The Seder

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Max and Josephine hosted a Passover Seder in their Tribeca apartment every year. Although Josephine insisted on playing the role of chef for the holiday, working from an old set of recipes she’d inherited from her South African Jewish mother, Max and Adam helped out as much as they were permitted. Max took care of the guest list, bought the groceries and the wine, rented tables and chairs, and rooted around their apartment until he found the cardboard box full of dusty haggadah volumes. For the past few years, Adam had begun helping Josephine in the kitchen before these annual gatherings, dicing and chopping and blending under his mother’s supervision. Last year Adam had prepared the matzoh ball soup from scratch entirely by himself. Thankfully, as the holiday drew near and Josephine asked their son for his assistance with the food once again, Adam agreed.

Max was especially glad to see Adam and Josephine in the kitchen together, murmuring back and forth about recipes and measurements, sharing information; the civility of the exchange lifted Max’s heart. The night before the Seder he interrupted his wife and son in the kitchen because he had to see this wonderful, peaceful, loving détente. If only the apartment could sound like this more often. The three of them wouldn’t have to navigate around each other so gingerly. Max had seen almost every movie ever made about troubled families and the angst of domestic claustrophobia, but still he couldn’t understand: Why did the members of a family find it so difficult...