Three seders, four questions

If you were born in Brooklyn, I guarantee that your first word was not “Mama” or “Dada.” It was “traffic.”

Traffic was what you talked about for the next however-many-years you lived in NYC (unless your vocabulary advanced to Alternate Side of the Street Parking).

At least, that’s how it was in my family.

Even when she was a passenger, my mother, Evelyn, always worried about traffic. Holiday time was especially nerve-wracking. After years of harrowing trips to New Jersey or Connecticut to celebrate with her children and grandchildren, she came up with a simple solution.

Change the date of the holiday.

Who cared if we celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday or Mother’s Day on Saturday? Fewer cars on the road were the key to her happiness.

Poor Mom! Year after year she tried to convince us to juggle the dates, but she was always outvoted. So, on Thanksgiving, she had to endure long trips “over the river and through the woods,” as the song goes. There were no horses or sleighs on I-95 or the Garden State Parkway, but as traffic creeped along, it sure felt like there were.

On Mother’s Day, the trip from hell was forgiven and forgotten as soon as my father made a right turn on to Shagbark Lane, the street in Connecticut where my sister lived. Predictably, the dogwood trees would be in full bloom. It felt like driving through clouds of cotton candy. My mother would take a deep breath and exclaim, “I hope heaven will look like this.”

To her credit, she would never tamper with the dates of Jewish holidays. Those dates were sacrosanct. It wasn’t that we were so religious; we just didn’t want to be struck by lightning because we were eating chametz while the rest of the Jewish world was crunching on matzah. Or vice versa.

Now, many years later, my husband and I find ourselves in a Passover pickle. We’d like to tweak the date of this Jewish holiday, just a little. What would Evelyn say?

Ironically, it isn’t traffic that is upending some of our holiday plans. It’s the relatives in Chicago.

My daughter-in-law always celebrates Passover in Chicago with the paternal side of her family. It is the one time of year that all 25 of them get together. The pandemic had spoiled this beautiful tradition, but recently they have gotten back on track.

Where does that leave Bubbie and Grandy? Without seeing our kids? That is not an option.

A better solution is to have a seder a few days before Passover actually begins. There won’t be a full moon on the 10th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan; a waxing gibbous will have to do. But there will be blessings, singing, a seder plate, and two little voices asking important questions about why this night is different from all other nights.

Fortunately, Elijah won’t get stuck in traffic, but he will need to take the elevator to the 19th floor of the apartment building. Magically, he will arrive just as we start singing for him. Ari and Eliana will ask the most important question, which is not in the Haggadah. “Why does Elijah only come to our seder in New York? He NEVER comes to the Chicago seder.”

They have yet to ask why Elijah has an uncanny resemblance to Grandy.

Our next two seders will coincide with the Jewish calendar. Whew! Friends and family will enjoy a variety of charoset recipes. We will ask the Four Questions and this time, 6-year-old Benji inevitably will ask a fifth question: Why was God so mean to the Egyptians?

We’ll sing “Dayenu” and add new relevant verses. For example, “When people of all ages, sexes, sexual orientation, races, religions, cultures, and nations learn to open their hearts and to respect and appreciate one another … DAYENU.” “When all children grow up in freedom, without hunger … DAYENU.” It may be difficult to squeeze all these syllables into the traditional melody but it’s worth a try.

I think Evelyn would be delighted to know that my husband and I will celebrate three seders this year. Families will be together and memories will be made. That is the essence of the holiday. So what if one of the dates is askew? At least Passover — Chag Ha-Aviv, the holiday of spring — remains in springtime.

Would she be equally delighted to know that her three nieces celebrate Thanksgiving in May?

Even for my mother, this adjustment seems rather extreme. Clearly, there is a holiday/traffic gene mutation in our family. The three sisters live in NYC, New Orleans, and Albuquerque, and get together for the holiday. They worry that airports are frenetic and the weather is too unpredictable in November. May is the perfect month.

As long as they avoid Mother’s Day and Memorial Day traffic on the roads and in the air, Evelyn probably would give her blessing. And if the dogwood trees are in bloom when they celebrate Thanksgiving, that would be heavenly!

Merrill Silver and her husband live in Montclair; she’s a freelance writer and retired ESL teacher. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Hadassah magazine, the Forward, the New York Jewish Week, and other publications. Find her at merrillsilver.wordpress.com