Joseph ZItt's [as if in dreams] 2024-04-22
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
We show up a little early to the continual care zone of the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. They want us to start right on time, so the big seder in the dining hall can start on time right after us.
Once again, I've been asked to lead an abbreviated seder here. I'm just doing the Kiddush, then the ritually required explanation of three items from the seder plate, and a few songs that almost everyone will know.
Everyone who can sit at the table is there when we arrive. We start right in. I sound good singing most of the Kiddush, but my voice starts to give me problems. My throat clogs up. A nurse there notices this and appears at my side with a glass of water. Thanks.
The people assembled seem more present than in previous years. Some sing along well. One man, immediately to our left, is especially good. A couple of times, when their version of some of the songs differs a bit from what I'm used to, I follow him.
The Echad Mi Yodea is especially tricky, since they repeat some words more than I'm used to. (This video1 shows a phenomenal dance piece based on it, using the version that we do here, though we sang it unaccompanied.)
The staff thanks me for doing this. I apologize for my voice cutting out. They don't seem to mind.
In the dining hall, we're seated at the end of the long table, farthest from where the leader will be. That makes sense. At least one relative and a friend who is sitting with us will want to complete the seder. Most other people will leave partway through.
We are ushered in right after we finish the initial brief seder that I ran. We wait. Someone from another congregation is supposed to lead this seder. He hasn't shown up.
After a while, the mashgiach, the person who makes sure that everything that the dining hall does is kosher, takes charge. He summons my relative who usually does the Kiddish on Shabbat to do it now. Of course, my relative does it flawlessly.
For the Four Questions, he spots a young girl sitting near the front and recruits her to read them. I'm relieved. I had worried that I might be the youngest person there and might get roped in to doing it. The girl does it perfectly, from memory. The rest of us sing along.
Someone else shows up to lead things. I'm not sure if he's the person who was originally scheduled to do it, or if he's a replacement. He simply reads through the text as written, extremely quickly. I can't follow him. We quickly realize that no one else can either. Our friend from our end of the table stomps all the way to the front, without his cane, to tell him to slow down. He does, but only slightly.
Where we usually sing songs, he continues to plow through, just reading the text. At one point, someone toward the center of the table rebels and just starts singing. The rest of us follow. The leader eventually notices and waits for the song to finish.
Just before the meal itself, there's a section where people wash their hands and say blessings over several items from the seder plate before eating them. The leader does this himself and keeps going. That doesn't work. At a large table, it takes some time to distribute the items to be eaten to each of the people and for them to say the blessing.
My relatives and friend holler for him to slow down and let us fulfill the commandments. I don't know if he hears us. It's gotten noisy. We just continue on our own, effectively seceding from the ceremony and ignoring him.
The food is, as always, quite good. We start with turkey soup with matzo balls. There are a couple of different salads, one based on carrots and the other on tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm not interested in that, but I'm convinced to try it. They've done something different with the spices, and added bits of pineapple. It's delicious.
That's followed by the best gefilte fish that I have ever had, served warm. The entrée is roast goose, served with sweet potatoes and cauliflower. For dessert: waffles with maple syrup, and cubes of non-dairy ice cream coated with chocolate.
Someone suggests to me that there really hasn't been anything to write about this evening. I say that there has been. I talk about our brief seder in continual care, the late arrival of the leader, the mashgiach taking over, the girl saying the Four Questions, our friend getting the leader to slow down, the rebellion over the singing, our insistence on doing the blessings over the matzo and bitter herbs as described, and the food. And we haven't finished yet. Yep, I've noticed enough. It's kind of my job.
By the time we're done eating, most of the others are gone. Even the leader has bailed out. That's OK. Those of us who remain know enough to complete the seder on our own, even if no one else wants to. We only need three men for some of the prelude to the prayer after meals. My relative, our friend, and I are enough.
We continue to the end. The last line of the seder is "Next year in Jerusalem." We're close. Some of the family is actually there, at a friend's family's seder (even though, with airlines continually changing their minds about whether to fly here, some of that family got stuck in Baltimore). We sing it a bit differently here: "Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem."
By the time we're done, the kitchen staff has almost finished clearing the tables. They don't rush us. While they would probably like to get home, at least some, I think, are happy to see us carrying through and completing the ceremony.
My family and our friend head back upstairs. I head home. Along the way, I hear other families singing from their own seder tables.
Otherwise, it's a quiet night. The dogs in the park are friendly. The cats are off hunting somewhere. My landlord's family are upstairs, finishing their seder. I listen to them for a few moments before heading inside.
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You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
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L'hitraot.