The Passover We Grew Up With (Part II)
Photo by Alex Shute via Unsplash.
Editor’s Note: In this two-part series, members of our family reflect on what Passover felt like in childhood, from two different homes and two different countries. Bryan Mackie shares his memories of growing up in the United States. Bryan is married to Storied Ink co-founder Darby, and his brother Adam is married to our other co-founder, Danielle.
Part II: Bryan's Memories from the United States
“That burned the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat my father bought for two zuzim!” Had Gadya was never sung especially well at our family Seder, but that was part of the point. It was loud, off-key, half theatrical and half chaotic, and by the end everyone was more or less shouting. To me, that was Passover.
Every year, my mother’s whole side of the family gathered for two nights of it: 13 cousins, 8 aunts and uncles, and 2 grandparents all pressed around the table for a meal that somehow managed to be reverent, funny, educational, and just disorderly enough to feel alive. Our grandfather conducted the evening as each of us read our part in turn, from youngest to oldest. The children were never an afterthought. In many ways, they were the reason for the whole thing.
We hid the afikomen, with some of the older cousins proving completely incapable of keeping the secret. We rehearsed the Four Questions, Had Gadya, the Ten Plagues, and “Who Knows One?” as though preparing for an annual exam. We were quizzed and tested every year for Sacagawea coins, which at the time felt like both high stakes and great wealth. But most of all, we laughed. Having 13 similarly aged cousins in one room was a recipe for disruption in the most enjoyable possible way. Passover, as I knew it, was never sterile or overly polished. It was intimate, centered in our home around our family table. It was alive.
Photo by Caleb Oquendo via Pexels.
And then there was the food, which in a child’s mind may as well have been its own commandment. My grandmother, Nanny, made a brisket that is pure nostalgia to me now. Of course there were the ritual foods: bitter herbs, charoset, matzah, and maror. But what I remember most vividly is matzah ball soup, brisket, and the atmosphere of a living tradition. As an adult, I came to realize that some of the foods I had unconsciously filed under “ancient Jewish tradition” were, in fact, very American Ashkenazi. Next, they’re going to tell me we weren’t eating blintz soufflé in the Second Temple.
That feels fitting, honestly. Passover may be ancient, but for most of us it comes through family. Through one grandfather’s cadence, one grandmother’s brisket, and one room too full of children trying and failing to contain themselves. That’s how tradition lasts: not just in text, but in people.
Photo by Isaac Taylor via Pexels.
When I think about what stayed with me most from Passover, though, it is not just the food or the songs or even the family scale of it all. It is the question at the center of the night: why?
Why is this night different? Why do we eat this and not that? Why do we recline? Why do we dip? Why tell this story again? We are told to remember, yes. We are told to retell, absolutely. But we are also taught, from the beginning, to ask. To interrupt. To notice. To wonder why things are done the way they are and what they mean. The story of Passover is not handed down as a dead recital. It is handed down as a conversation between generations.
And maybe that is part of what has made the Jewish people so enduring; we pass down memory, and encourage the next generation to answer not with silence, but with questions.
Editor’s Note: Traditions like these do not stay only in memory. They shape the homes we build, the rituals we carry forward, and the meaning we choose to hold onto in the next chapter of our lives.
In many ways, that is part of what makes Jewish wedding traditions like the ketubah so meaningful. They are not only ceremonial but something you live with, display, and return to over time.
If this piece stirred a memory of your own, we would love for you to share it in the comments.
Explore Storied Ink's Signature Ketubah Collection here.