Seder, in Hebrew means “order.” This was the first in which I felt out-of-order by having been absent from celebrating a Passover with my family. Times are tough, and so is guilt.

Passover has always served as a time of tradition. The preparation of any delicious holiday meal is laborious. We hope that it is a labor of love which is why one half of people enjoy cooking; for the other half, it is to gain the validation from others of a skill made chic by The Food Network. Good marketing on all points! For hours, people slave in the kitchen to serve a meal which is enjoyed in just minutes if you a Jewish, hours if you are not, in between appetizers of vodka and entrees of wine. We were freed from bondage, we walked forty years, we’ve been eating ever since (apart from Woody Allen, for whom the bondage continued as a theme!)

Our relationship with food is not unlike life. And just like Fiddler on the Roof, our relationship with food carries across all religions, cultures and times. Of the 64.5% of Americans who are overweight or obese, there are far fewer Jews to populate such a statistic. I’ve been through South Carolina, believe me! I digress…

The damage of childhood, painful events, even a car crash which can happen in a blink of an eye can have concequences that last far longer. Like the Passover Seder, the order in life is that it takes far longer to create something to enjoy and to be enjoyed by others than it does to consume it. Conversely, it takes many more hours of therapy than it does to discuss in these hours the one incident that may have sparked this discourse.

We lose so much time, let alone need to lose so much weight. Passover food is binding, according to the Today Show, but holding onto traumas of our lives ought not to be. Easier said than done, of course, we are more shaped by what has been chipped away of us than of what remains – to quote Hannah (my mother, God love her, and reason for which I began therapy at age 13 - only because she was, and is, a responsible parent). She’s right, always!

Let it go has become part of our psycho-babble vernacular. Doesn’t losing weight mean the same thing?