Oh! What a heartfelt Seder
Not seen in many years
Our hearts broken like matzah
The salty water, tears
Will Totty come home from shul?
Will shul just be right here?
Oy! Why? I ask
Is this Pesach
Different than every year
Will cleaning be with Lysol
For chometz or for germs?
Why are all the cleaning rules
Applied with other terms?
Will Seder nights be empty
As families are split
Grandparents in quarantine
And all alone we sit
With trepidation in our hearts
A plague within our midst
Will it come with redemption?
And all tzaros desist?
The maror is the news we read
The passing of those young
Who knows what we are thinking
When Dayeinu is sung
Comforts were so standard
Security the norm
As families would gather
In shuls we all would swarm
We’d talk about the ghettos
The times we could not pray
And read or speak about a time
When Jews were locked away
We’d assure the kinderlach
Those stories were so rare
Simply there’s no worries
At least where we are here
And suddenly, it’s come alive
When so much pain’s evolved
The themes of the first Pesach here
Yet nothing yet’s resolved
We seemed to be reliving
The first Pesach that we had
When so much all around us
Is cloaked in good and bad
You shall not leave your homes, we’re told
The Mashchis in the street
A limited chaburah
Not picked, you cannot eat
And in the darkness
Those who fell
We mourn for them, we’re scared
The power of His awesomeness
And no one was prepared
Sadly, “Ain shom bayis”
Seems so sad, yet so true
Despite the fear around the world
We only turn to You
Your nisyonos fill our day
As we shelter in our place
Yet we make Yom Tov happily
With the tzaros that we face
Please look down on Your nation
Please look down at Your world
And stop the plague and pestilence
The wrath You had unfurled
Let our Pesach cleaning
Our quest for Seder night
Clean us all from illness
And cured from our plight
And like the Pesach night of old
The Mashchis shall not enter
Any of the holy homes
Where the Seder is the center
And as the dawn will
Shine its rays
I know we’ll hear the call
The shofar of Moshiach
Geulah for us all
