Table Talk - The Seder Dear Lauren, Grace, Alice, Louis, Noah, Jonathan and Liz It's that time of year again. Happy birthday, Lauren, and hello to all the rest of you. By now, everyone but Noah will know what this is all about. Indeed, some of you may have been looking for- ward in happy anticipation to this, my annual letter to my de- scendents. Some of you may be waiting anxiously but without much hope, convinced that the old man must have lost it by now. Maybe the odd one of you has forgotten entirely about this tradition - yes, I think that 'tradition' is not too strong a claim. Before we go any further, a special welcome to Noah, joining the group for the first time. If you don't know what's going on, you can ask Louis (who has been round the block once or twice) or Liz (who can't remember how many times she has been round the block). Failing all else, you can read the back catalogue; this is number eleven and you'll find the first ten on a computer near you. It was really good to see all of you together here last month. Especially, it was good to meet Alice and Grace for the first time. One of my favourite parts was when we all got together for a meal at the pizza restaurant. Not that I rate the pizza very highly in my memory bank, but it was a very child friendly restaurant and, of course, that means is was also very adult friendly too. I can't imagine a restaurant which would be child friendly but adult hostile, bearing in mind who pays the bills. So it was very good to be able to sit around a big table and re- lax. Well, maybe it wasn't all relaxing, but it was good. I guess most societies and cultures set great store upon communal eating (although, for an alternative idea, when you start reading science fiction, you might look at COUNTERCLOCK WORLD by Philip Dick, where the world is supposed to go backwards in time and all human activities take place in reverse). In fact, I'm reminded that Judaism is a complete faith system that is based on the fam- ily and is largely played out around the family dining table. I'm also reminded about the last time most of my cousins and I sat around a dining table with my grandfather. You may remember I told you that I only ever met one of my grandparents - two grand- mothers and one grandfather were dead by the time I was born. Grandfather Abraham was my mother's father and he only lived un- til I was twelve year's old. I guess I was about nine or ten years old when we had this last supper together. It was for the Passover Seder - the Jewish festival that commemo- rates the flight of the Jews from Egyptian persecution. Another, much more famous, last supper was the one Jesus had with his dis- ciples on the eve of his execution. That was a Passover Seder, too and, of course, that's why Passover and Easter nearly coin- cide. You certainly will see pictures of that event sometime in the future but, when you do, remember that our Seder wasn't at all like that. Our seder was much noisier, much jollier, much more rumbustuous. It was always held at the home of Aunt Julia and the Uncle Harry who was her husband - the ones who Zadie Abraham lived with. Before I tell you about this particular Seder, let's talk for a minute about Seders in general - fill in the background, as it were. Passover lasts for eight days (Jewish days always start at sunset) and the first night - that is, as it starts - is cele- brated with the Seder. All the family sits around the dining ta- ble and the story of the Passover is told, accompanied by eating (or, rather, tasting) of various food items to represent particu- lar points of the story. For example, horsderadish (which I guess you won't have tried yet) is tasted, to represent the bitterness of the Jews fleeing from Egypt and saltwater to represent the tears they shed. There's lots more which I won't tell you right now but if you're interested, you can get hold of a Haggadah (the name of the book which is used for the ceremony). If you ask me, I'll let you have my version. After the story is told, everyone has a meal together, with plenty of wine, and afterwards the fi- nal pages of the ceremony are recited and then lots of songs are sung around the table. That's the theory, anyway. As you will see, it wasn't always like that in practice. For example, the Haggadah. Now no family ever had more than one Haggadah, so everyone brought their own copy to the Seder. There are hundreds, no thousands, of different Haggadim and they are different from each other in minor respects. Well, the reason for this, I think, is that Jews always think they can improve things and bring their own changes. Besides that, it's a well known fact that if two Jews have a discussion, they end up with three opin- ions. So you might have eight or ten different versions around the same Seder table and there was always much fluttering of pages as people tried to work out just what was going on. At least, that's how it was at Zadie's Seders. I've been trying to work out how many of us would have been there. If all my cousins were around, in age order there would have been Barbara (not Montreal Barbara - she was a different family for the purpose of Seders), Ronnie, me, Melvyn, Rodney, Ivan, Roy and Alan. Between us, we had six parents. Then there were five uncles and aunts with no children and Zadie. That makes twenty. I can't imagine how we all got round the table. Maybe not everyone was there each year. I remember the children spent a lot of the time running around the house, so they wouldn't all have needed table space at the same time. No doubt, at any one time, some were asleep in various corners. Maybe what I'm describing is a composite Seder; maybe it's several different memories I have of several different Seders. Doesn't matter. Certainly, everyone was sitting round the table for the start of the procedings, whether on chairs or knees or wooden boxes. On the table were candles, best Passover china and tableware (it's a ruling of the religion that a special set of crockery, cooking utensils, even teacloths was reserved for this eight day period only - never to be used at other times of the year), wineglasses (a rarity in most Jewish homes at non-festive times of year; for Jews, wine was largely reserved for religious occasions), matzos and the ceremonial food items required in the telling of the Passover story - bitter herbs, salt water, roasted lamb shank bone, green vegetables, a roasted hard-boiled egg and wine. The Haggadah de- mands that, during this story telling, the wineglasses must be refilled four times. Well, all I can tell you is that the glasses were small, the fillings were less than lavish and you were pre- vented by the adults from draining your glass between refills. Nevertheless, it was magical time for the children (the adults had fun too). I may have told you before that, in the synagogue, Judaism is a men-orientated religion. (I'm speaking now of the Orthodox reli- gion my parents practised). All services were conducted by men. The main congregation was men - women were segregated to an up- stairs gallery - and the study of the religion was a task for the men. However, away from the synagogue, the religious practices were carried out and supervised by the women, and much more took place in the home than in the synagogue. At passover, the roles merged. Women supervised the household presentation; men conduct- ed the ritual, all joined in. The Seder starts with a very short introduction, a short prayer. The whole evening is conducted by a Reader with everyone joining in with many communal pieces. At Zadie's, Zadie was the Reader. Fair enough. After the introduction, the evening proceeds to The Four Questions. So important are The Four Questions that I can't even think about them without capital letters. And so important are The Four Questions that the asking of them is restricted to the youngest person present. The youngest person capable of ask- ing them, that is. You had to be old enough to be able to read them in Hebrew. Though 'read' is maybe not the right word; per- haps; 'recite' would be better, because we'd all spent weeks at Hebrew School, learning them by heart. At our Seders, my cousin Ronnie and I shared the asking of The Four Questions. Each of us asked The Two Questions. We were very close, Ronnie and I. He lived only a few yards away from us and we were practically brought up together. There is on- ly a year and a bit difference in our ages and, in the normal run of things, Ronnie would only have got to ask The Four Questions once before I would have been hard on his heels the following year, to grasp the baton and the glory from him. So we shared them. We shared many things then and for years afterwards. We were inseparable at school (except for a short period when we went to different schools), at youth clubs, on holidays. Funny how things change. I don't think I've seen or heard of Ronnie since my mother's funeral. Anyway, back to The Two Questions Each. We had to read them in our piping young voices in Hebrew, translating as we went. My, how it stays with you. 'Ma nishtana - why is this night - halila hazer - different from - mikol halaylot - all other nights? - ' and on and on. There was rapt silence whilst we children were reading and translating. Murmours of approval as we finished. Congratulations at our performance from all. Smiles of pride from our two Jewish mothers, each convinced that, though her nephew was very good indeed, her son's interpretation just had the edge. The remainder of the table ceremony is the Reader's response to The Four Questions. This was a task tackled enthusiastically by Zadie. Enthusiastically, but not clearly. Firstly, he read very quickly; secondly, as a Russian his Hebrew was difficult to fol- low and thirdly, even if we had understood his pronounciation, it wouldn't have helped much. Because, although Ronnie and I care- fully enunciated every syllable of our speech and provided help- ful translations, we were extended no such courtesy. You see, no translations were offered for the answers, and neither of us un- derstood the Hebrew. There was, of course, a parallel English translation in the Haggadah but we never knew quite where we had reached in the text. Anyway, the long and short of it is that the reason this night is different from all other nights is that we had to do all the things that were prohibited during Egyptian captivity. That was to demonstrate our freedom. I remember I asked The Fifth Ques- tion: why couldn't we demonstrate our freedom by not doing the things which were prohibited in Egypt, if that's what we wanted to do? I was told that there is no Fifth Question and, besides, it isn't allowed. I don't think that was the first time I sus- pected that formal religion wasn't my thing, but I guess it sure- ly reinforced some of my previous thinking. As the presentation proceeded, smaller children became unsettled, older children muttered 'Is it nearly dinner time?' and adults suggested Zadie might go a bit faster. This was a physical impos- sibility. One solution he attempted was to turn over two pages at once 'accidently on purpose' and continue reading rapidly, assum- ing no one would notice or, at least, disapprove. He was wrong. He forgot about my father. My father (your great-grandfather David) had very many good qualities and virtues. Single-mindednes was one of them. I suppose others might call it stubborness. 'You've missed a page' he pointed out. So Zadie had to go back. By the time dinner time came, everyone was either asleep, angry or faint with hunger. During dinner, there would be silence from most, except for the usual noises of people eating and the civilised and necessary table talk. 'Will you pass me? - just a little - it's delicious - no I couldn't - well, maybe just a spoonful'; that sort of thing. Except for my father and Zadie, who argued. 'Discussed' is what my mother called it. Whenever they met, they 'discussed', heatedly and enthusiastically, but never loudly. Until I learned what it was all about, I worried and was unhappy that they didn't seem to like each other. But then I learned that wasn't true. They did like each other and ar- guing together was what they liked about each other. I guess they did some of their best arguing over the Seder table. And that's what's good about the Seder, I think. Everybody gets from it that which they enjoy most. After the meal, most people were ready to rest, to relax a bit, to go home. It often took my father to remind everyone that there were songs to be sung before we could stop having fun. His singing voice was rather like mine but not so tuneful and he was happy to lead the others in the fun. By now, I suppose you're all as tired as I was at the end of the Seder, so I won't keep you any longer. Passover happens around April time and we have a Seder here each year. Not a lot like Zadie's but we still think it's fun. Maybe one day we'll all be able to meet again for a Seder of our own. Stranger things hap- pen. My love to all of you Grandpa Sydney