So often, our emotions are a confusing cocktail. The joy of Yom Tov can be merged with tension, frustration, loneliness, or resentment.
When we first chose the theme for our Pesach issue — Pesach, Matzah, Maror — we envisioned each writer coming up with an idea for one of the three categories. It would all be very neat; we’d have two to three stories for each of the crucial words, perhaps use divider pages featuring dramatic photos of every item. How perfectly symmetrical.
But life is messy. And the resilience of the human spirit awe-inspiring. The pitches started coming in, and so many strands were woven through them. What category do you use for an essay written by a woman who had a Seder with her sons while her dying husband labored for each breath in a room upstairs? One would think that could be easily pegged as maror, but Margie Pensak tell us, “If I had to choose one Pesach in my life when I most felt the Yad Hashem stretch out and personally take me out of Mitzrayim, it would be the Pesach of 1998 [my husband’s last Pesach].”
How about a Seder spent in a locked psychiatric ward? It’s hard to get much more bitter than that. And yet: “Joy surged within me, bursting through the agony. No matter what, You gave me matzah and maror tonight. No matter what, I’ll keep Your mitzvos. And You’ll protect me, no matter what.”
Other pieces were similarly mixed. Chaia Frishman utilizes all three words to connect her religiously starved relatives with the power of the Seder night. And Riki Goldstein’s father uses matzah to bring a modern-day Korban Pesach.
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