A tale of friends, grief and green chilies brings a new Passover tradition

Early in 2010, newly widowed and drowning in the thick fog of grief, I had what I now recall as one quick, crisp moment of clarity and calm.

Setting aside the piles of bills and condolences mounting on my kitchen table, I emailed a dear old friend and asked if I might come to stay with her and her family for a week in Santa Fe the following month. My own Brooklyn neighborhood had shown me boundless kindness during the final few months of my husband’s life, and even more after he died, but, for all its sweetness, the sympathy was starting to feel suffocating.

I wanted nothing more than a change of scenery, and a change of people. The desert seemed as far away as I could get from home, which no longer felt quite like home, but had become the seat of my sadness, the dwelling place of my mourning. Teri, my friend in New Mexico, didn’t hesitate before saying yes. I booked my flight and sank back into despondency.

But as the day of the trip grew closer, I realized that I hadn’t been quite as clear-headed as I thought when I planned the trip: It turned out I’d be in Santa Fe during Passover, and I didn’t want to forgo the holiday. I emailed Teri again, and asked if we could have a seder at her house. Again, she said yes — an enthusiastic yes: She’d never been to a seder. Teri is Native American, a member of the Kiowa tribe; her husband, Dennis, is Odawa-Ojibwe. They were raising their two young sons to know and honor their native heritage. Teri said she’d invite her mother, too.

So now I was headed to the desert not only to get away. I was also going to spend Passover there. It’s a tradition of the holiday — if not a prerequisite — to welcome strangers to the seder, and that can mean many things, but often it means inviting non-Jews to the table, too. In Santa Fe, the proportions would be reversed: I would be the only Jew at the table, celebrating with a Native American family.

By then, Passover mattered to me. That was not always so. I’d grown up in a pretty secular New York City Jewish household. We celebrated Passover, but never made a big fuss about it. When I was a kid, we usually wound up at the home of older relatives, and, in truth, I mostly remember being bored, at least until the time came to hunt for the afikomen (a half of a matzo hidden away early in the seder, which the children are asked to find afterward, and for which they are given small gifts in reward — like candy or change). But at a certain great-aunt and -uncle’s apartment, even that didn’t hold out much excitement: I was well aware, year after year, that the afikomen was nestled inside the piano bench, wrapped in a napkin, tucked into some sheet music.

My feelings about Passover grew fonder in college, where one of my dormitory mates presided over a casually exuberant seder in our dorm living room each year. There wasn’t a full feast, but we read selections from the Haggadah (the seder text, which includes a telling of the story of the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt), and sang traditional Passover songs, and drank kosher wine with gusto. It may have been untraditional, but it connected me more deeply both to the holiday’s immense capacity for joyfulness and — even in its loose, playful way — to its significance as a celebration of freedom.

When I moved back to New York after college, I found myself at seders that fulfilled the promise of those dorm Passovers: Similar in spirit and openness and inclusiveness, but accompanied by tremendous, delicious feasts of matzo ball soup and brisket and charoset (the sweet blend of fruits and nuts and honey and wine, meant to represent the mortar used by the Jews during their slavery) and macaroons. At these seders, we read the Haggadah in its entirety, and I found the stories and the rituals riveting.

I arrived in Santa Fe with a seder plate and a Haggadah. Seeing my old friend waiting for me outside her cozy home in the hills just outside the city had exactly the effect I’d hoped for. I felt a great rush of gratitude: for her friendship and hospitality; for the high, clear air; for the vital and soothing distance from home, from the everyday difficulty of mourning, from the now-uneasy familiarity of life in New York.

Teri had already explained to her sons— Ahbedoh, 9, and Nimkees, 7 — what they might expect at the seder and they seemed excited about it, too. I woke up early on the morning of the second day of Passover, and got to work on our dinner right away. First, I made the chicken stock for the matzo ball soup (Teri raises chickens, so it was the best and freshest I’d ever made). Next, the charoset, a Sephardic-inspired variation with apricots and pistachios, saffron and mint.

And while the stock simmered, I started on the dinner’s star: a massive beef brisket that would cook slowly over low heat for many hours, with an abundance of onions I’d already cooked down so they had caramelized slightly, carrots and beef stock and bay leaves. But since I was in New Mexico, where the local green chilies are so wonderful, shouldn’t I spice it up a little? I chopped up some green chili and added it to the pot.

Many hours later, we all sat down for the seder. We took turns reading from the Haggadah. Teri’s mother, a gifted storyteller, read about the ten plagues with dramatic flair. And the two little boys at the table patiently took in the whole story of exile and liberation, of life and death, its meaning not lost on them.

To me, the most stunning moment among many in the Haggadah is this:

This is the bread of affliction eaten by our ancestors in the land of Egypt. Whoever is hungry, let him come and eat. Whoever is needy, let him come and join in the observance of Passover.

My own affliction could not compare to that of my exiled ancestors, but as I ate matzo that night, I considered that I had arrived in New Mexico feeling wounded and heartsick. A widow is always a kind of stranger: perceived as set apart, different, to be pitied. I had started to see myself that way, too. But here in New Mexico, I felt none of that; instead, I felt only comfort and compassion.

I can’t say that the seder vanquished my grief, but, for one night spent eating delicious food with caring friends, who had so open-heartedly indulged me in this ancient ritual of my people, I felt freed from despair. The next day, when I saw 9-year-old Ahbedoh walking to school with charoset and matzo tucked into his backpack for his afternoon snack, I even felt joyful again. And ever since my Santa Fe seder, I’ve never made a Passover brisket without green chili.