Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2025-04-13
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...
At lunch on Thursday, the cultural affairs person for the House of a Hundred Grandmothers rushes up to me. "Houston, Houston, we have a problem." Yes, she really says that.
The Passover Seder is in two days. The organization that usually leads the Seder for the House has dropped out. My relative who is usually in charge of religious activities here is committed to be away with more of the family to lead their Seder.
Whoever would do it would have to have a combination of knowledge, the language, physical strength, coherence, interest, dependability, and audibility. (This is only sounding a little like Lumon Industries.) All the other possible people are already committed to be elsewhere.
For the past few years, I have led the ten-minute Seder in the Continual Care area of the House. This year, that'll be the pre-game show. Afterward, I'm going to be leading the whole thing, for the entire House.
Fortunately, I have a team. From the start, a relative who has lived here for a long time has helped me to lead the Continuous Care Seder and with other such matters. She's devoutly religious and knows a lot more about these things than I do. She also has experience as a stage manager, which will prove quite useful.
Later in the afternoon, I sit down with the cultural affairs person and work out what we'll do. We can't do a complete Seder, since many of the residents don't have the stamina for it. We also have to trim down the often verbose canonical text.
I go upstairs, sit with my family, and work out the rest of the text. I then edit a script, cutting and pasting the liturgy from a complete version online. I break up the lines as if it were a libretto, discovering some quite interesting rhythms and grammatical structures that I hadn't noticed before.
I work late into the night. First thing in the morning, I send a PDF of it to the cultural affairs person and to my family. As I expect, there's another series of edits. I incorporate them, and print out copies of the revised text before Shabbat. We’re told that another resident may be able to read some of the text, if she can make it there. I print one out for her, too. We plan that she will sit close to the head table, where my family and I will be.
My family has an important idea: We need to have an empty chair at the head table, to represent the hostages who are still in captivity. The original idea is to put a yellow ribbon on it, but we can't find one on short notice. The House finds a yellow chair and creates a sign: "An empty chair, until they all return home."
Since the usual person who does Kiddush on Shabbat is away, I fill in there, too. I have, in effect, become his regular understudy. I sound OK, but stumble on a bit of the melody. I wonder if the text is subtly different from what I'd become used to in America. That happens with some prayers.
I relax to the extent that I can during Shabbat, poking at my film project and watching bits of Coachella on YouTube. I put a better shirt on for the Seder and head downstairs with my family.
The people in the Continuous Care area are pretty much ready. All the ritual items have been set out -- except for the matzos. My family spots that, and the staff bring them out.
The very brief Seder goes smoothly. The people there are more present than they have been in some years. Two men sitting near me sing vigorously, so I follow their rhythms, rather than trying to force them into mine. The melody that they use for one song starts the same as the one that I use, but then veers off. I let them lead it.
The new text that my family has written to introduce the items on the Seder plate is more concise and dramatic than the usual descriptions. I try to put the drama into the reading (despite picking up the egg when I mean to pick up the bitter herbs, and knocking over the cup of saltwater).
As usual, the most emotional moment is the saying of the Shehecheyanu prayer, giving thanks for being sustained and kept alive and able to celebrate the holiday again. We need to take it slowly. My family and I always get choked up saying this prayer here.
The people in Continuous Care remain attentive and quiet (except for the singing) during the Seder. Afterward, they return to their usual noisy state.
We arrive in the main dining hall just as the residents are filing in. Each has a place set. Some want to be seated elsewhere. It all works out. The head of staff manages things smoothly. We imagine that if a cattle stampede were to break out during an earthquake, she would remain unflappable.
The cultural affairs person gets everyone's attention and introduces us. I start off. (This video is the very beginning of the Seder, filmed by a caregiver.)
My voice is OK. I stumble a few times on details. I occasionally need to be told to wait until everyone is ready for me to proceed.
I have problems when we hit the long stretches of Hebrew text. Even with the vowels written in, I make mistakes and get tangled.
Fortunately, the other resident who we had hoped would show up to help does. She sits in the seat nearest the lead table with the text that we have prepared. When my family spots that I'm having trouble, they gesture to her. She continues the reading flawlessly, bringing more emotion to the text than I can. We turn to her for most of the long texts from then on.
I'm responsible for the prayers that are said over items on the table and for leading the singing. At least I'm mostly leading it. At one point, I begin a song, and the residents sing a completely different set of lyrics. I shut up and try to mouth along with what I'm hearing. For the next two songs, they have utterly different melodies, which I have never heard before. I smile and nod along. They've got this.
I finish with the last few prayers before we eat. As the servers are dishing out the chicken soup and gefilte fish for the first course, I go over to the resident who read the Hebrew text and thank her profusely. She takes my hand and says that she feels honored to be able to help.
Traditional Seders go on for quite a while after people eat, but ours ends here. Too many people have to go to bed. I can understand that. Some are frail. Many are old enough to be my parents -- or perhaps grandparents. (I learned yesterday that the man who I thought was the oldest in the House, whose apartment I took over last year when he got a caregiver and moved downstairs into a larger one, isn't the oldest. He's only 103. Another man, who sits at the table beyond mine at breakfast every day, is reportedly 104.)
At lunch the next day, some residents complain about not singing some of the songs at the end. So it goes. (I do miss the tradition that my family had when I was young of singing "We Shall Overcome" and, for obscure reasons, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.")
As I leave the Seder, several people stop me to thank me for how it went. Even the one guy who criticizes everything and who, upon entering, declared that he was going to boycott the event before they got him to sit down, tells me that I did an excellent job.
I go upstairs, sit in my big chair, and listen to some relatively calming Stockhausen.
The next day is relatively quiet. I sit at my desk and start to write this.
I stop by my family's apartment down the hall before supper. We talk things over, and think about how we might do things differently if we get to lead the Seder in future years.
Just as I'm about to head down to the dining hall, we hear sirens. Everyone goes out into the protected hallway. Missiles have been spotted coming at us from Yemen. Life returns to the new normal.
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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.