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The virtual seder. My cousin Freda Arlow and husband David Sachs display the traditional Passover platter.
I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood full of delis and Chinese restaurants.There’s a joke about the latter: The food is great, but you’re hungry again an hour later.
That’s the feeling I had Wednesday night after my first virtual Seder – the ceremonial dinners during the first two nights of Passover. Half a dozen relatives from Detroit, the suburbs and California met on Zoom, the teleconferencing platform everyone is flocking to in this social distancing era. It was gratifying, but not totally fulfilling.
During the Seder, we read passages from a book called the Haggadah. It tells the story of the Jews, enslaved by Pharaoh, and how they were eventually freed after God punished the Egyptian people with 10 plagues, including locusts, hail, boils and worst of all, death of the first-born.
As we do every year, we took turns reading from an abbreviated Haggadah and saying the prayers for wine and the ceremonial foods, including horseradish, which represents the bitter times in Egypt. But at the end, when it was time for dinner, we turned off the computer and went our separate ways. It was kind of like having a glass of wine on Thanksgiving, then sending everyone off in search of dinner.
The meal is a big part of the gathering. It’s the celebration. Sharing food, eating together, can be a great joy.
Obviously, during the Seder, there was an elephant in the room, Covid-19. It’s why we were doing this via Zoom, a reminder that all was not well in the world, that so many have died, so many are suffering and so many of the first responders, health care workers, delivery drivers and grocery store employees are literally putting their lives on the line for us.
Having a virtual Seder is hardly a sacrifice in comparison. But it is different. Extraordinary, even.
During the Seder, as is tradition, we collectively read the names of the plagues in Hebrew, dipped our finger in the wine for each one and put a drop of that wine on our napkin.
After the 10th plague, I added “Covid-19.” There was a pause. Then someone echoed, “Yes, “Covid-19.”
For the decades of my life, the plagues in the Passover story have seemed a distant, foreign concept. That’s not to say we haven’t seen tsunamis, tornadoes, floods and volcanoes. But for most of us, "plague" was more a word than a reality.
On Wednesday, at the Seder, plagues seemed a lot more real.
Reporters are trained to be skeptical. I often wonder about the accuracy of the Passover story. I wonder whether God actually used the 10 plagues to convince the Egyptians to free the Jews from slavery, or whether someone saw these events and created a narrative around them.
It’s made me wonder if someone will create a story to explain Covid-19.
Whatever the case, on Thursday night I’ll do another virtual Seder, this time with friends in Colorado.
It will be nice to see people, but not so great when I can’t get seconds or take any matzo ball soup home. And as I shut off my computer, I’ll remind myself why this night, as the Haggadah explains, is so different from all other nights.
