Second Chance: A Widow's Journey

Feeling Of Loss At The Passover Seder

Somehow together with excitement I also experience a feeling of loss as Pesach is fast approaching. It seems that I am already sad thinking of those who would be absent from my Seder. Unfortunately the list of the loved ones who won’t sit around the table is getting longer every year. It includes my parents and my husband Tzvi who are no longer alive,  my daughters who are abroad, and my only brother who will celebrate the holiday with his family.

Pople complain about spending the holidays with their family, and psychological studies have proven and quantified the existence of a particular holiday stress. However, in Israel, a family-centered society, it is common that unmarried people flee the country, regardless of the destination, just not to be around when every one else is with the family.

Since we spent many years in the US away from Israel, not being here during the holiday is not a good solution, as it only amplifies the loss. On the other hand, at the risk of appearing Scrooge-like, for me there is nothing worse than spending the holiday with a fortunate  family that doesn’t have a list of those who are no longer there (or a missing persons list).

So with no easy solution, I spent the first Jewish holiday, few months after my husband passed away on my own, at home. Somehow it felt comfortable and peaceful, and I had time to remember my family history through its holidays. I missed especially those which we  celebrated together with my parents, my brother, my husband and my daughters. I did not have many visual mementos from those happy times, but they were vivid in my mind.

Only one year in Passover  of 1990, my brother rented a video for the holiday and recorded the celebration. I always remembered  those occasions as full of love and joy, but carefully examining the home movie, I could also detect those instances of subtle tension, the impatience of my husband with my father, a frustration of a young child, the futile attempt to get everyone's attentions etc. Those are probably the materials that holiday stress is made of, and it is also the essence of a real family holiday as opposed to a nostalgic memory on an idyllic one.

In 1990 we too were a fortunate family, with no list; or at least at that time being a daughter and a mother  I didn't notice if there was one. I am certain that the feeling of loss which I experience nowadays has been  present in my parents’ life for years.  My father’s last Seder with his own parents was in Germany in 1933 when he was 20 year old, soon afterwards he immigrated to Palestine and never saw his family again. And my mother too, at that point, had lost not only her parents but also two of her brothers. 

However, having children and grandchildren around all that was forgotten.

Loss is significant in the Jewish tradition, and as such it is present in most of our holidays. In the Passover  Seder we are instructed to remember and to tell stories of our past. The Exodus from Egypt resulted in a huge gain for the Israelites but they also endured great losses: Moses himself died before entering the promised land.

Perhaps my feeling of loss just means that finally I begin to understand the richness, and the complex meaning of the holidays?

P.S. A friend reminded me tonight that the prophet Elijah who is invited into the Passover Seder, is always absent as well.