Epilogue : The Passover Seder

In 2010 , When I released the historical and social studies memoir of my experiences in Israel "Leaving Home Going Home Returning Home : A Hebrew American's sojourn in the Land of Israel" , I ended the book with the Passover Seder and mentioning that the then new President Obama had brought the tradition of the Passover Seder to the White House. Now during the recent trip by President Obama to Israel , he mentioned as one of his achievements the bringing of the Passover Seder to the White House with it's common message of freedom and redemption. Thus I post the last chapter of Leaving Home Going Home... and marvel at how accurate and poignant the book is today in understanding Israel. i only hope that President Obama read the book before his trip to Israel. Epilogue: The Passover Seder When and how does an artist know when the painting they are painting is done? There are a couple of methods to making this call, and they happen to be very similar for completing a book. For one, your intuition may just tell you it’s done. Or, you no longer find yourself inspired by the work, and thus find yourself unmotivated or unwilling to continue adding content. You may take up the option to put the work down for awhile and come back to it later with new insight and knowledge for resolving snags. But, if you return and continue to feel the same way, perhaps it’s time to polish that project up and start another anew. I have debated much about when to end this book searching for just the right way to go about finding that proper ending. What I thought would take six months actually took three years. Most of this book was written in eight months, but then newer ideas would come and older memories that had to be retold resurfaced. I started telling people I had written a book on my life in Israel and it would be ready in a few months. I figured that if I made it a public announcement, it would be so, but as I write this epilogue, I have to admit that was over a year ago. I was still enjoying memories that this project conjured up, and I wanted to remember more and write more. To truly help bring the project to a close, I began to read chapters to friends. I really felt I accomplished something when a friend let me read the chapters to him for a second time. Leaving Home, Going Home, Returning Home 280 Epilogue: The Passover Seder 281 So at last, the time came. I laid out the ultimatum for myself that any more stories would have to wait for a sequel, and that’s that. The process of ending the book had begun, but how long it would take and how the process would turn out remained a mystery. I decided to meet with my nephew Jeremy Yanofsky, who by now graduated with an English major in college, and I asked him to help me to edit this book. I chose to ask Jeremy to help me in particular not just because of his expertise in writing and not just because he was my nephew, but also because I surmised that he may have some unique insight into the relationships I had between myself, Israel, and the USA, specifically because he had the opportunity to visit Israel via the Taglit-Birthright Israel program. According to their webpage, Birthright has provided gifts of first time educational trips to Israel so as to “strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry” and to strengthen the “participant’s personal Jewish identity.” After partaking in this trip, Jeremy happened to take advantage and visit me when I still lived in Zichron Yacov, making him a bit more familiar with the subject at hand. The opportune moment for completing the story ironically arrived on the night of the Passover Seder, April 2009, during which Jews around the world spent the evening commemorating freedom and redemption from bondage. My sister Audrey, Jeremy’s Mom, invited me to her house for this Seder, where we all read passages from the Haggadah, retelling the story of how the Israelites were led from bondage and Egypt by Moses at the behest of the Lord. As the story goes, the Israelites leave havoc behind and wander in the Sinai wilderness on their way to entering the Promised Land. On my way to my sister’s home, I stop in a local wine and spirits store, and I find it stocked with kosher wines from Israel, Spain, Italy, France, New York and California. I picked up a few bottles, one of them containing dry white wine but in a green bottle. At the counter, a woman asks me if I was buying green wine, and I told her it was regular white wine in a green bottle shipped in from Israel. She asked me if it was any good, to which I replied of course – I lived in Israeli wine country for ten years, I should know. I felt like a good will ambassador for Israel. Audrey invited seventeen friends along to her house, most of which I had become acquainted with by this time. From the conversations around the Seder plate, I gathered that some of these people wanted their children to go to Israel like my nephew did. Some were planning to go, but did not yet. Others did not have any plans to ever go, but wished they did. Several said they are going to go when the time is right, but remorsefully settled on the idea that they probably won’t. One person even happened to be brought as a child from Israel to live here in America. This Seder was on the second night of Passover. In Israel, Jewish celebrations and observances like the Passover Seder last only one night, but out in the world of the Diaspora, the age-old custom of extending certain holidays with an added night to ensure that the timing of one’s observance of the holiday properly aligned with the timing of the holiday in the Promised Land was still in practice. While this practice may have been necessary in post-Biblical times, it just seems like an obsolete concept in the age of the Internet, especially to someone who has celebrated these occasions right in Israel just fine without adding that extra evening. The day began with frost on the ground. I mention this because Israel is sunny this time of year and the depictions of the stories of Passover in my sister’s Haggadah are all bright and sunny. There are palm trees and a warm, blue, Nile with people wading in the waters to extract the baby Moses from his reed basket. The pyramids and sand dunes bask in the sun. Egyptians and Israelites pose in light cotton clothes, wearing hats for shade, working in the fields to reap a hay harvest to use in making bricks for Egyptian buildings. Gazing at these pictures in the Haggadah, I wondered if I was drawn to that part of the world to get away from the cold New England winters. Leaving Home, Going Home, Returning Home 282 283 Glancing at the news that day, I read that President Barack Obama was having a Passover Seder in the White House, marking the first ever for an American president. Of course, editorials in the Jewish newspapers were ripe with “See, we told you so, Obama is good for the Jews.” Listening to the reading of the Haggadah around our Seder table of how the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt and how they longed to be free, I couldn’t help but wonder about the universality of the message of longing for freedom. What reaction would President Obama hold regarding the story? I would presume that he could not help but consider the parallels to black slavery, bondage, and redemption in America’s history and perhaps compare Moses to Abraham Lincoln. Was Obama now going to be a black Moses of sorts, redeeming America from her economic and social troubles? Are we going to a new promised future and a new promised land? Much remained uncertain about the future of America and Israel alike that night, but in reading the Haggadah with my family, I was certain of at least one truth in my life. I no longer felt like the son of a refugee, or a minority citizen, or a fish out of its aquarium, I felt free and content. I was able to follow my dream. This year, Jews were invited to a genuine kosher for Passover White House dinner through the front door. The Jewish people now had a homeland under an Israeli sun; and with it a thriving culture to be proud of, a strong army, strong allies, and a beautiful lady model on the front page of Sports Illustrated. As the traditional conclusion of the Haggadah meets its readers with the blessing “next year in Jerusalem,” so may this blessing come true for you someday.

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