Ghosts of Pesachs Past and Present

<------ Tanya and Rosa recuperating from last night's six-hour seder

Jerusalem 1982-83: It is widely known that if you are a young person with nowhere to go for Shabbat or holiday dinner you hang by the Kotel about an hour before sundown and Baruch Levine will place you with an Orthodox family; he and his assistant, Jeff Seidel, are matchmakers of sorts between secular and/or non-observant Jews and observant families. Several times during this, my initial year of rabbinical school, I use their services to meet and dine with Orthodox families. Baruch or Jeff leads a group of us from the Kotel through the surrounding neighborhoods, and, along our stroll, our leader points to one or two of us in the pack and sends us to the door of an awaiting host family.

Jerusalem 2001: Dan, Tanya, Rosa and I are on sabbatical and, in spite of the fact that we have attended several services at the Reform synagogue here and spoken with several local Reform rabbis, no seder invitation is extended (This would NEVER happen in Boise). Leafing through the Jerusalem Post, I happen upon a small classified notice: "Need somewhere for seder? Call Jeff Seidel at . . . " Wow! Nostalgia-city.
I call the number.

"Allo?" (Israelis, to American ears, can sound both rushed and intimidating when greeting an incoming caller)

I tell him what we need.

"Are you Jewish? Where are you? What do you do? (Completely avoiding the "We're Reform rabbis" deal, I reply, "Teachers.") Where are you from?"

Concurrent with our conversation, he deals with an incoming call on his other cell and partially empties a trunk full of Pesach groceries (and this is pre-Bluetooth).

"I'll call you back in half an hour." Click.

Twenty minutes later I answer a call from Sara Averick-Rosenfeld who lives down the street from our temporary Jerusalem apartment. Sounding both friendly and animated, she tells me that they have three daughters ranging from six to ten (same age range as my girls), in addition to an older boy, 11. Their family had made aliyah from Chicago 11 years earlier.

Sara extends an invitation to get together pre-Pesach to get acquainted and I love her immediately. The Rosenfeld family is warm, funny, enthusiastic, open and curious. We have a meal together and our girls sleep over in their well-appointed, spacious apartment attending classes as their guests at the girls' same-sex religious elementary school. Tanya and Rosa also accompany them to a special day of arts and crafts at the local children's museum.

Their seder is lively and involving and their kids are eager to share their knowledge as they are enthusiastic about Jewish learning and the Bazooka Joes they earn for each insight. Their kids initiate a set of short "plays" related to seder in which Tanya and Rosa have roles. I love seeing Jewish children so intellectually and emotionally engaged by their tradition and excited that my girls are able to see this as well.

Jerusalem 2009: I have exchanged emails with Sara every so often over the past eight years and, when our Israel travel plans are set, I email her to let her know we will once again be in town for Pesach. She offers an enthusiastic invitation to join her family again for the seder.

At 7:30 pm we arrive at their door - their apartment is larger than I remembered: the top floor of one of a row of nearly identical stone blocks in the pleasant Rehavya neighborhood. Sara looks amazing - I think she's aged backwards since earlier in the decade. The girls are now beautiful, unrecognizable teenagers who still retain the personalities I remember from their earlier childhood. None of their kids remember us or our earlier visit but my kids wouldn't have recalled it either had I not given them copies of the blogs I very stubbornly insisted (in the face of whining and angry resistence) they dictate during our previous trip.

Nechemya (the oldest - now 21) is currently on Israel's yeshivah track but, unlike a number of other Orthodox men, is also doing army service. I would have liked to find out more about that but I know the issue is very sensitive for his mom. He has an extremely quick wit and is both knowledgeable and very entertaining. The girls are still sharp, curious and sweet. Avital, the middle girl, still retains the role of the family "character" - she is seated across from me and, for nearly every part of the Haggadah she energetically squeals: "Oh! I have to share just one thing. Just really quick . . . " and then proceeds to talk for five minutes about a commentary she has learned or a current book she is reading.  Of course each "really quick" commentary necessitates another Bazooka Joe - yes, eight years later and they are still the motivational seder item of choice.

Sara's brother and his eight children were supposed to have attended but they were unable, so his family is represented by one of the middle sons who is learning at yeshivah in the Old City. I recall from eight years ago Sara referencing her brother who, she said, "Went kind of overboard with the Chasidic thing." I don't know if she would still make that assessment today but her nephew is, although clearly sweet, intellectually curious and well-meaning, annoying in that Yeshiva-y way. As Tanya sums it up: "Endlessly quoting from Rashbam and Maimonides and Rav Whatever instead of having any of your own thoughts is culty and creepy. It's like they don't have any ideas of their own."

I am thinking that, if the chasids/ultra-Orthodox are too much on the "blind follower/spouter" end of the spectrum, Reform is the mirror opposite. It would behoove us to have our Jewish lives and perspectives rooted in discussions and disagreements of brilliant minds from our tradition's past instead of being planted in nothing but our own personal judgments and opinions (As my Spertus professor Byron Sherwin teaches, quoting from the book "The Jew Within," the modern American Jew's ultimate authority is the Sovereign Self.). Many people (at least in the modern, Western world) want to strive for happy mediums but very few of us ever arrive, much less live, there.

Their dominant seder theme is fairly easy to guess: "In every generation an enemy has risen to destroy us and the Holy One, blessed be He, delivered us from their hands." The promise of a safe, secure and peaceful Jewish homeland is both personal and immediate to Jews living outside the comfortable American dream. And although they feel resentment toward the Arabs, both domestic and in the territories, for their chronically angry, violent words and actions against a Jewish state blamed unfairly for their own economic and political plight, Sara is quick to clarify that this is the fault of only part of the Arab population. I found it touching that Avital shared the four questions in Arabic after the youngest two girls, Yehudit and Rosa, sang them in Hebrew.

There were prayers for Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit (and I had read in Ha-aretz that a seder in support of Shalit was planned for the protest tent outside the Prime Minister's house) and Sara tearfully shared a published letter from an army commander who had written a loving tribute to a young member of his rank recently killed in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. How enlightening to participate in a seder from the perspective of those who identify with its prayers and themes so personally and emotionally. For us Americans, seder feels as a nostalgic tie to youth and the Jewish past, while seder for Israeli Jews is a vivid expression of the present and a desperate yearning for a hopeful future. And enthusiastic clamoring for Bazooka Joes.