Dear Rabbi Kraus,

At one point during your sermon, I looked up from the siddur to the sounds of children entering the sanctuary. Ah! that familiar sound exhumes an immediate sense of playful wonder. Well Dear Rabbi, one of my take aways from the prayer service yesterday as you referred to it in several different ways, was why were the Pesadich dishes and pots being returned to their less than perfect corrugated boxes in an over and out manner? Goodnight Moon, Good-bye Gefilte Fish, for now. Was it that the packing up of green glass plates and silverware (that had a fork tooth bent) was taking away the celebration of our remembrance of the liberation from slavery and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction? Or was it more traditionally symbolic of putting aside for now a communal, elongated shabbat dinner with the mellifluous sounds of hungry children? Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol haleilot? Hench, my inner child connection, during your prayer service that connected me to Passover. 

Thank you for introducing me to your wife Rachel. Albeit a quick hello with a suggested promise of more to come, her warmth is saturating. She told me she was very glad that I came and I answered I was glad I “showed up.” More often than not that is all it takes. 

It was telling for me to make her acquaintance after listening to your strong sermon for several hours. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie -The Way We Were- starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. There is a well known line toward the end where they meet up many years later, after having shared a tumultuous and deeply loving relationship (not Beshart.) They both are with other people and Robert Redford introduces her to his wife. She says to him as they stroll for a moment together- “your girl is lovely Hubbell.” 

Rabbi, your wife is lovely. The sounds of your children connected me to my Passover relics of elongated sedars, chocolate covered matzoh and yesterday I found the Afikomen. bh, Judy Gomberg