Uncle Michael, Elijah’s empty cup and other memories

By Shira Yacker Special to Hakol

Passover is my favorite chag (holiday) of the Jewish calendar. Celebrating Jewish freedom with my friends and family is an incredibly uplifting experience, and although creating the perfect seder is a tremendous amount of work, I look forward to it each year. Last year, I wrote an article for Hakol focusing on the mitzvah of inviting strangers into our homes to celebrate Pesach with them and to ensure that they have a positive experience and a deeper understanding of what Pesach is all about.

A couple of hard years

The spring of 2020 was hard for everyone, but the hardest moment of that intense phase of the lockdown, the most difficult restriction for me, was that we were unable to gather together in one room to conduct our seders. We did the best we could to make it work. Each family had a computer or iPad set up and we went live and tried to make our seder as normal as possible while all being in our own homes. Being together virtually was not the same, but we made it work and were still able to follow our traditions in the best way we could.

Fast forward to spring of 2021. The adults were vaccinated but the children were not. We again did the best we could and had smaller-thanusual seders, which were still not the norm for our family. Spring of 2022 was much better. People tested themselves and everyone was healthy, so we were back to our former selves.

The hospitality of Uncle Michael

But by the spring of 2022, we were missing our patriarch, my uncle Michael, who had passed away in May 2020. I know that he is smiling down on us for picking ourselves right up and following the traditions that he passed down to his entire mishpacha. Uncle Michael always made sure that our seders were fun and educational for all who attended. We often have people who aren’t Jewish join our seders, and we were taught by Uncle Michael to include them and make certain that they understood the meaning behind the story of the Exodus and how it is a symbol for everything we do as a Jewish people.

Drinking Elijah’s wine and other traditions

Each of our families has its own traditions, and I set out to discover some of them in preparation for writing this article. In my family, there are several that stand out. One is that every person who attends our seder is asked to say the kiddush for the first cup of wine. As people moved away and couldn’t always attend our family seders in person, we would call them and put them on speaker phone, and now FaceTime, to include them in this tradition. The first kiddush could literally take our family 30 minutes to get through. And it is worth every bit of that time. Other traditions include the annual bet. My brother stated that he always remembers my uncle telling him that he would get extra cash if he could eat the bitter herbs root from the seder plate in one bite. I don’t think he ever even tried.

We also always made sure that the youngest attendant at the seder was the one who opened the door for Elijah, and someone would volunteer to drink all of Elijah’s wine so the young children would believe that Elijah drank the wine from his cup. From word games to song parodies, from masks to puppets, and from having “Prince of Egypt” on in the family room for the young children to go to if they got too bored, we have done it all.

One year the seder was on a Saturday night and everyone went to the deck to do a Havdalah service, including the dog. She wanted to be a part of that service so badly that she ended up getting wax from the Havdalah candle all over her back. She didn’t seem to mind. Looking forward

Every year we try to add something new. This year my aunt bought me a Miriam’s Cup to use at my seders, and I am very excited to add that piece to our repertoire.

This year will also be the first time since COVID-19 that my one brother and his family are able to come in and join us. It is one of the few times per year that my two brothers and I are together in one place. We look forward to Passover all year and start planning for it in January. I am so grateful to be a part of a family that goes out of the way to make sure that Passover is memorable each and every year. I would love to hear how all of you celebrate so I can include your traditions in an article next year. Feel free to email me at ssyacker@gmail. com.

Shira Yacker of Palmer Township teaches special education in the Pen Argyl School District and has taught at Hebrew school in the Philadelphia area and in Easton for about 25 years.