Eve Ilsen
Eve Ilsen is a therapist, storyteller, singer and teacher whom Jean Houston has called “the original amphibious being,’ as her work integrates spirituality, psychology, myth, body-mind relationships, and artistic expression. Her mentors and formative teachers include the physiotherapist H.J. Reilly, the founder of Eutonia bodywork Gerda Alexander, the mythologist Joseph Campbell, and especially, the master of imagery and waking dream, Mme. Colette Aboulker-Muscat. In addition to her private practice and public performances, Ilsen leads seminars and retreats in subjects ranging from mythology and Jewish mysticism to storytelling and the use of Transformational Imagery. Since 1987, she has also co-led seminars and liturgical events all over the world with her husband, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
Eve Ilsen can be contacted through the Questions and Comments button below.
This month, Eve has given us a little something to think about for Passover:
“This is the Poor-bread . . .”
By Eve Ilsen
In the late 70’s, I was living in San Francisco, completing a Master’s Degree in psychology.
I had the good fortune to live with Ann, a good friend and mentor, already a licensed psychologist for years. We shared a dream home: the main floor of a double-wide stunningly refurbished Victorian house with smooth dark hardwood floors on a main street in the Mission District.
One year, we hosted the Passover Seder.
The sliding doors between rooms were opened, flat doors laid out on overturned Baskin-Robbins tubs and covered with fabric for tables, and cushions tucked beneath to sit on. (We were mostly in our twenties and thirties, and could still manage that.) We must have totaled twenty-eight or so psychologists, psychiatrists, psychology graduate students and professors.
The house was festive and gorgeous, the aromas wafting from the kitchen were luscious, the candles were lit.
Preparations complete, we finally gathered at our places. One of our men rose to his knees, held up the plate of matzoh, and began: “This is the poor-bread that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, let them come and eat...”
The doorbell rang.
We halted, and Ann left the room to answer the door.
A few moments later, she returned, pale and tight-lipped.
“Who was it?”
“There’s this old crazy lady, a beggar, who hangs around the neighborhood now and then; it was her, wearing nothing but a raincoat.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“I sent her away,” Ann replied.
“You what???”
I leaped up and ran to the door, opened it and rushed out onto the stoop. I saw no-one. I ran up and down the block in the rain, trying to find her. She was old; how far could she have gotten?
But I never found her.
I returned to the Seder distraught.
She had rung the bell at the very moment we had said, “All who are hungry, let them come and eat; all who are needy, let them come and make Pesach.”
And we turned her away? A room full of twenty-eight psychologists, and between all of us, we couldn’t have handled one poor old crazy lady in nothing but a raincoat? Did we think this yearly ceremony was a mere recitation of an ancient story? That the invitation is just a form, and empty, and not meant to be taken seriously?
I was young, and with people I loved and respected, and did not have the courage to leave the table and declare the Seder a sham.
But I have never forgotten it, nor the scandal and shame of having turned away an incarnation of Elijah the Prophet at the very moment when inviting her in might have been a small move toward Redemption.
This is one of the reasons that I always give what I can to any beggar who is not aggressive or hurtful; and I have never met a beggar who is anything but polite, in any country.
I was given the gift of one tikkun (repair) of this very incident when I lived in Israel.
A group of us met at the banks of the Dead Sea to camp out for the first few days of Pesach. The sun had set, the full moon had risen, and we all sat cross-legged on the ground in a large circle. A battery had been hooked to one spotlight that lit us.
The leader of the Seder rose on one knee, held up the matzoh, and intoned: “This is the poor-bread that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, let them come and eat...”
We heard a rustle in the bushes, and pathetic voices.
Into the light stumbled two ragged-looking young people with backpacks. Among several languages, we learned that they were Swedish volunteers on a nearby kibbutz, and had not realized---nor been warned--- that on such a holiday, not one restaurant in this area would be open.
They were famished.
We looked around our circle: right there were two extra place-settings.
The two famished Swedes sat.
And although they had to wait a while till the Seder unfolded---they ate.
