Seder Serves Up Passover Lessons

I love Passover. I know that may sound goofy from a guy named Smith from the middle of the country whose is not Jewish. But for at least a dozen years now my family has piled in the car and headed to Great Neck for the Silverman seder.

Leon and Rita greet us like family when we walk in the door. And soon, after a bite of liver and a sip of wine, Leon is reading in Hebrew from the Haggadah. Leon, a retired State Supreme Court judge, and a serious student of history recites the ancient texts with stops for annotation and amplification - maybe even a little debate about Moses.

When the kids at the table were little they fidgeted. As they grew older, they could answer the question how is this night different and as they did, we wept.

I came to understand that the seder is the way one generation passes its values on to the next and has for several thousand years.

By Harry Smith