The Great Debate

Every Passover, the family reads snippets of the Haggadah, jumping back and forth with no rhyme or reason or designated leader.  The seder is part comic relief, part tradition.   One year, our serio-comic, loose interpretation of this important holiday brought an observant guest to tears.  "I'm never doing this again!" she said to her future ex-husband.  And she meant it.  Every Passover, we work in the Four Questions, and then, out comes the gefilte fish, followed by the unofficial Fifth Question: Which is hotter?  Red horseradish?  Or white?  And then the two, Brooklyn-raised grandpas say, in unison, "White!"  And the table divides into a lively debate of which is better, and my dad tells us of his lifelong quest to find the perfect white horseradish.  Factor's Deli comes pretty close.  But trying to match the horseradish of his youth remains elusive.  Every Passover, I remind my dad of his father at Passover, and how he always hid the afikomen directly under the tablecloth where I sat -- next to him, of course -- and slipped me a dollar.  Every Passover, I think of those dear people no longer at the table, and hope they're gathered together, somewhere -- Where?  The Sixth Question -- debating the merits of red vs. white horseradish, sipping chicken soup and breaking matzoh, and leaving just enough room for a tasty macaroon.  Plain or chocolate?  That's a whole other debate.