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| Debra and Martin Darvick prepared to celebrate Seder with their family, 2019 |
Zoom and Skype keep folk connected and business
rolling forward best they can. My heartfelt thanks to the farmer and hunter who
feed us, and medical teams on firing lines.
I
ignore the majority of unsolicited email. Most include sincere advice and
strategies to promote the writer’s success in these trying times. Believe me, trials
are nothing new, just different.
My
heart leaps when I see Debra’s email Wednesday, April 1. She attaches the link
of her new blog titled, “What? No Seder?” I anticipate another fresh drink of
life.
I
recall the beautiful April day in 1999 when I met Debra in the Detroit Public
Library. In the Fine Arts Room before an audience of our peers, she read her
award-winning memoir about her Jewish grandmother.
I saw
her grandmother complete the process of stirring and baking éclairs with her
granddaughter, the spatula’s chocolate touch. Her story related to my
Pentecostal granny who served my sisters and me fresh, hot buttered biscuits
with fried apples.
Food
and faith connected us that day of pink crabapple blossoms along Woodward
Avenue.
Here
I am in April again with another relatable story from Debra.
“My
rabbi told me he and his colleagues are hearing from congregants who may well
forgo Seder completely this year,” Debra begins.
I
understand. One lonely empty-nest Easter, I didn’t have heart enough to carry
my mother-in-law’s Easter ceramics upstairs and decorate. No yellow ducklings,
chicks. No pink bunny on the dining room table. No Henrietta, the rabbit with
fake eyelashes. No ham, scalloped potatoes, mandarin orange salad, and Coconut
Bunny Cake.
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| Henrietta the Rabbit, Easter houseguest |
Afterward,
I realized the injury I’d done to myself and Mel, and the dishonor to my
mother-in-law and her ritual of remembering Christ’s Resurrection.
As
Debra says, “But if ever there was a time to have Seder, this is it! Rabbi
Asher Lopatin commented that this year’s Seder will be akin to the first one in
Exodus—families huddled in their homes eating their own meals—while mayhem
carries on outside.”
Debra
relates to my family and faith again.
“When
we carry on a tradition, we honor and fulfill commandments dictated to us in an
ancient scroll. When Exodus 12.24 says, ‘You shall observe this as an
institution for all time, for you and for your descendants,’ that means us. ”
Debra
observes Seder with her husband Martin. I observe Easter with Mel. We did so
before children. We do so after. We must
sustain the life of our faith to sustain ourselves. Only then may we help sustain
the life of our children’s faith.
Dear
Reader, I bless that April day I met Debra. Listen to this. “People of faith
are people of faith. Your struggles are mine, and visa versa. May we all find a
way to celebrate the bitter and the sweet in this terrible time.”
Here’s
one more drink of hope. “What a story we will all have to share afterwards.”
For Debra’s complete blog, visit here:
https://readthespirit.com/debra-darvick/what-no-seder/
