Passover

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This past weekend was Passover (and Easter). Traditionally, Jews celebrate their escape from slavery in Egypt some 3000 years ago by arbitrarily restricting diet and eating a big feast. I always found it one of the most interesting holidays, even if I didn't quite relate. It's like a big celebration, but keeping just enough suffering to remember the past. Jewish guilt at its best.

 My mom prepares this feast (the Seder) every year, and it will probably be permanently marked on my calendar for the foreseeable future. Every year it involves between 10 and 45 people, family and friends, clustered around a long table in my parents' living room with, undoubtedly, twice as much food as necessary. That's the way we work. Always lots of food. And despite the restrictions, it is always cooked with enthusiasm and pride.

This year, I invited a colleague from school (the science teacher from the alternative school upstairs, who taught me everything I know and goes running with me). This was her first Jewish event, and it made it that much more fun to share the almost stereotyped (in the ecological sense) ritual dinner with someone who has never seen it before. We are commanded to tell the story of the escape from slavery, along with traditional songs and blessings, and it's more fun to be telling the story to someone.

The best part of the evening, though, was when my mother invited each of my four grandparents to tell a story of their childhood Seders. My father's father, who rarely shares stories even though he has some of the best ones, told a fascinating story of Passover in Poland in 1945.

In the early spring of 1945, my grandfather was about 16 years old and in a concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. He was away from his family and doing hard labor every day, but like me, expected the Passover Seder with all its idiosyncrasies. On the first night of Passover, late at night, after the Nazi guards had gone to sleep, and anticipating an early day of more work, they had a Seder. They didn't have any of the ritual icons that were on our table last weekend, like the sacrificial lamb bone, the dry and flaky matzoh, the sharp horseradish, and the ubiquitous parsley. All they had was a Chasidic young man (one of the sect of Jews who are often found walking along the sidewalk in black hats and long black coats) who recited the Seder for them. If they were caught they would have been punished.

But they were commanded to tell the story, so they did. "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the L-rd, our G-d, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children's children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing the Torah, we would still be obligated to discuss the exodus from Egypt; and everyone who discusses the exodus from Egypt at length is praiseworthy."

At this time, the end of the war was inconceivable to the younger prisoners. They had no knowledge of what was going on in Europe, as the war was being fought. The older prisoners, those that had defended their country in World War I, knew that it would end eventually. They would put their ears to the ground and argue over how far away the shells were exploding. In 1945, the explosions were getting closer, but they did not know whether they would live another day.

And so they recited, according to the tradition, "Thus it is our duty to thank, to laud, to praise, to glorify, to exalt, to adore, to bless, to elevate and to honor the One who did all these miracles for our fathers and for us. He took us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to festivity, and from deep darkness to great light and from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore recite before Him Halleluyah, Praise G-d!"

On Thursday, April 19, 1945, Krakow fell to the Russians. The previous evening, a Wednesday around 5PM, which my grandfather specifically recalled, the prisoners noticed that the guards had disappeared. They sent a younger boy to go explore, and the guards were no where to be found. They all cautiously wandered towards the guards houses, and eventually heard voices. But the guards were gone and the voices spoke in Russian. "This year [we are] slaves; next year [we will be] free people."