It was only a few weeks until Passover, and our home was buzzing with activity . Every member of our family was caught up in the frenzy of moving, cleaning and cooking that swept like a giant wave through the house.
As a young boy,there were probably a million things I would rather have done than wash the tile walls in our kitchen. But, hour after tedious hour, I perched on a step stool with a bucket full of hot soap suds, a sponge, and an endless supply of clean rags. Preparing for Passover in the traditional Jewish home meant hunting down and killing every trace of "chometz" or leavened products, including any that could have migrated to the walls. This was mega spring cleaning and in our house, it was all- out war against "chometz." Just when I thought I was done,Mom would come over to inspect my work and utter the dreaded words,"You missed a whole section over there." . When I finally finished ,the yellow ceramic tile fairly gleamed. All done until next year!
Oddly enough,though, I really loved my other task, lugging crates and bushels of Passover dishes up from the basement. Once they were on the back porch, I carefully unwrapped the newspaper from the plates, cups, saucers, glasses, pots and pans and began to catch up on what happened the year before. I guess you could call it Jewish microfilm. After reading the front page, comic and movie sections, the paper was discarded, but after Passover, fresh newspaper was wrapped around the dishes, and a new time capsule was created.
To my unbridled joy,the arrival of Passover at our house meant open season on seltzer and soda. For reasons only known to my parents, we weren't allowed to have soda in the house most of the year. I suspect it had to do with the high sugar content and the absence of diet soda in those days. But come Passover, suddenly cases of ginger ale and cola magically appeared, along with my favorite, seltzer in old fashioned siphon bottles. I'm talking about the kind of bottles that clowns used to squirted each other in a circus. Seltzer in siphons also had major carbonation and could produce a burp heard in the next neighborhood. The best part about having soda was that, after Passover, we could return the empties and spend the deposits on comic books and baseball cards.
Closing my eyes, I can still picture our family seders. First, of course, there's Dad, who led every seder with a consummate skill. born of long practice. He made sure we all had equal parts of the Haggadah to read. At the beginning of the seder, he hid the afikomen in impossible places and doled out rewards when we found it.
Sitting next to Dad, I see a much younger me. . As a Hebrew School student and a singer in the synagogue choir, I loved doing the readings in Hebrew and singing the traditional songs. Next to me was my brother, Bob, who, being the youngest, always got the honor of starting the seder with the Four Questions, that began the telling of the Passover story.
Across from Bob sat my sister, Judi, who was quite well schooled in Hebrew and loved to sing all of the songs in the Haggadah. When Judi lived in Chicago for a short while, her husband, Al came to our seders, as well as my nephew Paul, who was just a little guy then.
At the other end of the table, close to the kitchen, was Mom. She joined in on all of the singing and reading, but her specialty was the festive meal. Her chicken soup was heavenly, floating with matzoh balls and carrots. She also served us gefilte fish in jelled sauce, tender roast chicken, sweet matzoh kugel, fresh steamed asparagus, green salad, and fruit cocktail in a fancy sherbet cup. Of course, there was always plenty of matzoh to go around, and lots of dried fruit to counteract the dreaded effects of matzoh. And, as I mentioned earlier, the ban on soft drinks was temporarily lifted.
Next to my mother sat Nanny, my dad's mother. She liked to make jokes with my mother about the matzoh balls. Every year, they were either too soft, or too hard. Nanny had her own recipe for making gefilte fish because Manischewitz from the jar would never do. As a concession to my mother, she chopped, mixed and cooked her homemade recipe in our basement.
Sitting next to my grandmother was Tante, my wonderful great-aunt Hattie. She always smiled quietly, taking everything in and reading every word of the Haggadah in Hebrew.
Passover seders were also a time when the family's treasured engraved silver kiddush cups were taken out of the credenza, polished to a high gloss and used. These cups came from Austro-Hungary with my father's parents, and Israel from a trip Dad had made. My brother, my father and I each had our own cups.Four times during the seder, everyone drank a full cup of sweet kosher wine. Even though the kids portion was considerably smaller, we used the wine as an excuse to act silly, and later it made it hard to stay up past our bed time.
In a place of honor, in the middle of the table, rested a large silver goblet reserved for Elijah. Near the end of the service, my mother opened the front door while Dad chanted a prayer . Tradition had it that the prophet Elijah visited every home and took a sip from his cup. We would stare intensely into Elijah's cup and will the wine to go down. I was absolutely sure the an inch or so of red wine was missing from the goblet and that Elijah had been at our seder.
In addition to the silver wine cups, our family had an antique gilt edged white Passover plate with Hebrew letters indicating the ceremonial objects. Every year, there sprang up a fresh debate about what went where. The problem would be resolved by using a hagaddah as a reference, but then start up again with the question of which translation was correct. Some years, potatoes won out over celery, some years we chewed parsley and made faces. The test always came when it came time to sample the horseradish. My dad insisted that we have the strong white variety ,and it always took the top of my head off.
Finally, next to the seder plate was an ornately hand embroidered matzah cover that held the traditional three pieces of ceremonial matzah used during the seder. Half of one piece was reserved for the afikomen and hidden somewhere for the children to find after the meal . Dad was notorious for stowing the afikomen away in hard to find places,so we had to work hard to get our rewards. One year, my brother and I were very much caught up in the cowboy craze and managed to ransom the afikomen for Long Ranger cap pistols.
Somehow, I'm sure the Masked Man would have approved.
Our seder ended with everyone joining in on traditional Passover songs.By that time, the wine had taken effect, and the kids were struggling to stay awake. When the last piece of matzah had been eaten and the last glass of soda had been consumed, we helped clear the table, wash the dishes and took our exceedingly full stomachs to bed.
The next morning, instead of going to work or school, we went to services at our synagogue, and then repeated the entire process that evening for the second seder.
Slowly, inevitably, time marches on. Countless Passovers have come and gone.
Sadly,my grandmother Helen, great aunt Hattie, Mom, Dad, sister Judi, and brother-in-law Al have left empty seats at the seder table, with the next generation of our children taking their place, carrying on our tradition for the many Passovers yet to come. The silver is gleaming, the candles have been lit. It's time for me to begin the seder.
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