Every year, while unpacking Passover boxes, I come across something I wasn’t expecting to find. Last year, it was a Lenox Elijah’s Cup, a wedding gift that I happily rediscovered after misplacing it during our last move. Other years, it’s been everything from the Miriam and Moses手指木偶my daughter made in preschool to an unopened package of potato starch that got tossed in with the extrahaggadot. These found-again items always seem to turn up when they are needed or wanted most, bringing with them a smile, distraction, or dose of comic relief.
This year as I, like so many others, wrestled with the idea of how to have a Passover seder during the冠状病毒大流行，没想到发现任何隐藏的宝藏，将欢乐引起。我当然没有预料到的出土任何会提供如何庆祝这个节日，因为我们的自我隔离和实践社会距离急需的透明度。但是我错了。逾越节宝今年我最需要的不是一个高了货架或超大Rubbermaid的浴缸底部。相反，它是一个家宴记忆，我已经隐藏起来 - 一个发生在18年前我的客厅里，我从来没有想过我会再次找到相关。
Back in 2002, while people in other Jewish homes were probably placing parsley sprigs on porcelain家宴板and setting tables with grandma’s embroidered linens, I was sprawled out on my couch attempting to balance a哈加达on my pregnant belly. As I adjusted the cushions to support my back, my husband ladled pre-made matzah ball soup into paper bowls. I am pretty sure we only had an egg, some romaine, and possibly a bottle of horseradish at the ready for our makeshift seder plate. It wasn’t the celebration we had planned. It wasn’t even the week we had planned.
The night before the first seder, when typically I would have been unpacking the last Passover dishes and doing a things-we-forgot grocery run, I was in the hospital hooked up to an IV and fetal monitor. At 24 weekspregnant, I had picked up a violent bug that left me dehydrated and contracting. It was a long and frightening day-into-night, but by early morning I had stabilized and was released. We turned on to our street just as the sun came up. And something about the appearance of the morning light reminded us that it wasn’t just any other day, it was almost Passover.
At first, it seemed like an early bedtime and yogurt for dinner seemed like the direction we were choosing, but we didn’t stay on that path for long. Not having a seder felt wrong. Not in a guilt-ridden sort of way but in a feels-bad kind of way. Neither my husband nor I had ever had a spring without Passover seders. Missingthe seder当我们正准备把我们的第一个孩子带到这个世界感到可怕的，就像我们没有想到的损失。
So, as morning turned to afternoon, we began brainstorming low-stress ways to have something that resembled a seder that wouldn’t require us to go back out and could be thrown together before sundown. We weighed the options and called around to see when the kosher markets closed. We even floated the idea of watching十诫to mark the night, but its three-hour-and-40-minute running time ruled it out.
我们最终landed was on the couch. We held a very simple seder for two. We sang a little, ate a little, and read about the journey from slavery to freedom a little. I nodded off from time to time. It was the smallest, simplest seder I have ever been to and it also was one of the most special ones I have ever attended.
I don’t recall most of the details about thatquiet seder- 这是不寻常的我，有人谁自诩自己在一个美好的回忆。我记得清楚的是感觉，我那天晚上有：背诵约觉得自己像一个舒缓的压缩熟悉的故事耳熟能详的话。它没有抹去担心我怀孕了，它并没有使情况的严重性奇迹般地消失，但它所做的官网下载beplay体育ios版就是使我们感到包裹在熟悉的东西。强大的东西在它的温柔。一些结构和控制。
It is that feeling — and not the details — that I hold with me this year as I, along with Jews across the world, get ready to have their own versions of thesmall quiet seder.It will not look or feel like seders most of us have had or wanted. But this year’s lost-but-now-found Passover treasure is a reminder that the unavoidably low-key nature of this year’s Passover won’t matter as much as we think it does. It won’t matter if our family of four — including the son I was pregnant with 18 Passovers ago — is singing “Chad Gadya” with a digital delay with our friends miles away, or if the stores are out of the Joyva Marshmallow Chocolate Covered Twists that we always freeze and serve with dessert. What will matter is that we continue the tradition, and that the tradition itself continues to comfort. And that is something worth packing up and taking out year after year.
