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April 7, 2006
Old traditions in a new land
From the shtetl to the Prairies, the seders have kept their rhythm.
SHARON MELNICER
I shake my head in confusion and sorrow as I do the mental head
count: who will sit around the seder table this year? So many of
the chairs are now empty. The realization that my husband and I
are in our 60s and have stepped up to the front of the generational
line is a shocking and sobering one. Though we love the beauty of
Pesach, always a joyful, warm time of celebration in our family,
it also inescapably becomes a time when the achingly empty places
steer the heart down memory's path.
My father's parents, unlike my mother's, were poor Russian Jews.
They came from a shtetl somewhere near Pinsk. The boundaries of
Germany, Poland and Russia were constantly shifting in the uncertain
years preceding the First World War, so it is hard to know exactly
from where my grandparents came. In those turbulent years of elastic
borders, locations on the map seemed to move or vanish as if by
magic. My grandparents barely escaped the fiery pogroms the Cossacks
rained down upon them but, in spite of the obstacles they faced,
they managed to cross two continents and an ocean and to land unharmed
in Canada. They arrived in Winnipeg by train soon after 1900.
My father, Yitzhak (Isaac), was born in North End Winnipeg in 1918.
Delivered on Armistice Day, in the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic,
my father was the third of four children. His early years were spent
in a tiny, drafty, clapboard house hardly big enough to hold two
adults, never mind a family of six.
As my father was growing up, the observance of Shabbos, as well
as the Jewish holidays throughout the year, was a living and functional
part of his life. There was a feeling of joy and excitement with
the approach of every festival. Each had its own special beauty
and charm. My father remembered the weeks before Passover as the
most exciting, a time full of activity. He recalled his mother's
busy preparations that went far into the night. A lot had to be
done to usher in the Pesach festivities.
In my mind, I can hear my father marvelling that, by the time Purim
came around, his mother, Baila, was already putting up beets or
"russle" to ferment. The plan was to have them all pickled,
sweet and ready to serve at the seder table. She also made a mead-like
beverage, a sweet, non-alcoholic drink made of water, honey and
an assortment of spices. The golden liquid was poured into big jars,
stored away in a safe corner and the mouths of the jars covered
with cheesecloth to avoid contamination. Then, everything in the
house was washed, polished and scrubbed, including the walls. Even
the books got a good airing. The "everyday" dishes were
put away and replaced with the special ones reserved for Passover.
Some items had to be koshered: a silver samovar, certain pots scalded
in boiling water; glasses soaked in cold water for three days.
It was customary at Passover for my father and his siblings to get
a whole new set of clothes. My bubbe sewed most of them herself.
It seems my father was happiest when he heard the squeaky sound
of new shoes as he gingerly took his first steps to break them in.
The new clothes and shoes were temporarily put away during the afternoon,
however, when the children were forced to take a nap in order for
them to be able to sit through the first seder.
When my zayde, Beryl, and his boys returned from the synagogue,
the family sat down to the seder ceremony. The table, covered with
my bubbe's nicest white cloth, was set with sparkling glasses, wine,
candles, matzah and the ornate seder plate. Together with Elijah's
Cup, an atmosphere different from all other festivals was created.
My zayde, the king, sat at the head of the table on the pillows;
his queen, my bubbe, next to him, looking radiant but flushed and
tired from all the preparations. After the meal, the singing part
of the Haggadah began.
In her later years, after my grandfather had died and my father
and his siblings were all grown up, my grandmother would sadly observe
that she and zayde had been brought up in such a different environment;
that she was disappointed in the lax attitude towards Shabbos and
the Jewish holidays she saw in the younger generation. Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur seemed to be the only holidays properly observed,
she thought. It was her view that the other holidays were regarded
as minor, or completely irrelevant, except in the synagogue by a
few observant Jews. She continued to practise and observe the holidays
and festivals, but she felt they lacked the beauty and the spiritual
uplift that she had experienced in the old country, in the shtetl.
What she didn't realize is that she brought that beauty and reverence
from the shtetl to those of us who followed her here.
Sharon Melnicer is a Jewish writer, artist and teacher
living in Winnipeg.
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