Last week we made a Seder for 28 people at my house. My nephew flew in from LA. David's relatives drove great distances for the day, despite the predictions for rain and snow. I started shopping weeks before, and cooked brisket, kugel, and chopped liver the previous weekend. Our friends brought the chicken soup and matzoh balls, tsimmes, and desserts. On borrowed tables and chairs, our blended family and friends followed the Exodus story in their Maxwell House Haggadahs.
There are more enlightened versions of the Haggadah around these days, but this was the one my parents, aunts, and uncles used, so that's the one I wanted to use. The history of my family, more than of the Israelites, was on my mind even before the Seder began. As I chopped and diced, I played the radio in memory of my mother, who used to sing while she cooked for holiday meals--all four burners going at once. Onions sizzling in a saute pan. Soup simmering. Fruit stewing. Water whistling in the kettle. When I sent David out to the market for one more piece of brisket, just in case, I remembered Mom fretting that there wouldn't be enough.
As I worried about the logistics of seating and serving 28 guests in my less-than-accommodating living room, I thought of her fitting her shopping, cleaning, and cooking into the hours from her full-time bookkeeping job. I don't recall her inviting more than twelve people at a time--the limit of her good china service and dining room table with all of the leaves inserted, but still... Had she ever awakened in the middle of the night with hives, as I did the week before, wondering if she hadn't overreached? Or if all that brisket would turn out dry? Or how the weather would affect attendance? The term "event planner" hadn't yet been created, but that was surely what she was, among her many other responsibilities at the office and at home.
And yet, all of her labors were secondary to the main event. Back in the 50s, the men took center stage for the Passover Seder, lecturing and leading the pre-meal service and deciding when everyone could finally eat. It was my father or uncle who called on a child to ask one of the four questions or an adult to read a passage that he chose for them from the Haggadah. I remember wondering, as a young girl, how he knew what should be read and what skipped from all that heavy text. There were some variations depending on the leader. Yet each man led with grave certainty. No one judged his choices, although I wondered at the time--how did he know? Had his authority been sealed in him pre-birth? Or was it the natural outcome of his Hebrew education, which was mandatory for boys only? In either case the men in my family accepted their roles and the women supported them.
David and I recreated this old act, he leading the Seder, I working behind the scenes. I didn't feel any particular impulse to resist these traditional roles for the few days of this holiday, although I would have in years past. I'd have insisted on sharing the spotlight in the spirit of gender equality. But so much has changed since I was a child. Life gave me answers to many of my questions. And then more questions. And understanding beyond both.
I was content to cook my versions of my mother's recipes and set the tables with pieces of her old china and silver interspersed among my own. I was pleased to provide a home for new memories. The ones who are gone lived with us that night. Maybe they always do, but I felt them, worrying, struggling, feeding, and loving us.
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