And So This Is Pesach...And What Have You Done?

 Tonight is the first night of the week long holiday of Passover, and Wifey and I are sitting out our usual attendance at the seder, or Pesach dinner. This is frowned upon, to the point that a Jew learning that a fellow tribesman having no place to seder (I made it a verb) MUST invite said Jew to her home.

And that has happened, even though Wifey and I have several invites: our daughters' in laws, Rabbi Yossi's Community seder, and other dear friends. But we're instead opting for dinner tomorrow at D2 and Jonathan's -- probably around 6. D1 will bring our grandsons, and we'll bring in food and maybe Jonathan and I will have a Passover L'chaim.

Speaking of Jonathan -- that's also the name of my trainer who has become a young friend. He and I came out to each other last Thursday: Passover is both of our LEAST favorite holiday -- we don't really like the food, or having to sit for hours re-telling the story we all know SO well and was best told, anyway, by Cecil B DeMille in "The 10 Commandments." I mean, who can hear the name Moses and not think of Charleton Heston?

I don't recall my parents holding actual seders when I was a kid. There WERE Passover dinners -- I remember lots of Manishevitz wine, and matzoh -- but that was really it.

The first real seder I attended was in Spring of 1980 -- Eric's family invited me. I was there with his dear parents Norma and Marvin, long gone, and his sister Elissa, who was still at Killian High. I felt silly not knowing the songs, except for "Dayenu," which I must have picked up by osmosis somehow. I also recall being a klutz and breaking a dish that was, as I recall in embarrassment, a family heirloom of sorts. They forgave me.

After I met Wifey, seders were at her parents' house -- typically a few non Jewish friends would be invited to enjoy my late suegra Rachel's delicious Ashkenazi soul food. My late mother Sunny LOVED the whitefish Rachel would prepare -- she would go home with jars of it -- later on to the horror of my sister Trudy, who has driven down from Boynton Beach, and was convinced the jars would open and turn her minivan into a fish smelling vehicle.

The story is, or course, crucial to our people -- how we were emancipated from slavery. These days, since the vast majority of us are NOT slaves, we seek metaphorical meaning -- we must emancipate ourselves from the slavery of our own demons, our own anxieties. Rabbi Bob Marley, who had a LOT of Old Testament imagery in his songs said "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery...none but ourselves can free our minds..."

And such is Pesach 2025 for us. I look forward to Little Man's excited telling me about HIS seder tonight, and of course being with the family.

Maybe next year at the Seder Table!