Party at the Seder

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

This week, Jews all over the world celebrate Passover. The holiday is ushered in with a seder, an elaborate and ritualized meal. Everyone is expected to drink four cups of wine, and, in some homes, hosts and guests recline (like noblemen of yore), rather than sit upright, in celebration of being free rather than enslaved in Egypt.

The Haggadah is read and special Passover songs are sung, including the well-known Had gadyo and Dayenu. But there are many other songs and over the centuries many have been forgotten.

Is this Yiddish song from Ukraine a lost song? Or will someone sing it at a seder somewhere in the world this week? It was written down by a volunteer researcher in the 1920s or 1930s for YIVO’s Ethnographic Commission, which collected folklore from Jewish communities all over the world.

This particular song focuses on the sensory pleasures of the Passover table, which apparently include not only good food, but also flirtation and even hanky-panky with other guests.

Passover Song
(Original is in rhyme)

Revered and honored is the seder night in all Yiddish homes.
Revered and honored—all the houses are swept as clean as the king’s palace.

Every home must have matzoh, wine, horse radish, bitter herbs, and kharoses
An onion, an egg, in salt water is at hand
And especially the four cups of wine.

The king reclining in bed at the table
Gives the queen a kiss, a caress
Everyone feels as if they are in the Garden of Eden
In honor of Pesach, and the wonderful guests, we eat and drink the best
Because the seder is certainly a delight.

It’s simply sweet as sugar
Every time a cup of wine is poured
Boys, girls, plump matzoh balls
Party at the seder.

Arn Doctor is his name
Raised to be a pious Jew
He takes it upon himself
He’d never forget
From year to year
To organize the seder.

He behaves in a fine way
With many of the staff in his house
But with one in particular he feels the urge
To joke around with her and laugh
The entire seder night
He’d like to take her as his queen.

He’s no fool when it comes to his profession
He knows his wife is sick and frail
He sent her off to the spa
Because when the wife isn’t home
That’s the best time for the husband
To make for himself a cozy seder [arrangement]

The seder is a wonderful thing
There aren’t many nights like these
Boys, girls, plump matzoh balls
Party at the seder.

It’s simply sweet as sugar
Every time a cup of wine is poured
Boys, girls, plump matzoh balls
Party at the seder.

This transcription of the song is one of the many fragments of YIVO collections that were hidden from the Nazis in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania. It is now at the Lithuanian Central State Archives and has been digitized as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project.

Roberta Newman is YIVO’s Director of Digital Initiatives.