Passover: a holiday of traditions

South Brunswick’s Jewish population prepares for a holiday celebration.

By: Sharlee DiMenichi
   Passover has given hope to generations of Jews for approximately 3,000 years as worshippers observe the commandment to tell their children the history of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt.
   Local believers say the Passover rituals they celebrate with their children are essentially the customs they observed growing up, but that they have incorporated some twists into the Seder supper to pique the children’s interest.
   "It’s a long meal so you have to keep the kids interested," said Mae Rubenstein of South Brunswick, who attends Congregation B’nai Tikvah on Finnegans Lane.
   Ms. Rubenstein said she tries to involve the children in her family by having each family member read from the Haggadah, the story of the exodus, in English.
   "One of the biggest differences I can remember is when I was a child, my father conducted the Seder and it was all in Hebrew so I understood very little," Ms. Rubenstein said.
   Ms. Rubenstein said her family uses hordes of tiny plastic frogs and insects to dramatize the seven plagues believed to have persuaded the pharaoh to let the enslaved Jews leave Egypt.
   Ms. Rubenstein said she has also modified the custom of hiding the afikomen, a piece of matzoh the children search for at the end of the Seder meal. Traditionally, the child who finds the afikomen gets a prize, but Ms. Rubenstein said in her family, prizes go to all the children who seek the afikomen.
   "When I was a child, only one got a reward," Ms. Rubenstein said.
   Others have modified the search for the afikomen even more dramatically.
   Bruce Langrock, a former magician who attends Chabad Lubavitch of South Brunswick, said he makes the afikomen disappear.
   Mr. Langrock said he puts the afikomen in his pocket wrapped in a napkin with a corner sticking out and allows the children to follow him in hopes of catching him in the act of making the morsel vanish.
   "It’s the fact that they’re convinced that they’re watching me closely the whole time and it vanishes is what makes it fun," Mr. Langrock said. Mr. Langrock said he often makes the afikomen reappear somewhere in plain view.
   "One time it was actually taped to the front of the television and they looked for 15 minutes and didn’t see it," Mr. Langrock said.
   Although Passover is often celebrated in a whimsical manner, its message of freedom after years of suffering under slavery offers believers hope in the face of genocide and discrimination, worshippers said.
   Suffering during the Holocaust in Amsterdam led the father of Township Councilman Ted Van Hessen to stop celebrating Passover, but Mr. Van Hessen said he has since resumed the tradition and cherishes it.
   Mr. Van Hessen’s father, who survived the Holocaust by hiding in a shed for four years and whose sister died in a Nazi concentration camp, became too afraid to observe Passover with his children, Mr. Van Hessen said.
   "It was not necessarily uncommon for people who lived through that to adopt a never-again feeling and, for some, that manifested as not making it obvious that they were Jewish," Mr. Van Hessen said.
   In spite of the hiatus caused by the Holocaust, the tradition of Passover lives on in the Van Hessen family. Mr. Van Hessen said he and his wife have continued the custom of commemorating the holiday with their children.
   "Routinely, it’s a festive time for our family," Mr. Van Hessen said.
   Others say they recognize the power of Passover to lift up believers who faced repressive regimes.
   "For Jews suffering under oppression in Eastern Europe, a festival of redemption and freedom gave them an awful lot of hope," Mr. Langrock said.