Seder All Year Round

Seder All Year Round

By: Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin

My mother, the Rebbetzin a”h was the featured speaker at a hotel for Pesach, and our family was fortunate to join her. It was Seder night. The tables were beautifully set, my children dressed in their Yom Tov best. There was a palpable excitement in the air, as everyone looked forward to the Seder.

As we went to wash our hands for Hamotzie, my then teenage son, Yosef Dov, noticed an elderly man sitting at a table for one, making a solo Seder.

When we settled down at the table, Yosef Dov had something to say. “How can we enjoy our Seder when there’s someone sitting alone? Didn’t we just say ‘All who are hungry, come and eat. All who are needy, come and join us…’?”

Dov was right. We promptly went over to invite the gentleman to join us, for which he was most grateful.

“All who are hungry…. All who are needy….” There was certainly no lack of food on the table, but the words “All who are needy” were with us.

We learned that one can do hachnossas orchim, the mitzvah of inviting guests even while on a Pesach program. It isn’t necessarily a hunger for food. Sometimes, it’s a hunger for companionship, a thirst for friendship.

Our unexpected guest became our “friend from Norfolk”.

The story-telling portion of the Haggadah, Maggid, opens with “Ha lachmah anyah, This is the poor man’s bread, the bread of our affliction.” It continues with inviting “All who are hungry, all who are needy” to our table.

Since the Haggadah tells the story of our people, one would think that it would open with the words of “Avodim hayinu, We were slaves in Egypt”. But that is not the case. Rather, it begins with an invitation to the Seder table.

What an unusual invite. An invite extended at the last minute, on Seder night, after we have already recited Kiddush.

Howard Schultz, founder and past CEO of Starbucks, wrote an essay about his life-influencing experience while on a mission with other corporate executives to Israel. One of the group’s stops was for a meeting with Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt”l, Rosh Yeshiva (Dean) of The Mir, the largest rabbinical school in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Finkel entered the room and turned to his audience of successful businessmen. “What was the lesson of the Holocaust?” he asked.

“Never again”, answered one participant. “Not to be a victim or a bystander”, chimed in another.

Mr. Schultz thought both to be good answers, but Rabbi Finkel had a different idea in mind. The rabbi said, “The power of a blanket”.

His listeners looked up, their faces puzzled. Rabbi Finkel spoke of the terrible conditions in the concentration camps. Of six men, crowded together to sleep on a hard wooden bunk made for one. He spoke of the freezing cold nights, for which the Nazis provided only one of the six with a thin tattered blanket.

The person who received the blanket had a choice to make. Will he wrap himself with the blanket, or will he pull it over the others. Rabbi Finkel continued, “It was at this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit. Because we pushed the blanket to the five others”. The rabbi concluded, “When you return to America, take your blanket… take it and push it over five other people.”

“All who are hungry, all who are needy….” There are all kinds of hunger, all types of need. It can be a hunger for friendship, a listening ear, an understanding smile, an accepting soul. It is up to us to open both our home and heart. To be there for our fellow. To pull “our blanket” over others in need.

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a bar mitzvah. Following the Torah reading, the bar mitzvah boy was showered with “pekelech”, little bags of candies, symbolically blessing him with wishes for a sweet life.

As usually happens, the children scurried throughout the shul collecting as many of these bags as they could grab. A bag landed by my husband’s feet. He picked it up and placed it on the table beside him. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a little boy – not more than three or four, looking under all the chairs for a bag. But he wasn’t quick enough. The “big guys” got them all.

My husband motioned to the little boy to come over and handed him the bag he had picked up. How happy this little boy was for his pekeleh. A forlorn face instantly transformed into a broad smile.

There are so many ways to be there for others, both young and old. “Kol dichfin, all who are hungry, kol ditzrich, all who are needy…” Not just Seder night, but every night of the year. Perhaps this is one reason the Seder opens with inviting others in, relaying to us a powerful message. To be a “we”, and not a “me”. To be part of Team Am Yisroel. To look out for one another. To offer a helping hand. To live the words of the Torah, “V’ahavta l’rei’ah’cha kamocha, And you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. (Vayikra/Leviticus 19:18) To make room in our heart, no matter the place or circumstance.

When the brothers sold Yosef, it was sinas chinam, unwarranted hatred and jealousy that brought our ancestors down to Egypt. It was the same sinas chinam between brothers that brought the destruction of the Holy Temple. And, as Rav Kook zt”l teaches, it will be ahavas chinam, pure love for each other, that will bring about the building of the Third and Final Temple.

We begin the story of our people with an invite to our table, for that is the essence of being a Jew. It’s time to take the words of the Seder to heart and be there for one another. In doing so, we will surely hasten the final redemption.

This article was written L’zecher Nishmas / In Memory Of HaRav Meshulem ben HaRav Osher Anshil HaLevi, zt”l and Rebbetzin Esther bas HaRav Avraham HaLevi, zt”l