On Pesach, I went to my mechutanim (My daughter-in-law’s parents) for Seder night and for the Shabbat from which it segued.
They were having five of their seven children and their families join them, along with one of the family matriarchs and some guests. My mechutanim are both very hospitable and very go with the flow kind of people. There were supposed to be 28 of us spanning four generations gathered there for the festivities.
Two friends cancelled at the last minute. At 3 a.m. on Shabbat morning, my mechutanim’s oldest daughter went into labor, and she and her husband went to Soroka Hospital in nearby Beer Sheva, disappearing off the radar, to give birth.
My daughter-in-law’s only brother is big into kiruv. So he asked my son if he would like to join him at the nearby army base, to host the Seder there. They would run through a short Seder at the base and then come home to join the ever-dwindling participants of their family’s Seder. So as soon as Shabbat was out and Pesach was in, five adults and five children headed on foot toward the army base.
As we waited for the person with the key to the gate, I noticed a huge sign on the aforementioned gate saying that the base had been kashered for Pesach and by military order, no chametz was allowed in. Kashering the bases for Pesach is a huge undertaking which has to be done quickly and efficiently.
As the gate opened, a huge truck left the base and on it was a sign in Aramaic, “I am the slave of Hashem.”
Despite living 40 years in Israel, I had never been on an army base before, but the only activity this evening was setting up for the Seder. Ours was outside, another Seder component I had never experienced before.
My son started the Seder by telling a story about Rebbe Yitchak of Berdichev, illustrating how everyone can be Eliyahu Nanavi to someone else. The soldiers, with varying levels of religiosity, were respectful and participated eagerly. As the words of the Haggadah were read by different soldiers in turn, we heard the distant booms in Gaza. Thankfully, there were no sirens. When they went searching for the afikoman in one of the groups, their commanding officer offered a three-day furlough to whoever found it. A soldier did and he was brimming with happiness.
After a couple of hours, we walked back to Eshel HaNassi, the youth village where my mechutanim live, and joined them to finish off the Seder. There was a lot of rifling through pages of Halacha books regarding when you can have a Seder in more than one location.
It was a moving Seder, in every sense of the word.
Rav Avi Weiss of Riverdale, where I once briefly lived, used to mention, at least once in every sermon, that the soldiers of the IDF are the holiest Jews in the world. The 10 of us were privileged to spend part of Seder night with a couple of brigades of the holiest Jews in the world.
Motzei Chag Rishon, we got the news. My daughter-in-law’s sister had a boy and his name in Israel is Eliyah. May his birth be a harbinger of good news, and may moshiach come before he needs to enlist.
Until then, may all the holy soldiers of Israel return home safely.
