At the First Seder

by Lloyd B. Abrams

Our Seder on the first night of Passover is always held at the Riverdale home of my maternal aunt and uncle, Rosalyn and Martin Rosenbaum. It is as much about tradition as it is an annual tribute to Aunt Roz and Uncle Marty.

When my parents drove me there, my father cursed the traffic from Long Island – the seemingly unending stop-and-go on the Grand Central, the Triborough Bridge and the Major Deegan, or the alternative, the utter futility of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Every year, he vowed to never drive there again but every year, of course, we returned. Ever since my parents have departed this earth, my father’s afflictive legacy to curse the traffic has passed onto me. This year the traffic was especially bad. My short temper and aggressive driving – “would you please take it easy, Larry?” my wife kept on saying – made for a dreadful trip. I vowed once again to never drive to Riverdale on the first evening of Passover.

But each year we did attend the Rosenbaum Seder, where the nasty sneer and the evil glare were put on hold and family feuds were suspended for that night, but for that one night only. Bar mitzvahs, wedding ceremonies – even funerals – were not deemed holy or special enough to prevent the zombie-like silent treatment or the occasional outbreak of screaming and, more than once, a fistfight between two inept, out-of-shape men. The first Seder at the Rosenbaums was sacred ground.

If I had to put my finger on the special Rosenbaum ingredients that allowed all of us to be together in peace, I think it was their prevailing sense of humor coupled with overriding acceptance. Uncle Martin –“For cryin’ out loud, already … it’s Marty!” – would pull a penny out of a kid’s ear and then let him keep the coin, or worse, tell him, with an audience around, to pull Marty’s finger, with the usual fart noise – unreal or sometimes, real. Or, Marty telling bad, sometimes off-color jokes even when the kids were within earshot. Or Marty belching at the table and the kids bursting out laughing and Aunt Roz warning him, “One day, I swear Marty, I’m gonna give you such a klop!”

But mostly, there was acceptance. Of small things, of course, like one of the children spilling a cup of grape juice. Or another breaking a piece of the special hand-baked shmura matzoh before it was time. Or a little one whose late night crankiness could not be salved. But of the big things as well: like my son marrying out of the faith, to a wonderful young woman with whom he had gone out with for years, or my daughter on her way to becoming observant, showing up with her yarmulke’d betrothed, traveling despite the prohibitions. Or of Marlene, the lesbian cousin with a substance abuse problem – though shunned by her own family, she was always welcome at Roz and Marty’s. Or of bitter Aunt Estelle – “the widow Estelle” – who was never heard to utter a kind word, but who could not help laughing at Marty’s antics, especially after her second glass of wine. As for me, there was my mishegas, my own craziness, which was okay, too – my own Jewish observance – or lack thereof – an agnosticism imbued with a strong cultural flavor. To Roz and Marty, it was always “all good.”

More than thirty of us gathered around the Seder table, made up of the dining room table and uneven folding tables that stretched out under the archway into the living room. Tablecloths were white bed sheets covered with protective plastic. There was disposable dinnerware and flatware so that even my daughter and her fiancee, with their restrictions, would feel comfortable. Most important, there was no kids’ table at Roz and Marty’s; the children were seated between us on phone books or in highchairs shlepped down from the attic.

Queen Roz was the reigning benevolent dictator, the presider-over who did no actual cooking of her own, but who coordinated the army of cooks and purchasers and preparers, while making sure to accommodate everyone. The older children were drafted to set the table, a task which would keep them out of mischief, at least for a while. Everybody brought something: large bowls of salad from a niece, an avowed vegetarian; muck ’n’ mire – a stewed concoction of onions, mushrooms, carrots and spices – from my wife; a wonderfully over-cooked melt-in-your-mouth brisket from my daughter; cakes and chocolate-coated macaroons from a kosher bakery from an aunt; blue bottles of Bartenura Moscato, a sweet kosher wine from another cousin; and aluminum foil pans and glass bowls of chicken and asparagus and potatoes and beets and tzimmes and kugel and cut-up vegetables and fruit salad from everyone else.

Before starting the Seder, Roz served everyone a bowl of soup with a large matzoh ball, and even a second helping for Uncle Steve. It wasn’t exactly by the book but it guaranteed that no one would be irritable or grouchy.

Aunt Roz had assembled, over the years, a shelfful of antique and decorative Haggadahs, but everyone at the table got a blue Maxwell House Coffee Haggadah, with dog-eared covers, wine stains and stuck-together pages. Going around the table, each of us read a paragraph from our Haggadah. The youngest asked the four questions, and those who could read or sing in Hebrew, did so, while the rest of us faked it or hummed along. We recounted the ten plagues with appropriate contempt and we tried to sing all fifteen verses of Dayenu.

This time, Rachel, one of the nieces, a sophomore in college, pointed out that we always thank our forefathers for the sacrifices that they had made, and then suggested that we should also thank our own fathers and grandfathers – and our mothers and grandmothers – for all that they had done for us. I usually don’t care for that touchy-feely stuff but I was stared down by my wife just as I began to protest. So we went around the table.

After Rachel poured out her sentiments, “I’m thankful I can live in a free country, and that we can do so because of our grandparents’ perilous trip across the Atlantic …” – something which she had probably prepared – the seriousness quickly devolved when one of the kids said he was thankful for his father for buying him an X-Box and another thanking his father who got him a dirt bike. Marty was thankful for the “goddamn wonderful engineers from Germany” for his BMW, even though his was probably manufactured in South Carolina, and I said, with the traffic still on my mind, that I was thankful for my EZ-Pass. I didn’t take Rachel’s suggestion seriously, but in retrospect maybe I should have. What was supposed to have sounded earnest and solemn came out sounding much too maudlin and, sometimes, laughingly so. That is, until Aunt Roz stood up and began to speak.

“Well, I have a story about fathers and sons. I don’t know why, but I’ve kept it to myself for a long time.” She looked over at Marty. “Maybe I shouldn’t …”

“Go ahead, Grandma.” One of the grandchildren, suddenly alert, while out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marty shrug and nod at Roz.

“Okay, okay. I was with the Hadassah on a trip to Germany ten years ago. It was back in the spring of 2001, way before 9/11. Remember, Marty, the trip you said they’d never catch you dead on?”

“She wanted to go to Europe with a bunch of yentas,” Marty started to explain. “To visit the camps, no less. She knows how I feel about the Germans.”

“And am I the one who’s got a BMW in the garage?”

Marty shook his head. Roz cleared her throat and went on. “Well, when we arrived in Hamburg – that’s where I grew up when I was a little girl – we had a day with nothing scheduled. Most of the ladies” – Roz stared at Marty as she said this – “stayed in their rooms, catching up on their sleep but, as usual, I couldn’t sleep. All our farshtunkaneh room had was a shower.”

“That’s nothing new,” Marty said. “When she can’t sleep she runs to the bathtub. Even in the middle of the night.” They worked so well as a couple that even their pauses and interruptions were right in synch.

Roz gave her husband a threatening look, and shook her fist at him. Then: “So, I decided to visit the cemetery where my grandparents were buried.

“I went down to the desk to ask for directions and the hotel manager wanted to know if that was really where I wanted to go. So I asked him, ‘Why? What’s the matter?’ and he said that he passed it every day and it looked overgrown. He tried to find the right words and then he said, ‘It’s so desolate.’”

“Weren’t you worried, Grandma?” One of the ten-year-olds acting twice her age.

“Not really, tataleh. Why should I worry? After all, it was 2001, not the 1930s.”

“Let her continue, already.” This time, Marty was urging her on. Although he often teased Roz about her fascination with death and loss and bereavement – “What, you want me to stop at another farkokteh graveyard?” – he also showed off her cemetery art albums filled with digital photographs of gravestones and mausoleums that he had helped to crop and retouch.

“So I asked for a taxi and the manager telephoned for me. A few minutes later, the taxicab came and I was driven to the old Jewish cemetery.

“I asked the driver to wait, bitte, at the entrance. I did not intend to be there long. I got out of the taxi and when he turned off the engine, it was quiet. So quiet, so still. I pushed open the rusty gate – I was surprised it was unlocked – and went in. The manager of the hotel was right. The cemetery did look desolate. And forgotten.

“It was sunny and humid that day, warmer than it had been. The air was thick and smelled from flowers. It was so warm that I took off my sweater and tied the sleeves around my waist.

“I stepped through the ivy and the undergrowth and had to push aside vines that were tangled around the trees and the gravestones. It was like a jungle. The vines were so long and twisted that they reminded me of an old religious man’s beard. A lot of them had thorns and I scratched my hands and my arms. I also ripped a pair of good stockings.

“I remembered that the graves of my grandparents were in a corner away from the entrance, so I had a good idea where to find them. Their graves seemed so far away when I was a little girl but this time the cemetery didn’t seem so big. The place looked abandoned. Some of the gravestones were tilting and others had fallen over. I suppose they might’ve been knocked down because there was writing spray-painted on some of them – ‘Juden’ and some filthy German words I’m not going to say out loud.”

Roz sighed, then continued. “I finally got to their graves and the headstones looked much smaller than they had so many years before. My grandfather, Mordechai Silverman and my grandmother, Rebecca. My mother’s parents, may they rest in peace. The words on the headstones were in Hebrew and German, but I could still read their names.

“I had forgotten that there was a porcelain picture, like a cameo, on each stone, a shiny oval-shaped picture in black and white. These, the Nazis didn’t bother to destroy, but they looked like they might have been hit by bullets or pellets. Probably the work of vandals, but who knows?

“In his picture, my grandfather was wearing a large yarmulke that covered his head like a fez. His eyes were deep-set and he had a long beard. Matter of fact, he looked a lot like you, Larry,” Roz said as she glanced at me. “And my grandmother … she was so young, so beautiful. Her picture must’ve been from her wedding.”

She paused and picked up a napkin to dab away a tear. “Anyway, I got down on my knees and tried to clear away the weeds. Then I said Kaddish. God knows, I’ve been saying it a lot these days. The people we’ve known, they’re dropping like flies.” Roz shook slowly shook her head and was silent for a moment. “And then when I was done, I stood up and put a pebble on top of each headstone.”

“Why Grandma?” The ten-year-old, interrupting.

“It’s a tradition, sweetheart. To show that someone was there. To show respect.”

“Anyway, I remember drying away a tear, but I was surprised that more had not come. Then, I turned to leave.

“As I walked back towards the gate, I was startled when a young man – he must’ve been thirty or so – not that that’s so young – walked right up to me. He was wearing a uniform. He looked like a policeman. He had on high black boots and a black leather jacket. How he could stand the heat, I wouldn’t know.”

Marty broke in. “Go on, already.”

“He looked like a storm trooper, like one of the motorcycle cops they have here in New York. To tell you the truth, I even looked for the double ‘S’ insignia on his lapel that meant he was from the SS – the cruelest of the Nazis.”

“That would’ve scared me, Grandma.” The ten-year-old, again.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry Madam. I didn’t mean to frighten you. But I see you’ve returned.’ He spoke good English, better than mine, even.

“‘Returned?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean ‘returned?’

“‘I see you’ve come back,’ he said. ‘You must’ve lived around here?’

“‘Yes, over there,’ I said. I pointed out, past the gate.

“‘Of course, in the old Jewish Quarter,’ he said. ‘Most of the buildings are gone now. Whatever was not destroyed in the bombing was razed after the war. Now it’s the – how do you say it? – the “in” place to live.’

“It started getting cloudy and I was feeling chilly. I started to shiver. I untied my sweater and pulled it back on.”

“Enough, already, with the sweater.” Marty, again.

“All right, already. Anyway, he said, ‘When I saw you, I knew you were Jewish. And I wanted to apologize to you.’

“‘Apologize?’ I asked. ‘Apologize for what?’ I didn’t know what he wanted. I thought that maybe he was just a crazy person.

“He said, ‘I want to apologize to you for my father. You see, he was a Nazi, and he was in the Allegemeine SS assigned to this district. He was involved in the deportations, and he and his accomplices also beat up Jews and stole and looted. Probably from those very same buildings in the section where you lived.’

“‘But he was your father,’ I said. ‘You weren’t even born yet.’

“Then he answered, ‘You don’t understand. I need to apologize to you. And I need your forgiveness.’

“So I said, ‘Why do you ask me this? What do you want from me? Forgiveness is not mine to give. It was your father’s doing. You can’t be held responsible for the sins of your father.’

“I was so angry at him, so angry at all of them. What chutzpah he had! But … I also felt so hopeless. After all, how could I, Rosalyn Rosenbaum from Riverdale, ever forgive him for anything? And then I said to him, ‘Ich kann nicht mehr. Lassen sie mich allein.’ – which means ‘I can’t anymore. Leave me alone.’ He stared at me for a moment – with anger or hurt, maybe … I don’t know … and then he just turned and walked away.”

There was silence around the table. Even the one-year-old had stopped whimpering.

Marty was the first to speak: “It sounds like maybe he was a crazy man. I’m glad you got out of there in one piece.”

“Marty, I didn’t think he was crazy. And I still don’t. Maybe very confused …”

“How come you never said anything?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to. Anyway, zein genug … it’s enough already” She waved her hands in a gesture meaning “that’s all there is” and then turned and went into the kitchen.

Several women got up to follow. Roz returned with an aluminum pan filled with brisket. The others also brought out plates and bowls of food and helped serve it while another glass of wine was poured.

As we stuffed ourselves and we laughed and we drank some more wine, I thought about the things our fathers and forefathers had done for us and to us, and how there is often a generational shift of responsibility and blame between fathers and sons. But Aunt Roz knew where the line had to be drawn. Although she certainly felt the Nazi’s son’s pain, she could never have granted him absolution.

Despite the joking and the carrying-on, we always got through the entire first half of the Seder – right up to the hand-washing and the “festive meal.” But by the time we finished dinner, it was late and only a few of us were alert enough to want to complete the songs and the benedictions. The afikomen, the piece of matzoh hidden at the beginning of the meal for children to search for at the end, was quickly located by one child, who, I’m pretty sure, cheated by sneaking a peak to see where it was hidden. Nothing was said to him, not even by his father, who handed him the five dollar ransom for its return. To me, he was just another spoiled kid getting away with something and not being called on it. Maybe I should have said something, but, you know … you have to keep the peace.

Meanwhile, the older kids and the teenagers had long disappeared down into the basement playroom and several uncles and the widow Estelle had fallen asleep on the couch. I helped clear the table as Marty, who continued telling jokes – some old, some new, some actually funny – insisted on pre-washing the serving plates and bowls by hand before they were packed into the dishwasher.

Once again, the Prophet Elijah had failed to show up for his special goblet of wine, and the front door was ceremoniously closed and then reopened as, in groups of twos and threes and fours, families who had retrieved their coats began to leave. As usual, my wife and I were the last to go. In our extended family, the long goodbye was a tradition I could usually have done without. But the later it was, the lighter the traffic. When I got onto the eastbound Cross Bronx, I turned on the all-news station for “traffic and weather on the eights” to decide which bridge to take back to Long Island.

Then a thirty-second news item came on. It was from Israel. A Palestinian dressed in Orthodox Jewish garb had hitched a ride from an older couple driving through the West Bank. A pregnant young woman, also hitch-hiking, was next to him. The Palestinian had blown himself up. On the eve of Passover, no less.

My wife looked at me and sadly shook her head. Tears trickling down her cheeks said it all: that it very well could have been us, when we had toured Israel by car and picked up hitchhikers waiting for rides.

I turned off the radio and we drove through the Bronx in silence. I thought about Aunt Roz’s story about a Nazi’s son’s apology and his need for redemption. A kid bought off for five bucks by his father. A Palestinian teenager killing himself for an old man’s war. Even about the traffic: an irritant to most but an anathema to both my father and his son.

Somewhere, I knew, there was a connection.

Somewhere, it all had to make sense.

Rev 17 / May 12, 2007 .. Rev 20 / November 16, 2011 .. Rev 21 / December 14, 2018

-- Appeared in Grassroot Reflections Number 41, February 2017

Up to the beginning of the story

November 2018 …Copyright © 2018, Lloyd B. Abrams