Seder Stories: A Night of Memories

After much planning and harried preparations, the night has arrived. The table is set regally with those special Passover keepsakes. Family, dressed in their best, have all come together from across the country to share in this night - the stuff of which memories are made.

Charlie and Robin Meyerson had more guests around their Seder table than they’d ever had before when it happened.

The Meyersons take pleasure in opening their home in Scottsdale, Arizona to Jews of many different backgrounds who’d like to share a Jewish meal together - particularly for the Passover Seder. A number of years ago, Robin’s friend Ingrid and her husband and two kids were supposed to join them, but Ingrid called to back out. “My entire family has decided to come to us from California this year,” she explained. Robin didn’t deliberate too long before further extending the invitation to include Ingrid’s whole family. Suddenly, instead of the six around the table they were expecting, they had close to twenty.

“The only ones we knew were Ingrid and her husband and kids,” Robin remembers. “The rest were an assortment of Ingrid’s relatives. We had three tables set up in order to accommodate the crowd.

“We love to gear the Seder towards kids and purposely sat the kids nearest to my husband so they’d feel empowered and part of the process. The children sprinkled Passover trivia questions all over the table. We put out Passover play toys on the table, too, and set each place with an ArtScroll Children’s Haggadah. My husband began by encouraging everyone, adults and children, to ask any questions they might have, assuring them that we’d love the Seder to be very interactive.

“Knowing that the first moments of the Seder are so important to set the tone, especially when the environment is a bit awkward with strangers around the table, we all eagerly turned our attention to a thirteen-year-old boy who was the first to offer a question. He yawned and said, Isn’t this whole thing totally sexist, anyway?

“Everyone started sweating about what would happen next. Most of them didn’t know us and hadn’t a clue about how these unknown hosts would take to such a question. How would we deal with it? Would we take offense? No one had any idea how this would end.

“My husband began by explaining that on this night in particular, we are all kings and queens, and that queens are treated very nicely indeed, thank you. He explained Judaism’s treatment of women as being equal, exalted and special – and from there, one thing led to another, and all I can say is that after that, no one was afraid to ask anything! Everyone got into it, no one felt inhibited and people came forth with their own perspectives.
The positive feedback the Meyersons continued to receive even months after Passover made it clear that that Seder had changed their guests’ perspectives – including her friend Ingrid and her family - about what this ritual is all about, by showing them a Judaism that is approachable, open to questions and interactive.

Not everyone in today’s world is so fortunate to gain a fresh perspective on Judaism through thousands-of-years-old Passover Seder. The Passover experience is made up of contrasts that not everyone naturally appreciates.

Think about it: At its best, there should be both young and old in attendance. We speak at great length of slavery while exulting in freedom. We recall the unleavened bread so hastily prepared during those days - while seated at a meal we’ve been preparing for weeks and maybe months. Questions are everywhere but the answers are not always to be found.

With this dichotomy so much part of the fabric of the Passover Seder, the experiences people have can vary widely. Built in to the traditions is an extraordinary transformative power that many are fortunate to tap into. But not everyone.

Eva Coffey
Eva Coffey grew up in an Orthodox home but eventually lost interest in the religious and ritualistic aspect of Judaism. Judaism became more of a cultural affiliation for her, primarily focused on community activism. Seders, synagogues and sukkahs were no longer part of her life.

Then her daughter Shana joined a soccer team in 2000. As Eva and Shana were packing out after practice one day in their home town of Springfield, Virginia, the assistant coach, Bruce Kaplan, commented on Shana’s Jewish name. “Do you know what that name means?” he asked. The threesome schmoozed a bit more, one thing led to another, and before long, Bruce had invited them to his Passover Seder.

“My mother had passed away when I was a teenager,” says Eva, “and most of the traditional aspects of keeping the Jewish home alive, which she had handled, sort of fell by the wayside. My sister and I were typical teenagers and had that ‘I want to do what I want to do’ attitude. And Judaism was just not what I wanted to do.

“As an adult, even though I still observed the holidays by myself and participated in community events within the Jewish community, there was something that was lost from my past - something very deeply rooted. I wasn’t doing anything intrinsically Jewish in my home. Although I was very active in Hadassah (President of a Junior chapter, Vice-President of Fund Raising for Hadassah Hospital), and sold trees to help build forests through JNF, among other things, nothing seemed to fill that void…..Until we sat at Bruce’s Seder, and I realized how much I needed this.

“Being at that Seder was a very emotional experience for me. All those years, I had tried to suppress the void that I felt, thinking that I had already made choices so long ago, had already charted my course, couldn’t turn back, didn’t need to… I’d thought that it wasn’t so important.

“But I was only fooling myself. It is important to me, and nothing can take its place. My childhood is gone, but those memories and traditions don’t have to die. I’ve found a way to make them part of my life again, and what it’s done for my Judaism is nothing short of revolutionary. There’s something about the messages of Passover that is so meaningful. The age-old struggle for survival, making do with what you’ve got – these speak to me.”

Since that Passover, Eva and Shana enjoy the Seder every year – Eva helps set up and does some of the cooking, and Shana’s nascent interest in Judaism has been kindled. Shana has served as President of the Hillel on her campus, gone on a Birthright trip to Israel, and her growing interest in keeping kosher has resulted in many changes to Eva’s kitchen as well.

Eva today is proud grandmother to two grandsons who have been initiated into their inheritance by means of brit milah (circumcision). Eva credits the deepening of her family’s ties with the ritualistic part of Judaism to the encouraging messages she finds within the Passover story.

“Passover tells us that, whatever the limitations of your life may be, whatever struggles you have, whatever choices you have made, you can stay connected because we’ve got something that will never die. You come out of the experience knowing that you’ve got something in your hand that works and will survive, no matter what.”

Getting in touch with that timeless something is a phenomenon that happens to many people who become involved in the Seder. Beyond talking the talk, listening to the messages within the pages of the Hagaddah – which means, literally, telling – is something that speaks volumes and can help form who those future family members will be when they come to the Seder of the next generation.

Jamie Geller
For Jamie Geller, the Seder she’d grown up with in Philadelphia was a long, drawn-out affair short on inspiration. But as a young, successful TV executive in Manhattan, she caught a glimpse of something surprising at the Seder she attended with her friends, Monet and Mordechai Mindel of the Jewish Enrichment Center. It turned her idea about the success she’d achieved in her career on its heels and gave her new direction.

“Monet spoke about freedom - true freedom. She brought out the irony of feeling you’d achieved independence and success while attaining it at the cost of being enslaved to the fashion industry, to peer pressure and ‘what everyone else is doing’. She told us, you think you’re so cool and free to do your own thing because you got the orange neon, five-pound bag this season – how can you not realize that this is not freedom? You’re a slave to some guy sitting somewhere in a basement in Paris who fell on his head and made up this decree, and you fell for it! That’s not freedom. Freedom means, doing what you know you must, because you can.”

“Monet then told us about the system of mitzvos and how they liberate you to become all you can be beyond enslavement to fashion, or contemporary mores and public opinion. It was nothing short of emancipating to sit at that Seder and hear her describe this world where I could actually choose to lead a life whose principles I believed in, rather than just follow blindly the whim of senseless, economy-driven trends.”

Today Jamie, who lives in Monsey, NY and is author of Quick and Kosher: Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing (Feldheim Publishers), makes a point of bringing something satisfying (besides the food!) that is fresh and inviting to her Seder each year. “After all, if you don’t understand what’s being said or don’t connect, you won’t find it relevant, and that’s a shame. As important as those traditions are, it can’t just be routine. There are great concepts there.”

Cynthia Ehrnstein
“My father points out that the Seder is the original Power Point presentation, just without the computer,” says Cynthia Ehrnstein of Denver, Colorado. “It’s got so many elements that make it a dramatic educational tool. There’s the singing, and the dynamic of interacting with older generations, and the question-and-answer format that starts off the Seder. You’ve got family traditions…”

For Cynthia, the Seder of her youth was a somewhat sleepy evening when her dad would explain the Passover story by going through lots and lots of history, but did not actually read the Hagaddah. Her husband Andrew comes from a family that was always pretty traditional, sticking strictly by the book. The two decided to use the Hagaddah but also lighten things up a bit for their own children - now aged five and seven.

The Ehrnsteins came upon this strategy after attending a Seder at the home of Rabbi and Mrs. Raphael Leban of Denver’s Jewish Experience. The Lebans had a few young children of their own, and the guest list added at least four more. Rabbi Leban made it really interactive and child-centered.

“He used food coloring to demonstrate that one pitcher of water, belonging to an Egyptian, turned into blood while the other, belonging to a Jew, did not,” Cynthia recalls. “They had nuts and candies sprinkled around the table, on the ready to reward keen participants. He threw plastic frogs and let the kids build pyramids of plastic blocks. We’ve taken this as a model for our own Seder, and beyond Passover, we’ve expanded on the concept by finding ways to make the other Jewish holidays interactive and hands-on, too.

“The Lebans’ Seder really opened us up to the possibilities that Passover could present us with the opportunity to bring excitement into our home while passing on the traditions to our children. It’s got to be interactive and interesting to the whole family, in order for them to in turn pass this down to their children…”

Given that the central activity of the Seder is, after all, the retelling of ancient history, you might expect the focus of the whole thing to be solely on the past. Yet it turns out it’s actually more about the future – our children – than anything else. Passover is Chicken Soup for the Jewish Family (with matzah balls!). Create the memories they will cherish by building the future, so they can pass it on. We are the grandparents of tomorrow.

Given that the central activity of the Seder is, after all, the retelling of ancient history, you might expect the focus of the whole thing to be solely on the past. Yet it turns out it’s actually more about the future than anything else. The Seder is our most important opportunity to make the past relevant to the future – our children’s future but also to our own future, whatever our age may be. It is a connection we must reaffirm for ourselves – especially since we are the link this generation depends on for the future.

If you are leading a Seder – or even if you are just able to help one along – this, ultimately, is what it’s all about.

This is a night of memories for everyone. What will your children remember when they tell their children about your Seder? What will you remember?