Walking through the parking lot at 5:10 on the evening of the start of Passover with no plan for the night. But I was concerned about providing continuity for my children. Wanting for them to taste matzoh with horseradish and be taken back to those elusive moments in their childhood when time stood still. It's not about G-d, though. I'm a proud but aetheist Jew. Contradiction? Officially, I suppose.
So what to do? I'm ashamed to admit, but I appeared at the prepared foods counter at Whole Foods in Natick and exhaled with wide eyes upon finding pre-made (vegan) matzoh balls, chopped liver, lamb roast slices, brisket, gefilte fish... potato pancakes in 3 varieties, and, yes, matzoh kugel muffins. I could do this. One quick run over to produce for some bitter herbs (celery), a pit stop for cream cheese and whitefish for the weekend, and I was off, back home where Josh had the kids and was boiling eggs.
Our seder lacked the decorum of those held at my grandparents' house. The hagaddah was an illustrated kids' book. Alisha gnawed on matzoh and threw Whole Food's cashew apricot charoset on the floor. And Zach used the gnarly beet representing a lamb shank bone that I'd placed on my grandparents' turquoise and gold seder plate as a hammer at intervals, before being allowed to start the meal with those matzoh balls which were reheating in organic boxed broth on the stove. We finished with a well-intentioned but ill-conceived chocolate chip bundt cake from Grandma Estee, a brief history lesson about slavery, and of course the delicious afikomen, purchased from Zachary for the low price of $2.
We pulled it together, but next year, I'm hoping to gather a larger table of friends. Not to mention a home-made apple-matzoh kugel.
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