How I Spent the First Night of Quarantine Passover
By Lena Sclove

I realized what I didn’t know. Which was how to do Judaism at home.

I had known that I didn’t know that for a while, and had been taking steps to try to learn. But I realized all of a sudden that I had no idea how to host a Passover, even for myself. I had benefited from other people hosting passovers all my life. Suddenly, stuck at home, nobody could do it for me. And I felt profoundly guilty and inadequate.

It wasn’t enough that I had spent the whole morning reading Family Papers by Sarah Abrevaya Stein, about a Sephardi Jewish family living and dying across the twentieth century, from Ottoman Salonica spreading all around the world. It wasn’t enough that I had spent the afternoon in my Jewish Studies class on zoom, discussing the book in the context of Sephardi and Ladino history. It wasn’t enough that we are under lockdown during a pandemic, and groceries are hard to come by. I should know this thing, everyone on facebook seems to, and I have attended so many over the years, how did I not pick it up along the way?

Pause. This is not unfamiliar thinking. I judge myself harshly about many (most) things so why wouldn’t this be any different?

So, I will tell you what I did do. Well…first, what I didn’t. I didn’t have a seder. I knew I would join one on the 2nd night, but I couldn’t make it happen for the first night. However, I did cook a special delicious meal for me and my fiancé. I did listen to Judaism Unbound while I did so, and specifically, their episode interviewing Rabbi Vanessa Ochs about her new book The Passover Haggadah: A Biography. I did have a glass of wine and I did reflect on the suffering of the pandemic, the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt, the suffering of Palestinians, the suffering of African slavery, the suffering of ICE detainees and those caught in the brutality of mass incarceration. I felt the gratitude of having a loving partner, and of having food for us to eat even in these dire times. I sang hineh ma tov and imagined my mom harmonizing with me. I called my parents and talked to them while I did dishes. They weren’t having a seder either.

I can blame them for never teaching me how to host one. I can blame myself for never learning. Or I can remember what I learned from the Rabbi Ochs interview, and what I have learned throughout all of my Jewish Studies courses in grad school: there have been so many kinds of Jews, who have lived Jewishly in so many different kinds of ways. Some have done so out of choice, because some rituals just didn’t resonate. Others have done so by force, either through forced conversion or being descendants of those who were forced to convert, or simply because practicing these rituals didn’t feel politically or socially safe. I am not the first Jew not to have a passover seder, and I won’t be the last.

But what I realized tonight is that this doesn’t mean that I am not deeply connected to my ancestors and to Judaism. If anything, I feel connected to a long line of Jews who didn’t have seders, who didn’t know how to, who longed to know how, or longed to be invited or able to gather with those who did, but for whatever reason, just couldn’t. Who felt somehow outside, guilty for their outsiderness even if it wasn’t their fault, and also still found ways to connect with the tradition in their own way. Like by reflecting on the story as they remember it, contemplating how it relates to current times, asking questions, drinking wine, thinking about their grandparents, thinking about history, imagining a future that might be more just, and feeling holiness at the table, with loved ones or alone.

Watching images on social media of all the creative seder plates, the extended families on Zoom and the nifty Haggadahs invented for pandemic times, I tried to feel into a reality of sacredness in the longing. Maybe next year, I will know a little more how to have a seder at home. Maybe next year, I will be at a table with those who can guide me and teach me. Maybe next year, I will be a bit kinder to myself, a bit gentler about what I don’t know, and a bit more creative in the ways I speak to myself. But for this year, I honor that we are a world in crisis, that death feels close and intimate and scary and real, and also that life is as precious as ever, and that we all have different ways of celebrating it.

I raise a glass to all who felt lonely this passover, who felt guilty or Jewishly-inadequate because others weren’t there to fill the holes in your Jewish education. I see you. I hear you. Next year, maybe we will be at the table together. For this year, may we honor the multiplicity of our ancestors, and the many ways they were and were not able to see this holiday through in traditional ways. We are all doing our best, pandemic or not. May we remember the beauty in not knowing how, in saying help me, but also in saying, I do know some things, and tonight, this moment, I am enough. Dayeinu.