By: Corrie van Maanen

In Israel, everyone seems to be on the move as Passover approaches. There is an enormous rush that almost makes you believe everyone is on the same journey together. As we prepare for Pesach, the house must be thoroughly cleaned. Not a crumb of bread may be left behind.

Every year, I am amazed at how it affects me, too, especially as the Seder meal nears on the eve of Passover. Daily life here is becoming more expensive, yet people were buying in abundance. Shopping carts were full in the grocery stores.

What makes the Seder night so different? It is a time of remembering the miracles that God has done. And even amidst this busy holiday, the weekly visits by ICEJ Homecare continue as usual.

Rosa* had just come home from a visit to the doctor. It was not a good diagnosis. She really did not want to talk about it yet, as the news was too heavy. She also still misses her sister whom she lived with until the sister passed away more than six years ago. So, Rosa was happy to see me – a welcome distraction.

I put my Pesach present on the kitchen table, along with a supermarket coupon for something extra and a nice card in which I had written: “To celebrate Passover is to remember the joy of the redemption that the God of Israel gave in a dark time of Jewish history. May it give us faith to trust Him in our situation.”  The card could serve as a bookmark. She immediately picked up her Book of Psalms and said: “This bookmark must go with my favourite Psalm.”

Her Book of Psalms was full of notes. Rosa stopped at Psalm 23. She read it in Russian, put the bookmark between the pages, closed the book, kissed the cover and was visibly happy with this acquisition.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I asked Rosa if she used to celebrate the Passover Seder with her parents. It was as if the sun started to shine.

“We lived in Belarus”, she began. “We celebrated the Seder in secret, with six people around the table. Not only Jews, but we also had friendship with Christians.”

She emphasized again, with great seriousness, that it was all in secrecy, as if she still feels the tension that came with it.

“But before that, our house was first thoroughly cleaned”, Rosa continued. “The cutlery and crockery went to the shed in the garden and the Pesach crockery appeared. No yeast was allowed to remain in the house. On the day Pesach started, our grandfather came, and he baked the matzot himself, a lot, and he distributed it.”

I asked her who made the holes in the matzah.

“It was me”, she beamed, proudly patting her chest. “I had to shower and get a clean dress and then grandpa gave me the wheel. He had taken a wheel from an old clock and cleaned it, put a stick through it and I used it to drive the holes in the matzah.”

She makes the motion with passion… whiz, whiz.

“Father went to the synagogue before Seder night. No one knew it was a synagogue, but there was a minyan who gathered and recited the prayers. He had to walk several miles to get there. We were all together, an evening full of stories.”

For a moment, Rosa completely forgot about the difficult doctor’s visit. I asked her where she would celebrate this year’s seder?

“With my brother and his demented wife”, she answered.

A shadow suddenly fell over her happy face. Her thoughts were with the past, when she was still a young girl of six or seven years old. She misses it so much, the people around the Seder table. People with big hearts to share their love and experience joy in being together. For a moment, I was allowed close to her heart. In telling these memories, she momentarily escaped the loneliness which surrounds her every day. Then it was time for tea and to focus again on life today.

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* Name has been changed