It was almost time to bentsch licht on the first night of Pesach. The table was set with all their most beautiful china and there in the middle, in its rightful place of honor, was the beautiful seder plate that Dina and Yosef had bought just last year when they had first made their own seder. Until then they had always been hosted at either Dina’s or Yosef’s parents’ homes, but now that they were blessed with their seventh child they decided it was really time they made their own seder.
And the children were thrilled. Although they missed some of the special “tricks” that Zaidy always had up his sleeves to keep them awake and asking questions, it was special to have their own Tatty give the seder and, without any cousins around the table they had a chance to say all the things they had learnt at school.
Tehilla had been busy arranging all the napkins in an intricate design around the glass cups. Each little child had their own silver becher, Kiddush cup, brought home from kindergarten along with their very own homemade Haggadahs.
They had helped Mommy make the charoses and looked on from a distance as Tatty burnt the egg and the bone for the seder plate and grated by hand the eye-watering maror.
Suddenly there was a knock on door. It was the neighbor from one flight up. He seemed quite agitated.
“Do you by any chance have a spare Seder plate… ours broke.”
“Oh I’m really sorry but no I’m afraid we only have the one we use.”
Dina was about to add that they could really use any plate—it didn’t have to be one specially bought for the Seder, but something stopped her. The couple were Ba’alei Teshuva, newly religious, and she didn’t want to sound like she was lecturing them or giving them unwanted religious advice.
Dina continued with her last minute preparations, but felt uneasy. She called Yosef into the kitchen.
“Yosef, would you be very upset if I let the couple upstairs have our seder plate?”
“No. Of course not—but you do know a plate is just a plate. The fact is, they could just use anything.”
“Yes, we know that, but what if the fact that theirs is broken is causing them to feel bad. Maybe one of them is angry at whoever broke it? Maybe it’s making someone sad and guilty just before Leil HaSeder. That would be an awful way to start Pesach. It would be terrible for them if their Pesach holiday were to be ruined by a broken plate.”
Yosef took the plate and removed from it all the special seder food items that had been so lovingly prepared by his wife. He washed the plate and ran upstairs to give it to their neighbors. He hadn’t even bothered to think of a plausible excuse as to why they had suddenly “found” a spare seder plate. Yosef could only hope they wouldn’t ask him any questions. But they were so pleased to have located a seder plate that they didn’t ask a thing.
Yosef ran back to his home and hastened to prepare a new seder plate, using a regular plate from their dinner set. The younger children were, not surprisingly, upset. “Why do we have to be the ones with a not nice Seder dish? They could also have used a plate from their dinner set!”
‘Yes,” said Dina. “They could have. But each time they looked at their simple seder plate they would have been reminded of the nice one that broke. That would have made them feel bad. But now they won’t as they’ll have our lovely seder plate on their table. And every time we look at our simple Seder plate this year, we’ll be reminded of the chessed we did—so that everyone will have a good feeling.
“And that’s much more important than a fancy Seder dish on Pesach isn’t it?”
As told to Ann Goldberg. Reprinted from the Jewish Press.
