The Words Pour out Like Sand in the Desert
Tech Tribe Dispatch #147
💡 Think:
Bella Chagall, wife of painter Marc Chagall, and an accomplished Yiddish writer, was born as Bashe Rosenfeld to Shmuel Noach and Alta Rosenfeld, Chabad Chasidim in Vitebsk. In her memoir, Brenendik Licht - Burning Flames, she recalls her childhood in the Russian empire.
This excerpt has been taken from the chapter on The Seder. It has been lightly edited from the English edition, correcting for lack of nuance in the translation from the original Yiddish.
The seder begins…
The wine begins to foam. I am dizzy from the
strong wine smell that comes from the cups. Suddenly it is as though a wind were blowing from the opened haggadahs, stirred up by the fluttering of
pages. All heads are bent over the books. The first
benedictions are pronounced.
I sit in my accustomed place, squeezed in between
father and mother. Because of father's pillow, my
corner is more cramped than usual. I feel hot and
choked. My head is heavy from the wine. The pillows lure me, I want to put my head on their soft
down. But I know that soon, after a few phrases,
father will bend over toward me, as though the four
questions were being addressed not by me to him,
but by him to me. Now he is beckoning to me:
"Come, the questions!"
Suddenly there is silence. Everyone looks at me.
I hide my face in the haggadah. My head whirls together with the letters. I move my finger on the page,
I want to straighten out the lines. I swallow my
breath, I am startled by my own voice: "Mah Nistanah…"
Father prompts me in a low voice. It seems to me
that at the other end of the table they are choking
with laughter. I get snarled up even more. I crawl
from one line to the next, I mix up my questions. Yet
I have memorized them so well, and I had so many
things to ask! I have no sooner spoken the last word
then a shout rises. Relieved, they have all turned to
the haggadah.
The company is like something that has started off
on wheels. Each recites for himself, tries to go faster than another. One tries to catch up with the other, to
drown his neighbor's voice, to push him with his own
voice.
The voices echo back from the windows, clamber
up the walls, awaken the portrait of the Alter Rebbe, [Rabbi
Shneur Zalman] that has hung in our house for years. The
rabbi looks down with his green eyes and listens to
each voice as if he were testing everyone. On the
other wall, the portrait of the aged Rabbi Mendele [Schneerson, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe]
cannot remain quiet either. Pensive, wrapped in a
white cloak, and with his long white beard, he comes
down from the frame as though he had been called to
the reading. The bare walls prick up their ears, the
ceiling comes down, listening to the haggadah; it has
to carry each word upward.
Page after page, the words pour out like sand in the
desert.
🏃 DO:
🫓 Get set for Passover with free handcrafted Ukrainian matzah for your Matzah + Wine and Cheese to nosh on April 12. It’s a schmooze!
🍷 Get a seat at the table! Join us for the Tech Tribe seder with the Lightstone family in our socially distant Tech Tribe HQ backyard space!
🤝 Sell your Chametz online! It’s a super easy way to prep for Passover.
🕯️ Remember
Remembering Alter Menachem Eliezer Eisen, grandfather of Tech Tribe Member Shoshana Wodinsky, who recently passed away.
📈 Invest:
Invest in Tech Tribe, join the #ChaiSociety!
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📚 Read:
😂 Does Jewish Law Allow Pranks?
🫓 Chabad’s Ukraine Mission. The Wall Street Journal relates how the story of the Jews plays an outsize role in the country’s history and present.
🏫 ‘They are here. Now do something.’ Chabad schools in Vienna absorb displaced Ukrainian students.
🔥 Lit:
This week, light Shabbat candles in NYC at 7:03
For Shabbat candle-lighting time in your area click here.
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