When I was a kid, my family would gather in the Skokie, IL apartment of my grandparents for a Passover Seder. My grandfather read what seemed like every page of the Haggadah (order of service; the liturgy for the ceremonial meal) published by Maxwell House coffee. The house was filled with the smell of matzo ball soup, long-cooking brisket, and a table-groaning variety of sides warming in the oven, and it seemed torture to sit at the table and wait for the best meal of the year while Grampy and the rest of the grown-ups went through what felt like an endless preamble. My mom would sneak bits of matzo (unleavened bread) to my sister and I to keep us quiet until Nana brought out pots and platters of glorious food.
It wasn’t until I hit adulthood that I realized that our yearly Seders were our three generations’ links in a chain that stretched back to Moses, who told his people what God required of them: [Read more]
