Could a mesorah over a century old come to such a sudden end?

Tessie Goldstein* was born in Lodz in 1930. She survived the war and was blessed with one daughter, Shani. Mother and daughter were inseparable.

In March 2020, when the pandemic hit, Tessie was transferred to a nursing facility. The realization that Tessie would have to spend Pesach alone was devastating news for them both.

After Shani realized that spending the Seder with her mother was impossible, she and her mother resolved to keep one family minhag intact — chicken soup on Erev Pesach.

It was Wednesday, April 8, 2020, Erev Pesach, and the facility had put in place a total lockdown. The repressive restrictions precluded Shani from visiting her mother in person. What would be with the Erev Pesach soup?

Desperate, Shani called the facility and asked if she could bring chicken soup to her mother.

This was more about family connection than chicken soup. The chicken soup symbolized for Tessie the survival of her family. Tessie remembered her own grandmother preparing the soup in the ghetto.

The chicken soup was part of the family mesorah, and Shani knew how much it meant to her mother. Every Erev Pesach, in the early afternoon, before everyone napped, the family would consume piping hot chicken soup.

Shani was overcome with pain at the thought of her 90-year-old mother not having her chicken soup on Erev Pesach, for the first time in her life.

Could a mesorah over a century old come to such a sudden end?

Shani contacted the nursing home and asked if she could bring the soup over. The staff informed her that she could not enter the building.

She was told she could drop off the soup at the enclosed reception area, but there was no way they could guarantee her mother would get the soup, as they were so short-staffed due to Covid.

The staff informed Shani that the only way her mother could have the soup would be if she made her own way to the reception area to retrieve it.

Shani was beside herself. Her mother was blind; how could she possibly make her own way to retrieve hot soup?

Shani informed her mother she would have to make do without the soup as the staff could not facilitate its delivery. But Tessie was not to be deterred.

She quietly informed her daughter that the power of chesed could triumph over Covid. “Shani, you just bring over the soup. My chesed partner and I will do the rest.”

Unsure of what her mother was referring to, Shani arrived late Wednesday morning with the soup and called her mother to inform her of the successful drop-off at the reception desk.

Shani stood and watched from the parking lot.

Suddenly, to her surprise, she spotted an older woman in a wheelchair propelling herself with her feet.

Then she saw her mother, sightlessly holding on to her wheelchair-bound chesed partner for support.

Shani looked on incredulously as her mother and her wheelchair-bound friend opened the hot soup and enjoyed it together.

Her blind mother and her disabled wheelchair-bound friend had partnered to safeguard a decades-old family tradition.

Shani called her mother that afternoon to wish her a good Yom Tov and to express her amazement at her ingenuity in retrieving the soup.

Her mother replied, “Shani, this is not about chicken soup. This is about chesed. It was chesed that saved me in the war, and it will be chesed that gets me through Covid. Mrs. Goldberg, my chesed partner, is 97 years old, I am 90. She needs to ‘walk’ daily, and I need my soup.

“I wanted to help her, and she wanted to help me. Together, we helped each other. The soup was our reward.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1057)