Seders Reminisces at Bubbe and Zadie’s
Arthur L. Finkle
The smells of Passover wafted from the kitchen, whetting my
appetite. However, my eight-year-old food desires and the reality of my desire
fulfilled were worlds apart.
The Zayde began the Seder after sundown, usually about 8:30.
Using the veteran Maxwell House Haggadah, with its wine stains impressed on the
pages from prior years, seemed to be integral to the festivities. Not that I
could read (or understand) the English, much less the Hebrew.
I had confidently learned the four questions at Hebrew
School. When my Father came home at 7:00, he told me to recite a Yiddish phrase
that I remember to this day, even with my short-lived confidence shot. We kids
did not understand Yiddish. (Our patents’ generation used this arcane language
to keep their secrets from us kids.)
“Zayde, I fer defregana de feir cashas.” I found out years
later what it meant (Grandfather, I will ask the four questions).
Then the Seder droned on and on and on. I can empathize with
Alex Haley when we heard the story of his native tribe and found Kinte Kunte about
3 hours into the native.
Meanwhile, my young teenaged cousins, without any food, got
drunk on especially saccharine Manishewitz wine. (If you get drunk, DION’T do
it on Manishewitz wine.)
We commenced eating about 11:00 pm, after pleadings from my
Bubbe, Aunts and Uncles to opportune my Zaydie to shortcut some of the footnotes
in the Passover story.
The food portion began at 11:00 pm. My Bube’s gefilte fish
was excellent. My Zayde’s home-made wine wou ld have been bad even in
prohibition days.
We ended the Seder at about 1:30 p[m, about four-five hours
after my bedtimes.
Such were my recollections of my family’s Passover Seder.
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