![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Tale of Two Seders
Apr. 26th, 2005 08:51 pmOn Saturday, as we were discussing our Seder plans after our Hebrew chavura, a couple of friends, Bruce and Rita, upon hearing that Morgan and I would be having a two person seder, invited us to bring the food over to their place and we could have a four person seder. After sounding each other out on levels of kashrut observance, and finding that we were at the same level, Morgan and I breezed by the food coop for extra chops and the bookstore for extra haggadot. Then we went over to the home of our hosts.
It took a little while to get organized, but Rita made a salad and I served some Gefilte Fish as an appetizer. The serving of an appetizer during the last stages of preparing a seder is a tradition I started because if you sit down to the seder table hungry, then the important bits of the seder, like telling the story of the Exodus, get short shrift. This happened too often in my parental home, so I take the step of serving an appetizer so that people can enjoy the rituals of the Seder without hunger distracting them.
After the snack I prepared the meal. The kitchen was a lovely old galley kitchen with lots of hidden counter space and work surface. I design my passover meal to be able to sit in the oven for an indefinite period of time, and I always make lamb, because lamb plays such a significant role in the story. So I pan fried one lamb chop for the seder plate, and while that was happening, for each person I put two loin chops - salted and peppered, a bit of lavender, a bundle of asparagus, and a splash of Lemon Juice into a tin-foil packet. The packets went into a rosting pan, and the pan into a 250 degree oven, along with a casserole full of baby carrots, garlic ramps, and butter. This is a meal that can sit in the oven indefinitely, and the worst that might happen is that the asparagus will become a bit soggy.
With dinner in the oven, the Seder began. We went through the haggaddah at a leisurely pace, performing al the rituals, d'rashing (commenting on, dialoguing with) the haggadah's text, making a mod here and there to fit with our own perspectives. We were going around the table, taking every opportunity to practice reading Hebrew that the haggadah afforded us, singing, reading and responding, eating the things on the seder plate, and drinking the wine (no Manischewitz here, we were drinking a Kosher Rioja from Spain, and I had an Israeli Cabernet on hand in the event that ran out), and then dinner was served.
The food was well received all around and we talked for hours over dinner, sharing experiences, discussing our views of various customs and practices and all kinds of things. Their parrot did almost as much talking as we did, and ate, in relation to it's body weight, probably a fair bit more Matza. I noticed that a half sheet of matza was missing from the table when we sat down to eat, and dismissed it imagining someone had taken it to eat. Seeing that the Afikomen (the piece traditionaly hidden and held for ransom by the youngest person present) was still where Bruce had set it aside, I gathered everyone but Morgan into the kitchen, ostensibly to bus the table and bring out dessert (Bruce and Rita served a lovely cake, and some wonderful Ice Cream and Cookies) but to give Morgan an opportunity to hide the Afikoman. And there it remained. When we got to the point in the Seder where the Afikoman was to be ransomed - well, it was right where he had set it so he simply retrieved it. I said to Morgan "I gave you three opportunities to hide that!" and she said she had hidden the Afikoman. Alas she had indeed hidden a piece of matza, quite ingeniously on a bookshelf, but it was not the Afikoman - it was that missing piece of table matza. Oh well, no Afikoman ransom (she demands Chocolate Covered Matza) for her!
After singing the Birkat Hamazon we opened the door for Elijah the Prophet, as is customary. And we inserted something new into the seder at that point - the following poem from Haikus for Jews:
We opened the door
For Elijah the prophet
Now our cat is gone.
And then we sang Eliahu Hanavi, Chad Gad Ya, and Echad Mi Yodea (Dayenu was earlier). We ended up around 3:00am, at which point I piled what remained of what I had brought back into the Saturn SW1 with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction.
The next night was the Temple's congregational seder, to which we had invited our friend Betti, who has been showing curiosity about Judaism. The seder went well. Afikoman is dealt with differently at the congregational seder. The clergy hide it around the dining room. They wrapped in in these little green wrappers and put it all over the place. When Betti first saw one of the packets, she thought someone had dropped a feminine need there. I wanted to let Betti continue thinking that up to the moment that the kids started gathering them, but Morgan insisted that we let her in on it. Our Rabbi who plays guitar, with whom Morgan is taking guitar lessons was there playing guitar.
It took a little while to get organized, but Rita made a salad and I served some Gefilte Fish as an appetizer. The serving of an appetizer during the last stages of preparing a seder is a tradition I started because if you sit down to the seder table hungry, then the important bits of the seder, like telling the story of the Exodus, get short shrift. This happened too often in my parental home, so I take the step of serving an appetizer so that people can enjoy the rituals of the Seder without hunger distracting them.
After the snack I prepared the meal. The kitchen was a lovely old galley kitchen with lots of hidden counter space and work surface. I design my passover meal to be able to sit in the oven for an indefinite period of time, and I always make lamb, because lamb plays such a significant role in the story. So I pan fried one lamb chop for the seder plate, and while that was happening, for each person I put two loin chops - salted and peppered, a bit of lavender, a bundle of asparagus, and a splash of Lemon Juice into a tin-foil packet. The packets went into a rosting pan, and the pan into a 250 degree oven, along with a casserole full of baby carrots, garlic ramps, and butter. This is a meal that can sit in the oven indefinitely, and the worst that might happen is that the asparagus will become a bit soggy.
With dinner in the oven, the Seder began. We went through the haggaddah at a leisurely pace, performing al the rituals, d'rashing (commenting on, dialoguing with) the haggadah's text, making a mod here and there to fit with our own perspectives. We were going around the table, taking every opportunity to practice reading Hebrew that the haggadah afforded us, singing, reading and responding, eating the things on the seder plate, and drinking the wine (no Manischewitz here, we were drinking a Kosher Rioja from Spain, and I had an Israeli Cabernet on hand in the event that ran out), and then dinner was served.
The food was well received all around and we talked for hours over dinner, sharing experiences, discussing our views of various customs and practices and all kinds of things. Their parrot did almost as much talking as we did, and ate, in relation to it's body weight, probably a fair bit more Matza. I noticed that a half sheet of matza was missing from the table when we sat down to eat, and dismissed it imagining someone had taken it to eat. Seeing that the Afikomen (the piece traditionaly hidden and held for ransom by the youngest person present) was still where Bruce had set it aside, I gathered everyone but Morgan into the kitchen, ostensibly to bus the table and bring out dessert (Bruce and Rita served a lovely cake, and some wonderful Ice Cream and Cookies) but to give Morgan an opportunity to hide the Afikoman. And there it remained. When we got to the point in the Seder where the Afikoman was to be ransomed - well, it was right where he had set it so he simply retrieved it. I said to Morgan "I gave you three opportunities to hide that!" and she said she had hidden the Afikoman. Alas she had indeed hidden a piece of matza, quite ingeniously on a bookshelf, but it was not the Afikoman - it was that missing piece of table matza. Oh well, no Afikoman ransom (she demands Chocolate Covered Matza) for her!
After singing the Birkat Hamazon we opened the door for Elijah the Prophet, as is customary. And we inserted something new into the seder at that point - the following poem from Haikus for Jews:
We opened the door
For Elijah the prophet
Now our cat is gone.
And then we sang Eliahu Hanavi, Chad Gad Ya, and Echad Mi Yodea (Dayenu was earlier). We ended up around 3:00am, at which point I piled what remained of what I had brought back into the Saturn SW1 with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction.
The next night was the Temple's congregational seder, to which we had invited our friend Betti, who has been showing curiosity about Judaism. The seder went well. Afikoman is dealt with differently at the congregational seder. The clergy hide it around the dining room. They wrapped in in these little green wrappers and put it all over the place. When Betti first saw one of the packets, she thought someone had dropped a feminine need there. I wanted to let Betti continue thinking that up to the moment that the kids started gathering them, but Morgan insisted that we let her in on it. Our Rabbi who plays guitar, with whom Morgan is taking guitar lessons was there playing guitar.
