Passover Texts

My dear friend, Arlene Eisenberg, (Yes, THE Arlene Eisenberg of What to Expect When You Are Expecting ) grew up in a home that wasn't religious. One year while she was growing up she demanded that her family not just eat a Passover meal but also read the Haggadah. Arlene had never attended a real Seder so she and her family just read the entire book aloud before they ate. She didn't notice the "eat here ", note in her Haggadah.

Seder was designed to be a multi sensory experience. Arlene's first dry rereading of the Haggadah isn't how it is actually experienced. The story is told in so many layered ways.

Our family uses the Haggadah above that was produced for Jewish soldiers serving in the American armed forces during WWII. There are pages that are stained. Some of the pages have loosened from the staples. Some of the copies have my father's hand written notes of  ideas and sources that he wanted to share during a Seder long ago.

In addition to the Exodus story there are other stories that are shared every year. The story of the disaster seder in Quincy that began with my youngest falling down the stairs and continued through a visit to the ER for my nephew with a two other disasters in between.

The melodies from my mother's family are yet another set of texts The chant for reciting the text of the Haggadah comes from my mother's father. There are melodies from my mother's nephew David and of course  Chasal Siddur Pesach a melody from my grandfather that both of my parents wanted at their funerals.

Each year my father used to channel his grandfather's tuneless yet emphatic chanting of an early Medieval liturgical poem after the meal. The heavily Polish accented Hebrew my father imitated was so completely different from the way my father pronounced his Hebrew. My sister now leads that poem. Just before Passover she mentioned wanting to make sure that at least one of my kids can take  that mantle so this tradition can continue.

There are also what I think of as "women's texts" for Passover and those are the recipes.

My mother began collecting Passover recipes in a Hebrew school notebook starting in 1954. The recipe above is from Mrs.Paschal's mother. My mother baked this cake for years.  It isn't my favorite and is vastly improved with some substitutions (toasted pecans for the walnuts and orange juice for the wine). But it is a recipe that likely came from Dobryn, Lituania.

I do make Mrs. Paschal's sponge cake.

 

Here is a photo of Mrs. Paschal in the plaid dress with my mother.

Below is the cake from another Passover. It's a great recipe.

Often I bake the cake in jelly roll pans and turn it into two seven layer cakes. Below is one of this year's.

Each Passover one of Mrs.Paschal's daughters and I email back and forth about these cakes and the deep connection between my parents and her family. I have never met Mrs. Paschal nor her daughter Millie and yet, we are part of one another's Passover. 

We have been eating Mrs. I. Katz's matza balls since the mid 1960s. They are excellent ( although improved with lots of fresh minced ginger or fresh minced dill). Bubbie Katz's daughter was our gracious host in Jerusalem and a dear friend.

I make knishes for meals both before and after Seder inspired by a story told to us by my husband's cousin about his paternal grandmother who was a prodigious knish maker and once brought a suitcase filled with knishes to her brother's bar mitzvah to help cater the event. Knishes are a great way to turn left over odds and ends into something meal-worthy. Below is a vegetable (zucchini and leek) and cheese version that was our dinner last night

This year and last my great niece recited the four questions. This year and last her little brother sat on my lap as I moved his arms to act out the Psalms we sing at the table.

Every seder is always a retelling of the deep biblical past, our own family past as well as writing the new chapters of the Passover story. It begins, like Arlene Eisenberg's first seder from the Haggadah itself but is composed of so many subtexts and foot notes. 

Moadim L'Simcha