One of my favorite children’s Pesach books is The Carp in the Bathtub. It tells the story of a young girl living with her brother, parents, and grandparents in a small New York apartment. Every year, Mama comes home from the fish market with a live carp in order to make her delicious gefilte fish. The carp lives in the bathtub until it meets its fate, and the children in the story love this Pesach tradition (not only because it means they don’t have to bathe while the carp is there!).
As a child I certainly had no appreciation for small New York apartment living, but something about this story grabbed me year after year. I think I connected to the particularities of it, as Jews who celebrate something unique but especially as a family having their own traditions, even if they weren’t my family’s traditions. It’s the thing I love most about Pesach: there are endless possibilities for unique meaning-making for each family. I’m sure many of your families have your own specific foods you make, tunes you use for songs, or shtick for your seder. No two families celebrate Pesach in exactly the same way.
Sometimes it is in these moments of intense family tradition that we feel the loss of those who aren’t with us. I hope that as you recall them, their memories will continue to bless your seder table. (Remember that we’ll recite Yizkor on the 8th day of Pesach, Shabbat April 7th.) I hope that your seder tables in the next two nights are beautiful celebrations of new and old traditions. I hope your seders are full of discussions of our history and what it means to be liberated today, as well as an understanding of the servitude we still see in the world. May your celebrations be wonderful expressions of memory, freedom, and joy.
Wishing all of you a Shabbat Shalom and a Zissen (sweet) Pesach, Rabbi Sarit
