A
Reform Passover in Richfield
The
candle-holders stand ready, sprouting their offerings to God. The 11”
candles show their wicks with opulence, breathing in flamed,
smoke-plumed abated blush, waiting to shade the faces of the
blessers, the confessors who shield their eyes from centuries of
waxed remembers. In the middle of the table, in the center of
yellow-clothed varnished oak-filled lengths of ten arms, was a Seder
plate. Copper sinks into a yellow sea, clear so far of surrounding
crumbs. None has yet tried to break free from the small wells, the
five individual indents in the plate. All was in order; lamb shank,
parsley, horseradish, haroset, egg. In the center of the plate is a
small glass dish filled with salt water. I waits steeped in tepidly
growing religious mystery, its symbolism will be explained in the
questions everyone is glad I ask. In a basket matzo is stacked under
an orange cloth napkin. At six place settings are haggadot that tell
the tale, the timeless story of the Exodus from Egypt, the
enslavement of Israelites, the ten plagues God brought to pharaoh and
the milky honeyed motivated Red Sea escape. A goblet is pewter and
reflects its many years decants, fighting tarnishes of replenishment,
soon to be a closely surveilled vessel, is placed next to the matzo
for Elijah. The biblical prophet is the undisputed champion of the
oppressed and downtrodden, the very people each Passover is geared to
celebrate, to honor the theme of freedom and rid the world of
tyranny, injustice and need for perennial homage.
The
order is tall. My dad sits at the end, the last arm of oak whee the
cloth hangs to tousle any heads of dogs, or facilitate shields of
slight in hand that corroborate godded trickery. He leans to the left
on a pillow in a swiveling desk chair. At his side are all his props
for any eventuality, anything he made need, any embellishment to the
haggadotal story. He has his wine, his own bottle, his chance to be
decanter. He has his readings, the books , the prayers and stories
beyond the order of the day. He has his yarmulkes, his various
coverings, the humbled nods to God. They are navy and khaki, white
and black. He shows one that's purple velvet with gold trim spidering
from its center like creases of sunlight. As it says, after some
formalities, my dad reads, “welcome to our Seder!”
I
am the youngest and read four questions. The leader answers them, one
at a time, They are questions that build on one another, like “why
is this night different from all other nights?” which leads to why
we dip parsley in salt water, why horseradish, or why is it one
person gets to lean on a pillow. No one is that impressed. They're
whelmed. It is, to anyone who is remotely familiar with Judaism, a
faith in which nearly everything is done for a reason. There is
symbolism and tradition in most things.
Reading
goes around the table, responsively reacting and reciting the story,
culminating in many, many glasses of wine. Our guests spoke their
piece. Randomly, sporadically, in between the tramplings of vineyard
wine decantations, they read what they'd prepared with us in mind.
Some are quotes, parts of speeches, paraphrases of Gandhi, either
Kennedy or Malcolm X. Mine is, each year, the same paraphrase. Stains
of purple dry to a pink like color, the hue of pink lamb cook
correctly is, surround the most meaningful words of King's speech.
The one in which he spoke of a dream, where people are not judged by
the color of their skin but the contents of their character, when
little white boys join hands with little white girls and sing the old
songs. They are imminent to be free and, by the end of our Seder they
are free. I read a biography on Martin Luther King, Jr., a small
selection for kids, in preparation.
My
mom has a pot of matzo ball soup whose rolling simmers catch the
silences, the breaks when something thoughtful is said, or sad, like
the mention of the Holocaust. It is a note to her, and she politely
excuses herself to tend to dinner. The meal is a pot roast, a string
torn spectacle of beef allowed to baste in its gravy, in a silver
pressure cooker. From the table I watch the subtle movements of the
nob on top and note the wisps of steam. Our appetizer is sweet. We've
eaten the maror, the symbolic emollients of pyramids and treasure
houses built for Pharaoh. The horseradish is harsh, stiff, and burns
my nose. My dad tells how his father had him bite into the root. I
don't believe him, thinking if I did this it would kill me. Now, we
eat the sweetness, the haroset, twixt matzo. As my mom is putting the
final touches on dinner, as kibitz, a brain-teaser, my dad reads a
aside, a footnote. He tells about the Earl of sandwich and how the
concept of putting food between two slices for leavened (or
unleavened) bread came to be.
My
mom brings the soup, steaming with mealy balls floating, displacing
yellow broth. Tiny carrot pieces swim around the balls' suspension
freely. I coral them with my spoon, saving the matzo ball for the
last thing to eat, when they sit alone in a drained white bowl. It is
the “good” dishes that most nights wait in a wooden “buffet”
behind the table. Some of the bowls, as do the dishes, have black
pin-stripe designs. Only one.
We
talk—they talk—I listen and really meet our guests. If they are
well-known, time-tested friends, they catch us up on their progress,
their children's, who may or may not be in attendance. My mom, or one
of the guests (sometimes the man) collects the soup bowls. Shortly
thereafter, the pot roast is served. It is tender and usually
requires only a fork to eat. People pour nondescript wine and eat
unmitigated matzo sandwiches. Dinner ends, it kibitzes out, blending
purposeless conversation to responsive reading with a apparent
fluidity only a communications professor (my dad) can handle. He
leans back harder, to the left, somehow still not crushing the
upper-most matzo. Toward the beginning of the Seder he broke the top
matzo in the stack (there is a sorted tale to this in itself too) in
half, wrapped it in a cloth napkin, and tucked it incidentally under
his pillow. My sister and I know this will disappear at some point.
It is still there when dinner ends. If we take our yes off it, it is
gone. (A few years back this might have been a lesson teasing object
permanence.) The matzo half is the dessert. We give up, tire of
watching. We are big kids of 8 and 10 and are not willing subjects of
trickery.
It
disappears! Somewhere in our 2,200 square foot house an orange napkin
has our names on it. We, and any other kids there, go to find the
dessert, the afikoman. It is always in the surrounding area though,
behind a couch, in an empty waste basket, even in the buffet. There
is a finder's fee, a prize, a throw-away-the-next-day toy, a reddish
yellow puzzle with loose white tiles with room enough for one to
move. My dad gives his mellow-dramatic sigh that the matzo was
found. He reads a speech about how this practice teaches thievery
although rewards honesty.
We
love reciting the “Number” Madrigal of which there are 13. My dad
asks “Who knows the answer to one?” I pitch in to create a buzz,
pique some interest, show how it is done. “I know the answer to
one, one alone is our God, in heaven and on earth. It builds, and
tossed into the fray is everything from the month in childbirth
(guess how many) to the attributes of God. My dad, with a table of
six, makes sure everyone reads two, leaving the 13th for
himself to read in dramatic flare. With even more of a potential for
street dinner theater is Had Gadya. It is another story, mounting in
intensity, incrementally worthy of drama and inflection. It laments
“an only kid” (lamb) a father evidently buys for his son
(although I think it is really him). Tragedies befall the man-child
beginning with a cat and ending with the Holy one. It is for the
children, to keep us amused, like watching the afikoman and the
goblet for Elijah, for whom the door has been open since dinner's
end.
My
dad, a Holocaust refugee, came here in 1939. He tells of his families
first Seder in America that took place 22 April, 1940, how his
mother, conditioned, asked his father not to sing so loudly for fear
that some anti-Semites would here them. My Opa (grandpa) said proudly
that he would sing as loudly as he wanted; they were in America now!
In the part of the Haggada which mentions a few of the camps, my dad
tells in which one members of his family were murdered. I think of
what he has to live with, what he found out when he was about my age.
This is at the end, four hours in, when freedom and the love of
liberty is reiterated. It is 1973 and the war has had false stops and
start and has long since became a sadistic political game, a
bargaining chip. We adjourn our Seder by singing the 4th
verse of America, the one that speaks of “freedom's holy light.”
Candles have lasted, down to their holders, just like I trace the
incredible capacity waiting, somewhere, for all in the world to feel
freedom.
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