Seders Now and Then

The scene of our family seders was bizarre, now that I think of it.  They took place in an enormous room, two stories high, added to the house by a previous owner with delusions of grandeur.  The room represented his notion of a hunting lodge, with walls and beams of wood, mullioned windows, gun racks, and a huge stone fireplace, over which the head of a supercilious moose surveyed the scene.  Our central heating never worked in that room, which we heated by lighting a fire several hours before the seder began.

My mother was one of six children whose parents had immigrated to America from Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century, and it was my mother’s family who attended the seder. It was led by her father, who, with no advantages, save wit and driving ambition, had built a company that at its peak employed 3,000 people.  By rights, my father should have presided – after all, the seder was being held in his home – but he worked for my grandfather, who dominated the seder as he did the lives of all his children.  

With my grandfather, his six children, their spouses, and their sixteen children, we were twenty-nine people seated around the table.  My mother and her three sisters, who lived close by and did not work outside the home, prepared the meal.  I don’t remember a seder plate or indeed much ritual at all.  My grandfather read an abbreviated version of the prayers in a rapid Hebrew – once preceded by a joke in Yiddish, which made the grownups laugh – which was so much mumbo jumbo to us children.  It was only much later that I learned that the seder is designed to follow the commandment to teach our children of the miraculous Exodus from Egypt. 

I thought of these seders last Friday, during our own seder.  We were fifteen all together, with my brother and sister, their spouses, my brother’s son and his wife and daughter, my sister’s daughter and her significant other, and my daughter, her husband and son.  In addition, we had invited a good friend, one of many departures from the seders of my youth, which never saw an attendee outside the family.    

With the exception of the haroset – a mixture of walnuts, apples, raisins, and sweet wine, meant to remind us of the mud with which the Israelite slaves made adobe bricks – which my sister-in-law prepared, a casserole made by our friend, and some humus, which my nephew and his wife brought (unlike Sephardim, Ashkenazim prohibit chickpeas during Passover, but we have chosen to regard ourselves as Sephardim on the dubious if pleasing basis of our son’s marriage into a large and welcoming Sephardi family) my wife made the entire meal.  She devoted an entire week to the preparation of the food, unlike my mother who had the help of all three of her sisters.

Another difference was the seriousness with which the seder was held.  Although it was a “bare bones” seder, all the prayers and observances that that are required by Jewish law were included, and here and there questions, aside from the famous "four questions" were raised and considered.  The family seders of our childhood, not even bare bones, were rushed through.  Our more leisurely pace was facilitated by the revival of the ancient custom of eating hors d’oeuvres during the telling of the story. 

My parents and my aunts and uncles were too young, at the time of the family seders of my youth, to wonder how much longer they would all be able to gather together, although in fact the time was not long.  My mother and one of my uncles died before they were 50.  But at our seder on Friday, I kept thinking that each year the likelihood becomes smaller and smaller that the six senior members of our family, - my brother (76), my sister (74), and I (80), plus our septuagenarian spouses – will be alive at the time of the next seder.  Never mind next year in Jerusalem.  What I hope for is that at the seder next year, we'll all be together again.


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