It’s been a number of years since I’ve been to a Seder—well
into the last century, now that I think of it. So I was very happy to be
invited to one held on Friday by friends
I’ve “met” in the past year.
(Thank you, Internet.)
A Seder, if you are at all unclear, is the meal that
commemorates the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. It’s a little like
Thanksgiving, because it is a giving
of thanks, and also because the food is inextricably woven into the Tradition.
Meaning: just as it can be a real Bone of Contention if your family has
cornbread stuffing at Thanksgiving and it turns out that your partner’s has
oyster stuffing, there may need to be UN-level negotiations as to whether you
have potato latkes or matzo latkes at your Passover Seder.
Thankfully, this was not an issue on Friday. There were
both potato and matzo latkes, as well as two kinds of charoset, multiple kugels
and every other holiday thing you could think of.
Depending on your family background, at Seder you can spend literally
hours reading the Haggadah,
with or without heated interpretive discussions; or you can do an extremely
abbreviated version, ask the Four Questions and get straight to the brisket. There
are certain elements common to every iteration, but you can take it from there.
As I said, it’s been a while since my last Seder, and mine
have always been, uh, unorthodox. (I’m thinking in particular about the one
with people from film school, where we watched the Passover portion of The Ten Commandments, and had the
youngest black, male Catholic ask the Four Questions.) There were two elements
of Friday’s that I don’t recall from the past: the Throwing of the Plagues, and
the Asking of the Questions in multiple languages.
What languages, you inquire? Well, English, Latin, Russian,
Yiddish, German, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Arabic, Spanish and Klingon.
It was a lovely family meal, with more than 20 people at
long tables stretched across two rooms. And I’m very grateful to have been part
of it.
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