Page 6 - Harlem Pesach Companion 2021

people, if that’s not exceptionally obvious). And rather than reminding her of a
conversation we have had dozens of times over the years about when Jewish holidays
begin, I decided that Laura just had to be right. We all needed a win. In Laura’s version,
we had not missed Seder; we’d simply misread the calendar.

We were incredibly relieved to learn that my mom had broken her clavicle. This was
certainly not good news, but it was way better news than some of the doctors’ original
suspicions. We were discharged the next day, exhausted beyond measure, but really
grateful to all be home. I’ll be honest; celebrating Passover in any form was the farthest
thing from my mind. But Laura clearly was not going to let up. We cooked a smaller
meal and eschewed our usual guest list, but laid out the good linens and bought fresh
flowers. We diligently polished Elijah’s cup, which in our family is a silver goblet my
dad won in the sixth grade for “Excellence in Bible” at The Darlington School for Boys.
We navigated an abridged version of our already “Concise Family Seder,” which my dad
led expertly, as he always does. And so we had our first Seder on the third night of
Passover, which that year also happened to be Easter—cosmically fitting for us. It was
devastating, and also beautiful, and absolutely necessary.

At the time, that experience had me thinking a lot about the meaning of seder, from
leseder/רדסל: to order, organize, arrange. It was poignant then. Seder was not when or
how it was supposed to be, but its performance became a grounding force, spiritually and
temporally, for our family in a time we desperately needed it. Seder ordered us. Now,
well over a year into a global pandemic, this idea has taken on a thousand more
meanings. We’ve been asked to “reorder” in countless, unimaginable ways. Every
stabilizing force in our lives has been jolted. Most of our methods for keeping time have
vanished. The ways we orient to each other and to our collectives are radically redesigned
on what feels like a daily basis. It is…a lot. It’s often hard. It’s often devastating. It’s
often beautiful. It’s often absolutely necessary.

And so, as we wade through our second Passover under a new order, I am reminded of
this, which I now offer to you: while the version of order we know how to understand
may be fleeting, we are never entirely without it. Maybe Passover starts tomorrow, like it
says on Laura’s calendar.

- 3 -