‘That Is What We Do’: The Power of Passover and Tradition Across Generations

holiday and I always envisioned what her first Seder would look like. Now we are isolated at home, and though I am happy we are all safe, I am still grieving what could have been. I have hosted a large Seder for friends since 2003. One year it was so large, we held it at a fire hall.

We always take a picture of us together doing an impression of the bad clip art on our Haggadah — a man with a very large mustache. We’ll have to take it virtually this year.

I don’t know how to approach the 10 plagues. It seems crazy to talk about “death of the firstborn” at a time like this. Instead of next year in Jerusalem, I hope that next year we can be back in the Philadelphia suburbs, celebrating together.

Meredith Levy, 37, Denver

‘This is the 11th plague.’

There’s a lot of irony about the way we are celebrating Passover. Passover is about celebrating freedom, and we don’t have a lot of freedoms right now. People are saying this is the 11th plague. Now is a reminder of the challenges that all people face, that Jews dealt with when in slavery in Egypt. For me, moving forward, we are not going to take things for granted anymore. Things can change so quickly.

We try to act out all of the plagues, that’s something the girls look forward to every year. We throw mini marshmallows for hail. This year we are going to try to make origami plagues, like little green frogs.

Our focus is really on the kids. It is helpful for the kids to understand what a plague is, how it changes your life, and how you do things normally. When we say the plagues, I don’t think we are going to say “coronavirus” and dip our finger into the grape juice. It’s too stressful for the kids. They are literally playing with dolls and saying the doll is sick and has coronavirus. As a parent we need to protect them. I keep saying to them, we can do hard things.