“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”

– Michael J. Fox (1961-)

The Seder is the single most observed Jewish ritual. Nothing else comes close.

Why? What defines it?

“Seder“means “Order.” Is it defined by reciting the 14 parts in order?

No. Families with toddlers start early to accommodate them, then resume after their bedtime to fill in parts (e.g., Kiddush) that they skipped.

Are Seders defined by matzo and wine?

No. At the worst of times (e.g., death-camps), Jews risked their lives to observe Seders devoid of matzo and wine (or food.)

Seders celebrate freedom, recounting our liberation from Egypt. Doesn’t that define it?

No. Imprisoned Jews (e.g., jail, Russia, hostile countries) treasure it even more. Indeed, they desperately need it.

My camp-friend Esther begged her children to marry orphans (it didn’t work) because she understood Seders are defined by family. Her in-laws would also want to celebrate with family and she didn’t want to relinquish her children half the time.

The correct “order”of a Seder is to be with family. Family is more delicious than matzo or wine.

The single image most associated with family, Norman Rockwell’s depiction of a three-generation feast, is titled “Freedom From Want.” (It illustrated one of FDR’s famous Four Freedoms.)

If we are with family, we are free; we don’t want for anything else.

Seders are our most popular ritual because they demand family reunions.

My granddaughter Esther, born a few days before Pesach, necessitated a Seder on my own this year. It gave me time to reminisce about 75 years of previous Seders.

Before I was married, my mother Esther, her namesake, spent many days preparing for our Seders. My father, in contrast, sped through the Seder faster than the Israelites escaping Egypt. We concluded so early that, after we moved to Kew Gardens, Queens, I walked up the block to my friends Esther and Aryeh, and joined their Seder in time for Dayeinu.

Their father Sigi, as gregarious as my father was withdrawn, conducted their Seder reflecting that. Ours felt obligatory; theirs was festive. The evening’s soundtrack alternated between laughter and music. It was the first time in my life I actually enjoyed the Seder itself, not just the company. Their Seders lasted forever, yet I wished they would never end.

The first two years after we were married, Becky joined me in Kew Gardens for Seders with my parents. With her present, I endeavored to make our Seders more convivial. The following year, we would be with her enormous family, which we both eagerly anticipated.

Tragically, it was not to be. Her mother Martha died, age 60. Her family went their separate ways.

Too distraught to be around anyone, we rented a bungalow on a beach in Antigua. We cooked our own food with our own utensils, one box of matzo, one bottle of wine, one box of plastic plates and cutlery. It was the most spartan Pesach since Moses was in the desert.

We had our Seders on the beach, sitting on plastic chairs, eating off a plastic table. When we needed salt-water, we dipped our plastic cups in the surf.

Yet, the experience was anything but plastic. We read of liberation and redemption; we spoke of loss and gain. Becky’s eyes sparkled as she described her family Seders. For Karpas, we ate the boiled potatoes Martha served, rather than Esther’s radishes.

My toes buried in Caribbean sand, I comprehended why Jews who wouldn’t be caught dead in Temple would die if they missed their annual Seder, why ardent atheists who adore pork and shellfish abhor bread for eight days.

Seders are less about 10 plagues than about 10,000 memories of our families growing up. Losing family is the cruelest plague of all.

Our grandfathers wore Kittels at their Seders. These pristine white raiments are only worn on four occasions in our lives: At our weddings, when we inaugurate our families. At Yom Kippur, when we pray for our families. At our funerals, when we depart from our families. And, at our Seders, when we reunite with our families.

Rockwell’s depiction of a family dinner in some ways reflected da Vinci’s portrait of The Last Supper, Jesus dining with his Apostles at a Seder – a long food-laden table in front of a window, everyone’, surprisingly, ignoring the center of attention.

Yet, the Apostles weren’t his family?

He would have said, at that moment, they were.

When I dined with Esther at Sigi’s Seder, I, and all the guests, were treated as family. When death-camp captives celebrated what was to be their last Seder, they became family. When inmates attend Seder together in prison, for those precious hours, they are family. When those without families gather at Temple or community Seders, they become a family.

As much as Seders are defined by family, they transform their participants into family. Attending, participating, contributing, sharing our souls at a Seder, no one is an orphan. Seders are defined by family, and then, they define family.

Next Pesach, God willing, after too many decades, I will once again be celebrating a Seder with Esther Herschkopf. Though not bodily (and without having to spend days preparing), her great-grandmother Esther Herschkopf will also be there, as well as Martha and her other great-grandparents.

Granddaughter Esther’s middle name memorializes my father’s daughter murdered as a toddler in the Holocaust. For the first time, she will be joining us, as well.

Our families, present and past, not only define our Seders, they sanctify them, and us.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)