Pesach Tridux

When I was looking around Broadway, to find a wandering musical that needed a political strategist in transition, I met Karen. She must have thought that without her tutelage, I would go astray – and she was probably right. Anyway, the first time we met we talked about things on and off Broadway and she wanted to know if I had been involved in producing anything. Reluctantly I admitted that I hadn’t done anything show related—except when I was teaching at Waltham High School- but producing for the theater seemed very similar to producing for the White House and besides, I insisted, I was a quick study. Furthermore, I had produced an award winning documentary called “The Gefilte Fish Chronicles”, which had been on many PBS stations – so I wasn’t totally clueless.

“You did that?” she said. “It changed our lives”. Hard for me to imagine my mother. Aunt Peppy and all my aunts changing any lives – other than by yelling, but I was intrigued. She went on to say that her husband’s family had always celebrated Passover, it was a big deal. But, over the last few years, they stopped -- until they saw “The Chronicles”, which inspired them to begin doing Seders again. Pretty wonderful that we could have that kind of impact on any reasonable people. It’s all good. And if you look at the comments on http://www.GefilteFishChronicles.com you will be amazed. At least we are touched every time a new comment magically appears. Anyway, Karen and I continued the conversation and I was eventually convinced that http://www.Hurricanethemusical.com/ was a show in which I wanted to be involved.

We had planned to spend the second Seder at the Zodikoffs but the weather was still dreadful, so after having had a wonderful Matzoh brie breakfast, we decided that going back into the City and coming back that evening was ridiculous. We had invited Karen and her husband Loren to join us in NJ, but, like “The Movable Feast” (which we all made so there was honesty in my claiming the credit for the food), we packed all the food (I mean enough for the Czar’s Russian Army), and we drove back into the City to prepare for the second night of Passover with just us and Karen and Loren.

Since we were celebrating with real Passover ‘mavens’ we thought it was only fair to make group decisions about which prayers to include. We lit candles and went right to the four questions. After that we told stories about other Passovers, other times, and all the colorful characters we all encountered at our celebrations over the years. It was the nicest possible evening. Good friends, great stories, and the sharing of sweet memories with people we love.

Passover 2010 ended last night at 8:00. Aunt Peppy said so. In celebration I made two new kinds of mandel bread, and I lit a candle for all the “Angels” who can only celebrate with us in spirit. We haven’t started talking about next year yet. We’re still in recovery and reveling in the success of the whole process. And most importantly, we loved being together—just like our mothers – laughing, arguing, and crying. Like Aunt Peppy said—“the fish might be a little salty from the tears”, but we all know there is never enough salt. We're just sayin'... Iris