Another Seder, Another Empty Chair

As I prepare the Haggadah for this year’s Seder — an annual cut-and-paste project that covers the basics while introducing new pages and dropping others — I’m considering Passovers past.

The headline on my column a year ago read, “Leave an Empty Chair at Your Seder Table.” Below that was a sub-head that said: “Passover will not be a ‘chag sameach,’ a happy holiday, for the families of those killed on Oct. 7 and those still held hostage.”

Throughout that column was a count, from 1 to 198, then the number of days since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists attacked kibbutzim, towns, and a music festival in the “Gaza envelope” of southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250.

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“As you plan your Seder menu and seating arrangements, I want to make a suggestion. Set an extra place at the table and leave an empty chair,” I wrote.

The empty chair at our table was for Tal Shoham, a 39-year-old husband and father, kidnapped from his in-laws’ home at Kibbutz Be’eri, along with his wife, their two children, his mother-in-law, an aunt of his wife and her daughter. They are leaves on branches on the other side of my family tree. The women and children were released after 50 days, during an exchange of hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel. They returned to learn that three family members were murdered on Oct. 7.

Tal, now 40 years old, will be at his family’s Seder table this year. He was released on Feb. 22, after 505 days in captivity.

As of this writing, 59 hostages remain in Gaza — 24 of whom are believed alive. When Passover begins at sunset on April 12, it will be day No. 554 for those still captive.

I would like to be optimistic about the prospects for their return, but I am not. In the absence of progress toward a negotiated ceasefire and a deal to free the hostages, Israel (with the tacit support of the White House) has resumed the war against Hamas in Gaza. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gripped by turmoil over his attempts to remove the chief of the internal security service and the attorney general. Protests over these actions have merged with the ongoing demonstrations, most notably in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, demanding that return of the hostages be the top priority.

Now think back five years to what made Seder in 2020 different from all other nights.

Passover began that year on April 8, just about a month after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Jewish Atlanta, closing the doors at day schools, synagogues, and communal organizations, and bringing down the curtain on performances of “Indecent,” a play with Jewish themes, which had opened to positive reviews a week earlier at Theatrical Outfit in downtown Atlanta.

My first article in the AJT about COVID-19 — headlined, “Being Jewish in the Time of Coronavirus” — appeared March 11, followed within days by others. “The entire world — Jewish and otherwise — is turned upside down,” Rabbi Steve Lebow, then nearing retirement from Temple Kol Emeth, said at the time.

“Passover seders often are cherished family memories,” I wrote on March 23, 2020. “But this will be remembered as the year when a public health crisis prevented generations of family from gathering together; when those who did take seats did their best to keep a safe distance from others; when those who did not travel watched on a computer screen as the story of the exodus from Egypt was retold; when perhaps paper and plastic were favored over china, glass and metal; when communal plates of ritual foods were eschewed in favor of individual servings; and when the scramble to find the afikomen might have been a bit less rambunctious.”

In 2020, the Coronavirus was referred to as an 11th plague — added to the 10 that, as the story is told, were visited upon the Egyptians to persuade a recalcitrant pharaoh to release the Israelites from their servitude. Our table was immediate family only, with a few others present the next year. By Passover 2022, most of us had returned to in-person seders.

I have heard more than one person say that, with everything going on in the world, 2020 feels further in the past than just five years.

With Passover barely two weeks away, I repeat last year’s suggestion: Set an extra place at your Seder table with an empty chair — for the 59 remaining hostages and the families whose loved ones were murdered on Oct. 7 or died as hostages in Gaza.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Haggadah to stitch together.