Passover 2024

So, as we sit down to the traditional Passover Seder, as do all Jews around the world (depending on time zones), I can’t help but see long gone relatives, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, who once sat around the Seder table, much as we do tonight. Not to get maudlin, cause that’s not my intent, it is a remembrance, a fond memory, much like lighting a candle is to commemorate a passed loved one. I can see the older men, probably younger than I am today, at the end of the meal, shirts off, sitting in their, what were then called athletic shirts, as opposed to the politically insensitive wife beaters. Between the heavy meal, the hot soup and the glasses of wine, schvitzing was unavoidable. My Grandmother cooked for days, as does my wife today, to prepare the meal as well as the house itself for this Holiday, after all it’s a good time to house clean anyway as we enter Spring. I can still smell the homemade horseradish that permeated my Grandmother’s apartment and I still have (somewhere) the vice clamped fish/meat grinder she attached to the kitchen counter to make the gefilte fish (a disgusting process, actually, but one that resulted in a very delicious appetizer). So, I embrace these ghostly memories, knowing they are still part of who I am today, and can only hope that I am remembered with affection by my progeny years after I am gone. Happy and Sweet Passover!