pm on the fourth of july they launch a whole bunch of yeah the home of the backyard there are over three hundred million people in this country before but let's assume for the moment they all want fireworks every fourth of july in their home and the homes and the first responders will be with fourth of july still have occurred it would have and there may have been people made the rituals you get up and you say you know the star spangled banner you sing the national anthem as part of the fourth of july  you know i'm from philadelphia please go out independence hall you roll out the death ration of independence and you reciting that's done every fourth of july in the morning when the general whose name was mr nixon would have believe it or not would have read the declaration of independence so that becomes perhaps that's perhaps that rises to the level of a ritual because it is most standing and has a performance aspect to it and it has specific words i cannot  right definition and understands that the ritual here is much more formal language and must be performed thank you very much thank you really the government number one is mentioned she describes well first of all and ask your question as long as you say a prayer before you light the fireworks according to government it would be a ritual the description of of the government invention of the holiday doesn't square with some of the definitions of cedar that are already on the record the government points out that a seder is a festival that includes reading drinking wine telling stories eating special food and saying that's a pretty loosely informal type of description to describe the city and i think that goes along with the statute and it's understanding that you when you when you pick out a set of definitions are often not written that way that if you want to know what this thing is well it's this kind of thing you want more specifics i'll give them to you but the specifics matter i think that's correct and mass goes to the point of the statute how it's written it defines cultural rituals and religious rituals differently cultural wrote rituals must be performed during a holiday a holiday religious can be during a holiday or religious festival even a distinction between a word has an important function here because i think that lends itself to the court interpreted that the meaning of a religious ritual different than a cultural or secular ritual and i think that that again goes back to way of showing african american culture and it has been evolving and maybe in a few weeks from now it will balk even more as this country becomes more secular we're going to have less and less religious  rituals and i think that the import specials that has to do with it then it's got a real problem because when you look at a dictionary when you have seven definitions of ritual maybe the cultural rituals will be on top of the this is really dorms pacific you have to be in one of these categories for a ship because of that then you have to be a specific cultural ritual and it can only be used on a holiday that in itself is quite limited and the government seems to want to limit it only to the example ours and nothing else and it's requiring religious formality and is not a part of necessarily a part of cultural rituals at all we live these things we know what to do because we don't know we will do it again and we expect to do it again and our children do will do this a way because they grew up with there's a ritual and it's part of our tradition that's  forceful enough symbol for me to keep in the context of this statute rather than looking for further ways of limiting it by saying you have to have a prayer before you like that the fire thank you very much thanks lisa submitted