The shortest seder I ever attended took place in a hospital room.它也是所有莎草中最有意义的一种，and the most memorable.
In 2014,my younger daughter spent a week in the hospital for cardiac surgery.Smack dab in the middle of her stay were the first two nights of Passover.我根本没想到要为我的家准备度假。I wasn't sure that I would make it to any seder at all,and certainly I wouldn't be hosting our family's usual celebration of the Jews' exodus from Egypt.
In other years,I'd have taken my daughters to the houses of our non-Jewish friends with boxes of cereal and half-finished loaves of bread.莎草节，他们盘腿坐在地板上，crumbling sheet after sheet of matzah into big bowls for everyone's favorite stuffing.My older daughter would slice carrots for the soup,我的小女儿会站在凳子上，帮我把鸡蛋掰成一个碗，盛着kugels和matzah球。我们的房子会充满活力和美味的气味。
那年，though,I made plans for my husband and older daughter to go a friend's house for the first seder.I'd excused myself from preparing a thing for Passover;我觉得我有充分的理由免除我们所有人处理这些麻烦。There were two boxes of matzah from the previous year in the cupboard,and I didn't even know when we'd all be home together.我不知道我会不会吃东西hametz在那一周里，but it seemed a decision too heavy to consider from the side of my daughter's hospital bed.
But it tugged at me,Passover.
一位姑妈在第一次家宴的前一天打电话给我，说她要来医院看望我们。"What can I bring you?" she asked.
我让她检查一下一盒Matzah的背面，看看它是否符合我女儿手术后需要遵守的饮食限制。and it did.I asked her to bring us some.
That night,after my husband left for home and the first night's seder,我悲伤地看着自己不舒服的样子，有药物的女儿。最重要的是，我想把她带到朋友们的怀里，围在那张餐桌旁，把所有的电线都拔掉。管，and monitors,为了忘记医疗饮食限制和背部切口，and to erase the pain of the last few days.I wanted this to be over.I wanted her to be delivered from her misery into freedom.
“我们要吃莎草，”我宣布。
She looked up at me with questioning eyes.
I ordered slices of cheese from the hospital cafeteria and fixed her several sheets of cheese-topped matzah from the box my aunt brought.I put them on her tray,sat her up a little higher in bed,然后问她："What is the story of Passover?"
踌躇地，she told the story between nibbles of our seder meal and beeps from her IV.A nurse came by,我和女儿一起解释了我们为什么要吃玛撒。And then,花了我女儿所有的精力，我擦去她床单上的面包屑，在Netflix上找到了电影《埃及王子》。Instead of sitting on the other side of the room and watching monitors while she dozed in and out of yet another movie,I pulled the room's reclining chair alongside the bed,took my daughter's hand,和她一起看着。
这不是传统的家宴。我们没有四个问题，no wine,没有哈罗赛特。No one brought steaming bowls of soup or airy sponge cake,and there was no search for theafikomen.I missed my husband and my older daughter with a fierceness that only grew when they took a break from their own seder to FaceTime us there in the hospital.但不知何故，I felt more deeply connected to the message of Passover in that hospital room eating plain matzah and watching the story animated on screen than I ever expected to feel.
At the end of the film,一首完整的管弦乐歌曲叫做“当你相信”短暂地打断成一个简单的旋律由一个孩子唱。应该是这样的，the melody is the beginning of theMi Chamochaprayer,one which celebrates the moment of crossing the Red Sea.It is a miracle that they are there,他们幸存下来了。所有熟悉的一切家—is lost to them.他们开始了在沙漠中漫游到他们从未见过的地方的长途旅行。Still,他们欢欣鼓舞。
当我们病房里的音乐响起时，my eyes welled up with tears.My daughter and I crossed the Red Sea,together,alone in that room,虽然她的眼睛闭上了，我知道在那最不寻常的逾越节餐桌上看逾越节对我们俩来说是多么重要。
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Passover Activity: Build a Matzah House
