海角大神

If the world had not been upended by the plague of the coronavirus, right about now I鈥檇 be unfurling embroidered white tablecloths as I set the Passover Seder table at my parents鈥� home in Maryland.

I鈥檇 be enjoying the view of azaleas and daffodils and the sound of my mother giving pointers to my kids rolling matzo balls.

Instead I鈥檓 an ocean, two continents, and 6,000 miles away in Tel Aviv, where I live with my husband and two children. We are preparing for what seems like the unfathomable task of hosting a Seder聽meal for the first time 鈥� and just for the four of us.

Usually we are back in Maryland with extended family and friends. There are upwards of 40 of us some years, three generations crammed together in joyous mayhem, families who have been celebrating Passover together in the same spot for 50 years.

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This year was to have marked the 51st Kraft Family and Friends Seder. It鈥檚 still happening in abbreviated form 鈥� not in person, but over four time zones via the technology of Zoom.

Passover is the Jewish holiday that commemorates the children of Israel鈥檚 exodus from slavery in Egypt to new lives as free people. It is called the Festival of Freedom, one that this year is being held while most of the planet is under de-facto house arrest.

Here in Israel a three-day curfew has just begun, Tuesday night, that will lift only Friday morning. There is no public transportation and no travel by car between neighborhoods or towns. And at its height 鈥� Wednesday night until Thursday morning 鈥� people won鈥檛 be able to roam more than 100 meters from home 鈥渇or any reason at all.鈥�

The goal is to ensure that people don鈥檛 break the rules of sheltering at home to join each other for the Seder as they traditionally do. This year bursting intergenerational tables of family and loved ones could spell a health disaster just as Israel is beginning to 鈥� as we can all recite together almost as if in prayer 鈥� 鈥渇latten the curve.鈥�

The ceremonial meal marking the beginning of the seven-day holiday is a festive song- and food-filled night. During the meal we are commanded to retell the story of leaving Egypt, as if we ourselves had made the journey out, so that the next generation should know who they are, where they came from, and that in every generation there is a Promised Land that awaits.

I find comfort in that sentiment now, that we will be free again. This shall pass, and we will emerge 鈥� hopefully changed for the better, wiser, more compassionate for the suffering of others, and aware in ways that only hardship can remind us of how connected and dependent on one another we truly are.

Seder in Hebrew means 鈥渙rder,鈥� and there is a prescribed order to the ceremony 鈥� just after the ceremonial pouring of the first ritual glass of wine comes the ritual hand-washing, certainly even more meaningful today. For thousands of years, that act of purification, we are told, has helped keep illness and disease, even plagues at bay.

And I find comfort in this too 鈥� in the ordered ceremony and in the wisdom of our ancestors 鈥� of some things fixed constant and true when everything else feels so out of order.

Even though our Zoom Seder will stretch from San Francisco Bay to the edge of the Mediterranean, we will together embark on the rituals we know so well and give us a sense of continuity and calm. We will sing the same familiar songs, some whose words will no doubt feel extra poignant: 鈥淟et My People Go,鈥� and, in the youngest child鈥檚 singing of 鈥淭he Four Questions,鈥� the hallmark line of: 鈥淲hat makes this night different from all other nights?鈥�

And this year, as every year, the outside world will intrude to make us ask ourselves the hard questions, this year made extra hard, but also extra meaningful.

So often at large Seders we let others do the leading, the thinking for us. But having these meals at individual families鈥� homes makes each of us more responsible for the meaning we bring to them. And I hope it prepares us all to bring extra meaning and thought to our lives once we can emerge from our homes and into the wider world again.

Seders are for asking questions, and this seems like one of the most important we should be asking: After our own exodus from everyday life, how will we go back into the world the better for our time out of it?

Editor鈥檚 note: As a public service,聽all our coronavirus coverage聽is free. No paywall.