An Important Lesson from my First Seder of Four

Today, for only the second time in my life, I will have a small Seder. Just the four of us. Two children are away—one overseas, the other in uniform—two with us, at home. A table for four. About half of all Jewish Israelis (51%) will celebrate the Seder with a group of about this size, three to five people. Only the Charedim will have an average standard Seder of more people. A plurality of them (47%) will have six to nine members of the family sitting together. Larger nuclear families allow for a larger Seder.

Nuclear family is what the government expects Israelis to have at their table. Roads are closed to traffic from Tuesday afternoon. The closure will be even tighter tonight. Is the closure necessary? The Ministry of Health surveyed the public and reported that 98% intend to follow the government’s orders. So the closure is important to send a message of seriousness, and to try and stop the other 2%. All in all, Israelis tend to be obedient in recent weeks. There is some trouble in certain neighborhoods and with certain extreme elements. The rest of the public got the point: Coronavirus is dangerous. The officials are not faking the graveness of the situation.

My only other Seder of four was a long time ago. Twenty-four years ago, to be exact. And it was not a Seder for a nuclear family. Back then, my only nuclear family was my wife. And our two guests for the Seder were not family. In fact, they were people we barely knew then, and have lost contact with since. It’s been a long time, there’s a great distance, and we aren’t nearly the same age. And yet, I remember our Seder of four as one to cherish. My wife does too. So, this year we are using this memory as we try to convince our children that while a small Seder is, well, small – this doesn’t mean that it has to be sad.

It’s important to understand that in the case of a Seder, small also means different. It is not the same Seder but with fewer people. It’s a Seder night with fewer people and therefore a different Seder. The number of participants not only impacts the volume of singing, it also influences the design and content. Here is an example: the Seder is a ceremony designed in an educational format, and in many ways designed for children. They are the ones who ask the Kushiot (Ma Nishtana) and receive the answers from the text of the Haggadah. When the children lose patience, adults use material aids to draw their attention. They wrap Matza and Maror, they sprinkle wine into a saucer, they open a door for Elijah the Prophet.

A particularly popular practice is the one of the Afikoman. There are those who hide it – the girl or boy – and there are those who are required to promise to give them something in return when the Afikoman is given back. In normal years, most homes in Israel (76%) hide Afikoman. But naturally, the tendency to keep this practice is higher when there are children at home. The 35- to 44-year-olds (77%) and the 45- to 54-year-olds (81%) report hiding Afikoman more than people of younger or older ages, most of whom no longer or not yet have children of the appropriate age.

Twenty-four years ago, in my last Seder of four, we did not have children at the table. There was us, two twenty-something-year-old Israelis, and the couple who joined us, Bernie and Marcia Glick. The room was small, the table small, the kitchen small. We lived that year in a tiny apartment near Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. We were young Shlichim, Jewish community workers for a year. The Glicks were adults, with real jobs and real achievements and experience in life. They were funny and gracious. I don’t recall how and why we decided to have a Seder together, but my assumption would be that they just wanted to be kind and not leave us all alone for Pesach.

What we did with the Afikoman, I do not remember. But I do know that Seder was one of the most interesting and memorable we had. Why? Because it was different. It was small – and hence intimate. It was surprising. For us, having a Seder with English speakers, who could not hold a conversation about the text of the Haggadah in Hebrew, was eye opening. It forced us to reengage with a familiar text. It forced us to engage with the tradition in a new way. The exact details are murky, but I know that they said things about the meaning of the night that were different than the meaning we used to ascribe to the Seder and to the holiday.

There is a lot I’ve learned about the Seder in the last quarter of century. And a few days ago, when I looked at a survey commissioned by Israel’s daily Maariv, I learned more. The Seder is one of the most commonly practiced Jewish customs, with about 97% of Israelis having one on a regular basis. But this year, being the year of Coronavirus, I wondered if people were going to take a break, to decide to make this a year off. The answer is no. Almost all Jewish Israelis (95%) told us that they were going to have a Seder, and this includes a fair share of people who will likely have it alone or as a couple (almost a quarter of the Israeli Jewish public). In fact, the decline among the general public this year is expected to be around 2%, and among the most secular group, around 3%. The Seder – so it appears – has true resiliency.

And yes, for most of us it will be different. We might miss the messiness of having all the branches of the family coming together. We might have to contend with a Seder of a different type. But something I learned many years ago, and I believe still stands, is that a Seder of a few people can still be a wonderful celebration of Jewish joy and meaning.

Glicks, wherever you are, this is for you. And have a happy Pesach.

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The numbers in this post are taken from a survey by Maariv Daily, conducted by pollster Menachem Lazar (You can listen to a conversation with Lazar about Israel’s politics here); from my book with Prof. Camil Fuchs, #IsraeliJudaism, Portrait of a cultural Revolution (you can see some of our findings on Pesach here); from a short essay on a Coronavirus Pesach I wrote for The Jewish People Policy Institute (Hebrew, here).