Tag Archive for: Exodus

Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

/in /by


It’s that time of year again.

My house smells like chicken soup.

Wednesday night is the beginning of Passover. We’ll hold a seder, the feast that commemorates the Jews exodus from Egypt. I’ve been cooking and cleaning for weeks, and as I do, sweet memories of seders long ago come flooding back. I smile when I think of those who are no longer with us in the flesh, but whose love, warmth, and wisdom enriched seders of the past.

There’s very little variation in the menu from year to year. Homemade matzoh ball soup is a given. Gefilte fish, homemade in a local deli, is also always served. But since marriage is a blending of traditions, we serve hard-boiled eggs and potatoes as the second course. Why hard boiled eggs? According to some experts, the eggs symbolize the Jewish people. The more you cooked the eggs, the harder they become. So too the Jewish people – the harder their lives, the stronger and tougher they become. Another explanation is that eggs symbolize the circle of life, the salt water the tears of oppression, as well as the joy in freedom. My family’s tradition was just to serve hard boiled eggs. Hubby’s family served eggs and potatoes. I’ve searched to find an explanation for the potatoes, and I’m just guessing when I posit that it’s part of his Russian heritage. Anyone else know the reason?

We sing songs with traditional melodies, passed down from generation to generation. But we also sing songs that my kids learned in nursery and Hebrew school. While we say many of the prayers in Hebrew – we do most of the service in English so that all our guests can participate. We go around the table, with everyone reading aloud a portion of the Haggadah, the prayerbook for the holiday, which tells the compelling story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt, from slaves to free men.

And then there are the family tales that are also annually recounted Here’s one of my favorites which happened when my husband was a child. Let me set the scene.

Picture a table of 20 family and friends. They’ve eaten a wonderful meal and now are finishing up the final prayers of the seder. They’re reached the song about Elijah the Prophet. According to tradition, Elijah visits every Jewish home during the Seder as a “foreshadowing of his future arrival at the end of the days, when he will come to announce the coming of the Jewish Messiah.” The custom is to stand and open the front door while singing this prayer.

The family stands and my husband’s Uncle Bobby opens the front door…and there stands a complete stranger.

Everyone’s heart skips a beat. Was it possible? Was this the Messiah arriving at Baltimore National Pike?

Nope, nothing quite so dramatic. From the doorway, Uncle Bobby quickly realizes that the stranger is drunk and looking for directions to the local watering hole.

But my kids still hold their collective breaths as we open the door in own home – will someone be on the other side?

Best wishes for a Happy Passover,

Evelyn David

Paul Newman Rocks

/in /by

Swoon.

I don’t often get to swoon about my day job, but this time…sigh.

I’m writing a Young Adult biography of Paul Newman. Other than writing mysteries, does it get any better than penning the life and times of the man with the piercing blue eyes?

The younger generation may only recognize Paul Newman as the face of organic popcorn. Although there is a whole generation under the age of six who recognize Newman as the voice of Doc Hudson from the animated mega-hit, Cars.

I’ve just started the research, but as I wrote in my book proposal, this is a man who was constantly reinventing himself. He was an actor, director, racecar driver, political activist, businessman, philanthropist, humanitarian. He took his love of cooking and transformed it into a hugely profitable business that donates ALL profits to charities. I knew about Newman’s Hole in the Wall camps for children with cancer, but was touched by the story of donating a bus to the Hope Rural School in Indiantown, Florida so that the children of migrant workers, who too easily slip through the educational cracks, could safely get to a school that was created to meet the needs of families on the move.

I envision spending hours watching – and rewatching – Paul Newman movies. I know. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! While he once took out an ad apologizing for what he thought was his wretched movie debut in The Silver Chalice (and I confess I haven’t seen it), who could forget him as Ari Ben Canaan in Exodus (could those eyes get any bluer?), Brick Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (ooooh, the unadulterated sex appeal and probably my favorite film), and Henry Gondorff in The Sting (Paul Newman in an undershirt, swoon)? The range of the man was phenomenal, but the range of his humanitarian outreach was even more extraordinary.

He wasn’t a saint, often drank too much, met more than his share of heartache. What I find fascinating is Newman’s ability to tackle life head on – and bounce back when he failed. I am impressed by his acknowledgment that it takes hard work to succeed. “I had no natural gift to be anything,” he insisted. “I’ve worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.” I like the idea that he had a second, third, even fourth acts in his life, taking new risks and enjoying new challenges.

The next six months will be a hectic time alternating between the murder and mayhem of the third book in the Sullivan Investigations series – and learning more about the man whose nickname was King Cool.

Swoon.

Evelyn David