You Can't Taste the Chicken Soup Online

How long has your family been celebrating Passover, I was asked by a new Christian friend who had just learned that my family observes Passover. To her the Exodus was only a Bible story. "Oh, about 3500 years," I responded.

If there's one thing Jewish people do, no matter how religious or non-religious we are, mostly everyone participates in a Seder. I'm pretty sure that's a work of the Holy Spirit. After all, that's a long time, 3500 years, to be telling the same story every year. God has to be in on that. We're just not all that faithful on our own.

The first year my Dad became a believer in Yeshua he conducted the Passover Seder almost entirely in Yiddish (which only some of us actually understood). He did so because Yiddish was his first language as he grew up in his Rabbi grandfather's shull (synagogue) and his heart was so tender toward Yeshua, he wanted to tie his Jewish background together with his Jewish Messiah. We were all so familiar with the story, having each heard it all our lives, that despite the language, we knew what was being said, and were touched by Dad's love for the Lord and his gratefulness to God for rescuing our people time and time again.

This year there were 14 of us at our Seder table in Jacksonville, 12 family members and two guests, one from Germany. But my son was in New York and unable to be with us. That is, not "in person." However, my daughter Jenny had a brainstorm. We "Skyped" him in and there he was on her laptop computer, big as life. Well, almost. She carried the laptop around so we could each greet him. The family kibbitzing went on between the kids and their uncle as usual, only online this time. Then we set him near the candles as my other daughter Ellen lit them and said the blessing. When it was time for the first cup of wine, he said the B'rachah (blessing) in Hebrew and English. We proceeded through the Seder with him at the head of the table -- literally because we could only see his head on the screen.

So not even distance kept us from celebrating our Passover Seder together this year. I wonder if we're the first to hold a family cyber-Seder. The only thing missing, for me was that I couldn't hug him and for him, that no matter how interactive we were able to be, he couldn't taste the chicken soup online.