If
you saw us that year, 1955, gathered at twilight at the Passover table, you
might have thought we were the exemplary extended family. All ages represented.
A large, "up from nothing, from dust" family, as my father, Max,
would say, prospering, with two of the generations American born. In a way we were, as much as any family
can be ideal. Which is not very much.
There
we sat, crowded around an expectant, appointed table that filled the middle
room, some twenty of us- aunts, uncles, cousins and a few of Zayde's undernourished-
looking bachelor friends. At each place setting a fine china soup bowl atop a
fine china plate, beside a small Haggadah in English and Hebrew. Silverware
polished to a high shine and two glasses - one for wine even for the children
and one for water or seltzer. In
the center of the table, six candles flamed in wrought silver candlesticks and next
to them a stack of matzahs that were covered by an embroidered cloth. Everything
was ready. And we knew that in the apartment directly below us Uncle Sol and
Aunt Ruth, cousins Isaac and Bernie, Eleanor and her husband Bill and their small
son Ira, were sitting as we sat, about to begin as we were about to begin. And all the Jews in New York City,
including Uncle Harry and our cousins in Brooklyn, the same.
A
couch with Mission-style wooden arms was pushed up against the table. This was
where the children were placed- Barbara, myself, Harvey, David, Ira, Allen - I
don't remember where the really little children were. My father and the uncles,
Morris and Ben and Murray, sat facing us.
Zayde was at the head of the table leaning on pillows because the
Haggadah said we must rest on pillows as we tell this story to demonstrate that
we are free people.
And
the women, you might be wondering. Where were the women - my mother, Ida and Aunt
Yetta, Aunt Ann and Natalie, and Bubbie, where were they? Ah, now we begin to
approach the flaws, the falling short that is part of any family picture. The
women's chairs were nearest the kitchen door, at the open end of the table
because they spent the evening getting up and helping Bubbie serve and then
sitting down to eat something and then getting up again to clear and wash the
dishes, all the while keeping note of which child was eating what and how much
because being "a good eater" was much prized in those days. Bubbie
didn't sit down at all.
Led
by Zayde, the men rushed through the Hebrew text of the Haggadah in a mumbling
singsong. Now about this Haggadah.
Every year from the time I could read I would search in the
Haggadah for the story, the really compelling story of Moses in the basket, the
Princess who found him, his time in the desert, with the Pharoah and finally
the great exodus from Egypt. Each year I would imagine I had somehow missed it
the year before. But, no it wasn't there. It was never there. Instead the
Haggadah was a series of obscure vignettes about ancient rabbis, Rabbi Gamliel was one, who said this or that and sat up disputing until the cock crowed. I
assumed that this text was the way it had to be, like the Torah, not a word
could be changed.
The men read on, but no matter how fast they read, it was not fast enough. The roast was getting cold, the children irritable. The women hovered, paced, ached to serve. It was already eight o'clock. But the meal could not begin until the men had finished. Cousin David pinched me and I rushed to pinch him back and our mothers glowered at us so we switched to kicking each other under the table.
Finally
everyone was fed and the children went careening into the darkened far bedrooms
to search for the afikomen, the
hidden middle matzah without which the meal and the story are forever
incomplete. It was Ira, the
oldest, who found it that last year, wrapped in a napkin, tucked under a lamp.
He was promised five dollars when the holidays were over. The rest of us were
each promised two.
Sometime
later that spring Bubbie and Zayde decided they were too old to care for a six
room apartment. They moved across the street to three rooms and our large
gatherings downtown were no more.
After
that, the setting for our seders was a suburban finished basement, minus the
grandparents who wouldn't travel on the holiday or stay in anyone else's
home. Without them the link to
something larger vanished, at least for me. I'm not sure why this was. Maybe because
we just repeated what had been - the same Rabbinic Haggadah stories we didn't
understand, the mumbling, the hovering, the meal served too soon or too late.
We never made it our own.
It's
different now, as I'm sure you know. The Haggadah, as it turns out, is not at all like the Torah.
An infinite number of approaches are possible. Currently, for every nuance of Jewish observance there
exists a suitable Haggadah text in English or Hebrew or both. And, if you can't
find a published one to your liking, you can always create your own. Even the
occasional liberal church hosts some ecumenical version during the Easter
season.
This
year, on April 22, my sister Jayne will set a lovely table. My husband Sam (not Jewish but might as
well be by now) and I will go to her home in Connecticut where her husband
Larry and all our adult children and their partners will join us. Maybe there will also be some friends. Our leader is female, it's me, since I'm
the one who cares the most and is the most knowledgeable. I will lead the seder
as a participatory event, mostly in English, using a Haggadah that tells the
story of the Exodus and, with additional handouts, we will recall modern examples
of oppression and freedom. The
telling, the washing, the dipping, the sandwich of bitter herbs and our songs are
completed in less than an hour. For myself, on this night, the seder is remains a
connection to Jews around the world and to our stories past and present. I do not know if this is so for my own
children. Perhaps this year I will ask them.
