April 15, 2005 – According to the calendar, Passover is "late" this year. By the time we join our friends and families around the seder table, our winter coats will be mixed with the spring ones, our taxes will be either filed or deferred and the baseball season will have started in earnest.
But this extended pause between winter and spring is not just a glitch in the calendar, but a special time that allows us to focus on the arrival of Pesach in a way we rarely can. Certainly there is that additional reading we've always had in mind that we can bring to the table. And then there is the new recipe we've always wanted to try. But we can do something more important than adding a reading or a new dish. We can do something we always put off because we just don't have the time to get it done. We could add a few more chairs to the table and reach out a little more than we usually do to make our seder table fuller and in some ways more meaningful.
We could add relatives or friends whom we don't get to see that often. We could reach out to the neighbor whose children now live in a distant city or who no longer have parents. Or it might be someone new to the community or from the synagogue across town. It could even be a family or someone who isn't Jewish who you've been hoping to share something meaningful with.
There are many possibilities, but adding more seats to the table and making extra gefilte fish is relatively easy. Who knows, adding another new guest or family every year might turn into a yearly traditionóeven when the calendar mixes the seasons and rushes us into an early Passover.
The Jewish Ledger extends its wishes for a happy and healthy Passover to all of our readers and friends.

–nrg

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