seders

For the past few years it seems like Seders are not real.  They are more of an attempt to step into a memory.  Now I know that that is actually the point of a seder, but come on.   We are not reliving the Exodus here.  We are not really trying to.  No one is.  We should probably just finally get rid of that part.

Instead we are trying to step back into the time when Seders were real.  Before everyone died. The seders that we attended the most frequently in our lives.  We don't do a very good job though of recreating those seders.  We are in different homes with different people around us.  We, who were the kids, have found ourselves to be the people we had no idea we could ever become.  The Parents!  There is one generation above us now, only one.

I used to feel like I had to have at least one blood relative with me at every Seder to make it real.   One person who knew the same tunes that I did.  Last year though I realized that at least for the foreseeable future I will always have two.  Now that they are more people than ideas I am struck by the fact the Eli and Mira are my relatives.  They don't know my tunes but I know theirs.   We are building this whole this up anew.

We are good at creating traditions in our house, but I worry that we are not so good at holding on to old ones.  Mostly this is my fault.  My tendency is to throw everything away. To cast away the nuggets of beauty with the garbage.   And mostly this is okay.  But at a Seder you need a little dirty water to wade in.