“IT FREAKS ME OUT”

How was your Seder? Mine was absolutely delightful. Imagine this: My children and grandchildren live in Atlanta, some 140 miles away from my little hamlet of Greenville. Only in my wildest dreams would I imagine celebrating the Sedarim in Atlanta, as there also resides my former wife, with whom the kids celebrate theirs.

Please know that for 18 years, life has been more unpleasant than pleasant between the two of us. Miraculously, things have changed. Perhaps it’s because of the much touted realignment of the sun. And perhaps with time she has become more forgiving of her once errant husband. All credit to her.

So, for the price of me roasting two turkeys and baking a potato kugel, and a lot of teshuvah, Linda and I are graciously welcomed at her table – and there are the kids and the grandchildren.
Nothing could possibly be better. Sophie and Simeon flawlessly recite the Four Questions. Who would expect less from a day school education at $20,000 a year. Dinner is delicious, especially the Pflaumenkuchen von Fulda. The grandchildren break our bank stealing and redeeming the afikomon.

The Seder attains its crescendo as the children gleefully sing Chad Gadyo. Everyone chants at the top of their voices but seven-year-old Sophie. She will have nothing to do with it.

“What’s wrong?” I beg her?

“Zayde,” she says, “Chad Gadyo ‘freaks me out’.” First of all, the kid gets killed. Then the dog bites the cat, and he’ll surely be put to sleep. Children shouldn’t play with fire, and oxen are scary. The shochet is murdered by the Malach Ha-Moves. HaShem is supposed to kill him, but I haven’t even ever seen HaShem. That’s why it ‘freaks me out’.”

At least, I say to myself, at age seven she has already become a philosopher, albeit a neurotic one. Finally, her five-year-old brother, a real mazik, injects a dose of reality into the situation. “You know that part about the boy’s two zuzim?” he announces. “I don’t have any money at all!”