HERE WE GO AGAIN
ANOTHER PANDEMIC PESACH
For Misha Mansoor a second lockdown Pesach is a chance to share Seder with her parents — and eat cake
YOU WOULD think, wouldn’t you, that if both your parents are obsessive cleaners, the preparation of the house for Passover — going into every nook and cranny to make sure there were no crumbs or morsels — would be an enjoyable doddle. Sadly, when I was a child the cleaning for Passover was never a pushover. The lead-up to Pesach in my parents’ home was always (and continues to be!) stressful. With a zealous fervour, in the weeks prior to the festival, they have always launched themselves into a frenzied cleaning of every drawer, wardrobe, cupboard, shelf, cubby hole, cushion cover and space. No errant crumb is safe, no matter how tucked away behind the fridge, or how small and well hidden it might be. Not even a pocket in a tuckedaway cardigan is unexamined. My parents are meticulous and thorough. Sherlock Holmes could learn a thing or two from them.
Pots and pans and crockery are brought out of storage and exchanged for our regular chametzy things, which are stored away in their place. What can’t fit into storage is stuffed in a kitchen cupboard, which is then sealed up with so much tape that a burglar might think they must surely have the family jewels hidden away in there, rather than their mugs, plates and pots.
In the weeks before Pesach when I was young, my mother would drastically wind down how much chametz she bought; finished breakfast cereals would not be replaced and all the processed foods just disappeared. Our milkman, who usually delivered three pints a day to us, would be cancelled for two weeks and instead my mother would send me to Breuer and Spitzer to buy the (too creamy) ‘Kosher for Passover’ milk. If we ate any bread in the days before Pesach, it was done almost furtively, by the kitchen sink, as if we had to be ready to quickly destroy the evidence if the chametz police made a sudden raid. Gradually, our house would fill up with so many boxes of matzah we could have built another house out of them. My parents shopped for Pesach as though they were preparing for a siege. Panic buying for lockdown? My parents have been doing that every Pesach for their whole married life.
Although I never enjoyed all the chaos and upheaval getting to a state of total cleanliness, that feeling — as though our home itself was ‘kosher for Passover’ — was bright, light and deeply special. Everything gleaming, shiny, koshered or covered up gave a sense of sanctity and newness. Despite the extortionate prices my parents had to pay for all the special food, they didn’t scrimp in the slightest. In fact, our house would be twice as full of food as usual and there’d be an abundance of confectionary and treats we rarely otherwise had. Chocolates, pralines, nuts, jellies, fizzy drinks: my mother bought them all for Pesach.
My mother has always been a tremendously good cook. She would make her own charoset, and it was delicious — so good that friends would ask for some too. Best of all though, my siblings and I were obsessed with the chocolate and red wine matzah cake my father made. Every year, as soon as the first Seder night was over, he would set about taking over the kitchen for several hours to make a production line of his speciality chocolate matzah cake. Litres and litres of red wine (kosher for Passover, of course), dozens of bars of Pesach chocolate, multiple boxes of matzah, and my dad’s magical recipe would, after many hours of toil, produce the most delicious cakes I have ever tasted. When my parents left London to emigrate to Israel 20 years ago, I tried to recreate my dad’s Pesach chocolate cake. Sometimes it was edible. Just.
With my dad’s chocolate cake, you start off with a small slice because, well, you know, all that wine, matzah and chocolate can’t exactly be good for you. But then it’s so wonderful, so compulsively moreish, you go back for more and more. After all, isn’t a bit of dark chocolate good for your heart, really? Oh, and isn’t a bit of red wine even more good for your health? Oh, and isn’t it a great mitzvah to eat lots of matzah?… Soon, the matzah cake has disappeared entirely from the plate and, coincidentally, your clothes feel tighter.
Fortunately, my parents moved back to London ten years ago so that my dad would be able to make me my Pesach chocolate cake every year. Although if you were to ask them why they emigrated back there, they’ll probably give you some cover story about needing to be near all their grandchildren. Not true: me and my dad know it’s really all about the chocolate cake.
My parents are rather elderly now. My mum is in her late 70s and disabled, and my dad is in his late 80s and a bit frail. Not surprisingly, cleaning for Pesach has been very difficult for them in recent years, and so, rather than go through the rigmarole and upheaval, they’ve opted a few times to go away on an allinclusive, kosher for Pesach stay in a hotel to Spain. I can certainly see the appeal: instead of spending weeks scrubbing, cleaning, washing, shopping, scouring, worrying, fretting and preparing, you simply pack a case and go off to sunny Spain where everything’s done for you. So I now give them my full support to go away, but obviously only on the proviso that my dad makes me some chocolate cakes first.
This year, like last year, we have Covid-19 and lockdown and my poor old parents can’t escape to Spain from the labours of Pesach. So in one of the few benefits of the coronavirus, as we are all in a bubble together, I’ll again be able to sit at the table with my parents and my children on Seder night, singing the same Pesach songs I’ve loved since childhood, listening to my dad pray, setting a place for Eliyahu HaNavi, hiding the matzah from the youngest child, enjoying the banter between my mum and my kids and, of course, reminding my dad he has cake-to-make duties.
Two years ago my dad became really ill and spent over a month in intensive care. With a bleed on his brain, the doctors told us things were very, very bleak.
We feared and prepared for the worst but, somehow, he miraculously pulled through and after a few more weeks in hospital was finally able to go home.
We always sing “L’shana haba’ah b’Yerushalayim” (“Next year in Jerusalem”) at the end of the Seder, but, to be honest with you, I don’t mind where I’ll be next year as long as we’re all together, celebrating another Seder, another year. As long as we’re all still here, together despite the coronavirus.
Here, with each other, and with the chocolate cake.
Don’t try to make a normal Seder says Rabbi Adam ZagoriaMoffet, it’s time to do it differently
ITHINK THE biggest takeaway is to not try to do the Seder the same way. If you do, you’ll inevitably be disappointed. It would be better to just plan a different kind of Seder which is adapted to the circumstances rather than a poor substitute (as, I think, Zoom is). There’s much to revive in Pesach which we don’t normally do — especially the part about relaxing! The Seder is meant to be a really chill affair, lounging around on couches. This is a great opportunity to do exactly that. Last year, the three of us moved all the furniture in the living room and had a proper lie-down picnic Seder. We put all the food on blankets on the floor and each stretched out on a sofa, loveseat or rocking chair, and went through the steps of the Seder.
I also think it’s important to show some self-compassion — it’s OK not to read every word in the Haggadah. It’s far more important that the Seder is thought-provoking than that it’s thorough. If you have to choose between doing less but keeping the interest and engagement of your family or doing more but having everyone bored, you should, hal a chic ally speaking, do the former. I think this is hard for people as they feel an allegiance to some past relative or previous Seder to do it “the right way” but the only barometer of whether a Seder is successful is whether the participants, especially the younger ones, are engaged in the dialogue of slavery and freedom, the idea of liberation. That’s the goal.
Also, lastly, don’t be afraid to be silly. Obviously the Seder is about a very serious topic, but that doesn’t mean the Seder has to be. We’re Sephardi and there are several things you see at a Sephardi Seder which I think everyone should do — basically, camp it up. A lot of Persian/Afghani Jews have the custom to smack each other with leeks (ouch!) or salad onions during Dayenu, which is both fun and therapeutic (and the room smells great!). Many Maghrebi Jewish families have the practice of conducting a whole camp drama where someone knocks on the door asking for shelter, and everyone else acts out a part. Get into it! This is the chance to spend more time on the narrative aspects and less worrying about whether there’s enough food for the 20+ guests.
So my advice is, don’t try and replace a ‘normal’ Seder, don’t bother with Zoom (if you don’t have to), have a lie-down, focus on the important parts, and hit your loved ones with vegetables.
Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet is the rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue
My siblings and I were obsessed with the chocolate and red wine cake my father made for Pesach The Seder is meant to be a really chill affair. Last year we had a lie-down picnic Seder
Grandpa Jack would sing ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’ on Seder night
For Judy Silkoff the memories and traditions of Pesachs past will help her through Seder-for-three
WE HAVE just about run out of “this time last year”s. For a full 365 days, while attending birthday parties on Zoom, family get-togethers on Zoom and big communal events on Zoom, we were able to recall those halcyon days of 2019-2020 when “meeting up somewhere new” meant more than merely shifting rooms with your laptop or changing your virtual background. But now, as we move deeper into the month of March, this time last year is basically the same time as this time this year, the pandemic has dragged on for longer than any of us could possibly have imagined, and with Pesach on the horizon, it’s a pretty miserable prospect for most.
One of my own final pre-Covid-related “this time last year” moments came when I clicked open my ‘Pesach 2020’ spreadsheet recently, ready to work out my shopping list and plan my cooking for our second Passover-for-three. Each of my carefully annotated menus contained a little note reminding me of how many I was cooking for at each meal — some meals that were, at the time of planning, intended to be spent with our son, daughter-in-law and baby grandson, others with friends, and some with both. None of those plans came to fruition of course, and the last time I gave my grandson anything approaching a proper cuddle was Purim 2020.
Until I opened up that spreadsheet, my modus operandi for Pesach 2021 had basically been, pretend it isn’t happening until you absolutely can’t pretend any more. But then, as I glanced over the list of favourite recipes — chocolate truffles with coloured sprinkles for dessert at the first Seder, Pesach “lokshen” made out of paper-thin rolled and sliced omelettes — something strange happened. I started to get excited. Despite the fact that once again it would be just the three of us, no family meals or exciting chol hamoed trips — I love Pesach! Once the hard work of cleaning and changing over the kitchen is behind me, the festival of Passover invariably morphs me from careerminded professional who does the minimum amount of housework possible, into some sort of bizarre domestic goddess who makes pancakes for breakfast and never serves a main meal unless it’s comprised of three courses including soup and a homemade dessert.
Of all the Jewish festivals, Pesach is the one with the greatest weight of tradition behind it — and unlike the strange Covid-fuelled world we are currently living in, it’s one where “this time last year” being exactly the same as “this time this year” is a comfort and a joy.
Every family has its own customs and rituals, some handed down for generations, others newly created but just as cherished. In our own family, we instigated a new tradition of handing out sweets during the Maggid portion of the Seder, to children who asked good questions about our people’s Exodus from Egypt, or who gave good answers. And while the chocolate truffle with sprinkles recipe is my mother’s, she never served them for Seder night dessert and I absolutely always do.
Another family tradition is just two generations old, but every single one of my Grandma Suri’s children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren observes it as carefully as if it were ‘Torah from Sinai’ — and that’s the tradition of the pink egg. Family lore tells it that a Sephardi cousin of my maternal grandparents introduced them to the concept of slowcooked boiled eggs, that turned a beautiful soft pinky-beige colour after spending hours gently simmering in a saucepan and had a taste unlike any other egg you’ve ever eaten. My Grandpa Jack decided they would be a good option for jazzing up the Seder night boiled egg in saltwater and ever since then, “pink eggs for Pesach” is a concept that every person who marries or is born into the family understands is simply non-negotiable.
Growing up, we almost always spent Seder with Grandma Suri and Grandpa Jack; extra-jolly as a result of his four cups of wine, Grandpa would usually end up singing There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly after the similarly structured Who
Knows One, and then, rather more inexplicably, the Chattanooga Choo
Choo. (Grandpa was a Holocaust survivor who passed away when I was only 15, to this day I can’t hear either of those two songs without tears prickling my eyes).
After the Seder, my parents walked home but my sister and I would get to sleep over. Grandma Suri would always have laid out a brand-new nightdress or pair of pyjamas on the pillow for us, and when I recall those Seder nights lying cosily in bed listening to the dishes clinking as she tidied up downstairs, I feel an overwhelming sense of peace and security.
That’s why, since my own children were born, I’ve always bought new pyjamas to put on after the Seder — and this year, although he won’t be with us, I’m wrapping up and posting a cute pair for my grandson as well.
I know that, for so many people, the thought of a second Pesach spent in very different circumstances from usual, is too sad to contemplate. I only hope that the memories of Pesachs-past can spark enough joy to carry us all through this beautiful holiday — and that next year, we can once again celebrate together with our loved ones.
Have fun with food to make this Seder memorable for the right reasons says Rebbetzin Ilana Epstein
PESACH SEDER is the original immersive educational experience, and food plays a major role in engaging participants. From the Seder plate to the afikoman, we use food to tell our story. I think that the tangible messages that food can deliver is one of the reasons we have been able to tell the story for so many generations. Coming into a second year of social distancing when we yearn to be together and tell the story again, it’s all the more important. We aren’t just telling the story of those who came before us, we are telling our own story. We are asking our children to learn the story so that one day they will pass it on to their children, and food is the great bridge, remaining consistent even as the faces at our table may change.
So, this year we’ll have a family Zoom call on the Thursday night before Pesach, where we will do a practice run of all our favourite songs. I’m creating a series of charoset balls in different flavours, which I will package and deliver to friends. There will be four different flavours, each one representing one of the four sons.
I usually build up the Seder plate on my own, rushing to get it done before the guests arrive. This year, I’ll build it slowly with my husband and children, giving us time to discuss the different elements on the plate. One of the gifts of this period in our lives is the ability to slow down, and think, and learn.
I’m fortunate that two of our children will be with us for Pesach; we have started discussing what their favourite Pesach foods are and what they look forward to every year (aside from matzah and butter!) and those are the dishes I will be making.
When our children were young, I used to turn Kedem grape juice into jelly in shot glasses. For the four cups of wine, I will be reviving the trick even though the kids may be too old for it; I think they will see the fun of eating their four glasses rather than drinking them. I’ll make coconut pyramids to decorate the table, along with Lego figures and a blue tablecloth split in half running down the centre of the table to represent the Red Sea.
There is an old Sephardi custom of ‘beating’ your own back with leeks or green onions to signify the harsh treatment of the Jews in Egypt — I’m not sure if we’ll go that far, but it may be the year when it feels very appropriate!