The Seder

In a snowstorm in Deer Valley, my sister Jill invited us to her in-laws for Passover. My heart sank. That was the same day we were going to Mammoth. Should we delay our trip? But if we did so, we’d miss either a day of skiing or Amy’s reception of the Pacific Palisades Sparkplug Award. Could a good Jew go skiing on Passover?

I didn’t think so.

Jewish guilt, there’s nothing more powerful.

Contemplating my dilemma, I was reminded of two years before, when Amy went to the seder at the rabbi’s and I had a service online! It assuaged my guilt, but not completely. There was no charoset, no matzoh, my service was half-baked.

But then Jill’s seder went into wild transition, I was eager to go skiing, and a light went on in my brain… I’ll borrow some Haggadahs and have a seder in Mammoth!

Only problem was Amy had three Haggadahs, none of them the same… How could Felice follow along if we only had one book?

Not getting an early start, we arrived in Mammoth Lakes just before sundown. And buying yogurt, soda and fruit at Vons, we stumbled upon the Passover display. Who knew? Jews are EVERYWHERE!

Upon seeing the egg matzoh, I had no choice. We needed accoutrements, we couldn’t just read from the Haggadah.

We bought the matzoh. And some horseradish. And some apple sauce. And after arriving at the Mammoth Mountain Inn in a blazing windstorm, unpacking our gear from the car and settling in our room, I broke out the Haggadahs and asked Felice if she was ready for our seder.

Smiling yes, I tried to decide which of the Haggadahs to use. One read from back to front, it had too much Hebrew for this Reform Jew. Another turned out to be an activity book. So I settled upon "My Favorite Family Haggadah".

Caffeine Free Diet Coke had to stand in for the Manischewitz. I no longer drink wine anyway. And as I gave the blessing… I was stunned to discover I knew every word.

With the sun firmly behind the mountain, I passed the Haggadah to Felice. And as she read, the words took on new meaning. I wasn’t just going through the motions, thinking about what I wanted to do when the seder was over, the story was RIVETING!

I was fearful that the Haggadah would be too dumbed down. That there wouldn’t be enough prayers.

But alas, they were just frontloading the service with story.

Did you know Moses means "pulled from the water" in Hebrew? Was news to me!

Then we got to the Four Questions.

And I was the youngest male in attendance. I haven’t read the Four Questions in decades!

And the very first line is…

"Why is this night different from all other nights?"

I stopped the seder. I had to tell Felice this was one of my father’s favorite lines. It was a pejorative. After someone did something typical… He’d say "Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh?" Over time, it got shortened to "Ma nishtanah?"

You know dad jokes. You wince, but you smile. Because it’s a point of connection.

Then I had to open the sliding glass door for Elijah. I was brought back to the Sheketoffs’ house on Old Farm Lane, when Harry would go into the foyer and open the front door for the prophet. By Passover the weather had always turned in Connecticut, it was warm.

We ate the horseradish, representing bitter herbs… I remember when Alan Sheketoff, reading for one of the very first times, called it "bitter HONEY"! We laughed! We bring it up at every seder. The same way I sing "dayenudayenudayenu" quickly in the chorus of the Passover staple.

We sang songs, we told stories and for the first time, I was in charge. It was my seder. I didn’t need to skip ahead, the Haggadah wasn’t that long, but if I’d wanted to, I could have, like my ancestors before me.

Suddenly, sitting there eating our Hillel sandwiches, apple sauce between the two layers of matzoh, I was overcome with a need to share my inner glow. And that’s why I’m writing to you on Passover. Believe what you want, but it’s all about TRADITION!

And speaking of tradition, I made Felice hide in the hall while I hid the afikomen. Took her over ten minutes to find it in our hotel room. I ultimately had to give her a hint, to look closer where she’d already been.

When she discovered it atop the armoire, we laughed. And I told her about hiding the afikomen in my uncle’s bed in the fifties, and how my grandmother freaked out when the little kids broke it into bits. The following year I hid it in the light fixture. Nobody found it!

But that’s not really the game. The game is to get the little kids involved, to turn them on to the experience, to let them know we may have been oppressed for centuries, but there’s joy in being a Jew.

By: bob | 2008/04/20 | Life and Life Only | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

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Frank Teger

Comment by Frank Teger | 2008/05/02 at 15:07:10

Hey Bob,

I’ve just been introduced to your Website, blogs, Newsletters and I’m loving it. This Seder edition was great and reminded me of my past Seders, especially the ones that were celebrated with the people who are no longer on this earth.

My dad and grandmother were holocaust survivors and were probably 2 of the most gracious people I have ever known. How they could be so gracious and accepting of of all people regardless of race, religion or age always amazed me, especially with the hardships they had to go through. My grandmother was 1 of 7 children, her whole family was wiped out. Her Husband, my father’s, father was killed by Nazi Soldiers who after promising the men of the town he lived in that their lives would be spared if they helped build a bridge between 2 small towns. The men were lined up thanked for their hard work and gunned down. My father was deaf. He was born a normal hearing boy, but at the age of 5, sick with fever and in arms of my grandmother, as they were trying to flee Poland to Austria they were caught between villages after curfew by a Nazi soldier. My grandmother with a fake passport and my father dressed as a girl (which prevented any soldiers pulling down a boys pants, trying to detect a circumcision and a Jew) were stopped by the solider. My father was crying and the soldier asked my grandmother to quiet the girl (boy), she pleaded for mercy and told the soldier she was on her way to her sister’s house the next town over. The soldier asked for her to quiet the Girl (boy) again and as she was clutching him in her arms, he just reared up with rifle in his hands and hit my father in the head with the butt of the rifle. It quieted him right up. Knocked him out cold. When I was a child my father used to have me feel the dent in his skull that eventually closed off and damaged the nerves in his brain that controlled his hearing. He never once had any hatred for anything or anyone. he married a deaf woman who grew up on a farm in West Virginia, protestant girl who agreed to convert to Judaism.

My grandmother was always the center of our family, matriarch if you will, because she valued every single minute of her life, especially Passover Seders. When doing the prayer to let The Angel Elijah into our home, My Grandfather would say the prayer in Hebrew, my grandmother would go over to the door and hold it open to let the Angel in, unbeknownst to me at the time, she would pull feathers out of her pillow and hold them in her hand and as she opened the door she would let the feathers fly into the house, then my grandfather would tap the table so that the Wine Cup for Elijah would vibrate and My grandmother would announce, "The Angel is here with us again see the feathers, see the cup as he drinks"

These days we talk about those wonderful times and the wonderful people and we say a special prayer for the people who are no longer with us. My son is 18 and no longer the youngest, but since the youngest is only 2 he says the 4 questions.

Thanks Bob, for sharing your traditions of past and new traditions that you seem to have embraced into your family now. Lechaim! To Life!.

Frank Teger

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Frank Teger

Comment by Frank Teger | 2008/05/02 at 15:07:10

Hey Bob,

I’ve just been introduced to your Website, blogs, Newsletters and I’m loving it. This Seder edition was great and reminded me of my past Seders, especially the ones that were celebrated with the people who are no longer on this earth.

My dad and grandmother were holocaust survivors and were probably 2 of the most gracious people I have ever known. How they could be so gracious and accepting of of all people regardless of race, religion or age always amazed me, especially with the hardships they had to go through. My grandmother was 1 of 7 children, her whole family was wiped out. Her Husband, my father’s, father was killed by Nazi Soldiers who after promising the men of the town he lived in that their lives would be spared if they helped build a bridge between 2 small towns. The men were lined up thanked for their hard work and gunned down. My father was deaf. He was born a normal hearing boy, but at the age of 5, sick with fever and in arms of my grandmother, as they were trying to flee Poland to Austria they were caught between villages after curfew by a Nazi soldier. My grandmother with a fake passport and my father dressed as a girl (which prevented any soldiers pulling down a boys pants, trying to detect a circumcision and a Jew) were stopped by the solider. My father was crying and the soldier asked my grandmother to quiet the girl (boy), she pleaded for mercy and told the soldier she was on her way to her sister’s house the next town over. The soldier asked for her to quiet the Girl (boy) again and as she was clutching him in her arms, he just reared up with rifle in his hands and hit my father in the head with the butt of the rifle. It quieted him right up. Knocked him out cold. When I was a child my father used to have me feel the dent in his skull that eventually closed off and damaged the nerves in his brain that controlled his hearing. He never once had any hatred for anything or anyone. he married a deaf woman who grew up on a farm in West Virginia, protestant girl who agreed to convert to Judaism.

My grandmother was always the center of our family, matriarch if you will, because she valued every single minute of her life, especially Passover Seders. When doing the prayer to let The Angel Elijah into our home, My Grandfather would say the prayer in Hebrew, my grandmother would go over to the door and hold it open to let the Angel in, unbeknownst to me at the time, she would pull feathers out of her pillow and hold them in her hand and as she opened the door she would let the feathers fly into the house, then my grandfather would tap the table so that the Wine Cup for Elijah would vibrate and My grandmother would announce, "The Angel is here with us again see the feathers, see the cup as he drinks"

These days we talk about those wonderful times and the wonderful people and we say a special prayer for the people who are no longer with us. My son is 18 and no longer the youngest, but since the youngest is only 2 he says the 4 questions.

Thanks Bob, for sharing your traditions of past and new traditions that you seem to have embraced into your family now. Lechaim! To Life!.

Frank Teger

The Seder

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