“And you shall teach your children …”
After making sure your non-Jewish guests don’t show up with a pink box of eclairs for dessert, that has to be job No. 1 for seder planners: teaching kids the Passover story and acclimating them to Jewish life.
When my son was born 21 years ago, that was my goal. I wanted to give him what I, the son of Jewish atheists, never had: childhood memories of the holidays.
The only thing I remember about the one seder I did attend as a kid was taking a sip of Manischewitz and pretending I was drunk just to get a laugh from the grown-ups. Not exactly a cherished memory.
So with Aaron, I planned to break the cycle of secularism and raise him experiencing the Jewish holidays.
My plan did not get off to a good start. When Aaron was 8 months old, my then-wife and I took him to his first seder hosted by the parents of my best friend. They held it in a banquet room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Very fancy schmancy.
My wife and I arrived late, with Aaron dressed in a cute plaid shirt and Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls. However, the moment we walked into the hotel, Aaron had a little accident … well, actually it was a massive accident, enough to thoroughly soil his adorable outfit.
What to do? Together, my wife and I whisked Aaron into the ladies room to execute a quick cleanup. This was the Beverly Hills Hotel, after all, and the restrooms had large foyers with built-in changing tables. So if a woman using the bathroom saw me in there helping my wife, surely she would understand, right?
Wrong.
As we started to do triage on Aaron, a perfectly-coiffed, perfectly accessorized Beverly Hills matron stepped out of her Beverly Hills stall and let out a Beverly Hills geshrei.
“What are you doing in the ladies room?” she screamed. “Get OUT!”
“I’m sorry, but as you can see, our son had a terrible poop and we –“
“Get out or I’ll call the police!”
I stormed out, leaving my poor wife to deal with the mess. A few minutes later, she emerged, with Aaron dressed only in a white undershirt and diaper. Apparently, we had forgotten to pack a proper change of clothes for him.
So there we were, late arrivals at the seder, Aaron looking like a tiny tot version of one of those low-lifes on “COPS,” and us completely rattled. To make matters worse, a little later that evening, Aaron snatched a butter knife and took a whack at a wine goblet. Clean up on table No. 8!
Over the years, though, we continued to attend those family seders, and each year they got better. By the time he was 10, Aaron was reading “The Four Questions” in Hebrew, eliciting ooohs and ahhhhs from the folks around the table. I couldn’t have been prouder.
The last few years have not brought such gauzy memories. Divorce, a rebellious teenager, sickness, relocation — all took their toll on what had been my Passover traditions. Since I moved north two years ago, I have attended seders with my friends here, most of them cranky East Bay lefties (five therapists, two lesbians and an acupuncturist among them).
Pesach with my new Jew crew just isn’t the same as before. Personally, I prefer to do the seder by the book, but my brand of orthodoxy doesn’t go over with my unorthodox friends. Some at our table last year requested we not mention God. Others wondered whether we might not skip the Exodus story altogether. One vegetarian kept giving the shankbone the evil eye.
Fortunately, nobody objected to matzah.
Then, because no children were present, we sent our youngest friend, a 30-year-old social worker, off to find the afikomen. She did, and won a dollar.
Sure, I miss the sedate elegance of the old days, with every step of the seder in its proper order. But that’s the beauty of Passover. Despite its strict requirements, it is still among the more mutable of our religious observances. Somehow, hosting a lesbian/homeopathic/meatless/Burning Man seder doesn’t seem as weird to me now as it might have once upon a time. I’m just building new Pesach memories, brick by brick.
It’s settled. My Passover family is here and now… and next year in Berkeley.
Dan Pine lives and kvetches in Albany. He can be reached at [email protected].