by dan pine
staff writer
Before I moved to the Bay Area, I celebrated Passover every year at my best friend’s parents’ house. I use the word “house” loosely. My friend’s dad, Bernie, had made it big in the garment industry, and his Beverly Hills home reflected that success. He and wife Barbara lived in a huge mansion, complete with rose garden, billiards room, music salon and a staircase going nowhere just for show.
It was like doing Pesach at Gosford Park.
There were never fewer than 30 people crowded around the table. It was always a joy to greet the same familiar faces, many of which I would see only that one night of the year.
This was not one of those “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat” seders. Every woman lit and blessed candles. We read from classy grown-up haggadahs. We stringently observed all 15 steps, from Kadesh to Nirtzah.
One year, Barbara added a tradition of lighting extra candles for the 6 million lost to the Holocaust. The tears that poured down her cheeks as she recited an impromptu blessing seared us all.
We always sang a great mix of songs, from “Go Down Moses” to “If I Had a Hammer.” True, our rendition of “Chad Gadya” completely fell apart by the second verse, but whose doesn’t?
Being proper Beverly Hills zillionaires, Bernie and Barbara had the seder catered. This generally resulted in a gourmet kosher-style meal.
However, the Jamaican catering staff didn’t always grasp the finer points of Jewish cuisine. One year, a server portioned out gefilte fish with sterling silver tongs. Right behind him followed another server clutching a tureen filled with the packing jelly from the gefilte fish jar. He offered it as a condiment.
Everyone respectfully declined. The poor guy must have wondered why no Jew wanted a scoop of goo.
One year, my ex and I volunteered to compile our own Haggadah and lead the seder. We bought a dozen haggadahs and pulled from each what we liked. It was an informative hodgepodge, more prose than poetry. We did lace it with wonderful songs, but most were in Hebrew and unfamiliar.
At the seder, we plowed ahead, but I see now our Haggadah was too highbrow. We left everyone else in the dust.
It was a good lesson for me. However earnest I might be to enlighten others, they may not be in the market for enlightenment. Better to stick with the “Dayenu” you know then the “Dayenu” you don’t.
In the years since I moved to the Bay Area, I trekked down once or twice more to the Beverly Hills seder, but it wasn’t the same. The crowd had dwindled. My son and all the other kids from seders past had grown and gone. Many other regulars couldn’t make it to Bernie and Barbara’s anymore, including their son, my friend, who had moved to Seattle long before.
Then Bernie got sick and died. And there were no more seders at the house.
The funeral was private. Immediate family only. But as I made a beeline south after hearing the news, my friend made a request. The funeral home needed someone to legally identify the body, and would I do the family that favor? Though squeamish, I said yes.
It was a hot May morning at the funeral home. I was shown to Bernie’s coffin in a private vestibule. A man from the chevra kadisha sat off to the side, whispering psalms. A mortuary employee pulled the coffin lid back. And I looked in.
There he lay –– the man who built an empire, the man who fathered my best friend, the man who lavishly praised my son when he read the Four Questions, the man who provided this essential part of my Jewish year –– looking so small in the plain pine box.
I nodded to the mortuary worker, and he replaced the lid. Then I walked out into the glare of an L.A. afternoon.
In the years since, I’ve opened up to new joys around the seder table. New friends, new recipes, new wines, new songs. But for me, the seder will never be the same as it was back in Bernie’s house, with Barbara backlit by candlelight.
Every year at this time, I miss Passover.
Dan Pine can be reached at dan@jweekly.com.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California