Seder at My House

 Every home has their own traditions for seder. And each family has their own methods of preparing for this major psycho-drama re-enactment of the Exodus story; done through food, story-telling, song, and ritual. Here is something of how it goes at our house. Since many members of my family are vegan, we do a vegan-with-eggs seder, (since egg is one of the traditional foods).

The set-up MUST be done the day before, otherwise it is too crazy. We were seating 19 people this year, so the day before, Irad and I carried our kitchen table into the dining room as well as two kinds of folding chairs and spent two hours debating on the best way to set them up. I was for squishing everyone at one massive table configuration, and Irad voted for a separate "teen" table to the side. We went with his suggestion.

Passover has four names: chag hapesach, chag hamatzot, chag ha'aviv, and zman cheruteinu. (Holiday of Passover, of matza, of spring, and time of freedom.) I like to emphasize the "spring" holiday, especially after the harsh winter we experienced. So lots of flowers!

I spread the flowers out in tall narrow glasses so that there would a spring-like atmosphere to our spring holiday.

Next we had a long discussion as to the choice of haggadahs, the book used to guide the seder and tell the story. We have tried many different haggadot over the years, but in the end decided to go with the good ol' Maxwell House Haggadah, simply because it was the only one of which we had 19 copies!

We supplemented with a few pages from the Family Haggadah, a wonderful English-friendly version with lots of commentary appropriate for children and teens.










I will buy more of these for next year in the new edition.


We needed an English-friendly version because we had several non-Jewish friends in attendance, including friends from Korea, Vietnam, China, Ukraine and Lebanon.

In addition to the Haggadahs at the table, are the Haggadahs we take out and show:

The two on top are the ones we used, and the bottom row, from right to left (thinking in Hebrew) is a beautifully illustrated haggadah in the shape of the chamsa (hand), a children's haggadah from a kibbutz, a 1932 illustrated version of the famous Passover song Chag Gadya by Zeev Raban from the Bezalel School of Art, and finally, on the far left, a family Haggadah from Irad's family that was printed in 1893 in Vilna and made its way to Palestine in 1904.

The other artifact of great pride in each family is the seder plate. We have three and coincidentally had three tables set, so each table had its own plate. One inherited from my grandmother, one that was a gift from Irad's parents, and one that was a farewell gift to me from a congregation I served in New Jersey.

 This is a seder plate we don't own, but isn't it gorgeous?

Seder Plate from museum near the Great Synagogue in Budapest

Before it all begins the guest trickle in and of course they hang out in the kitchen!

Here is the seder checklist:
Seder plate set with—
Shank bone (paper depiction for our vegan household) to recall the lamb's blood on the doorposts
parsley - for spring and rebirth
maror - lettuce - bitterness of slavery
chazeret - home-made horseradish that Irad always makes with the kids wearing goggles) - tears for the bitterness of slavery
charoset - a "mortar" like mixture of apples, nuts, honey, sweet wine, and in our house, dates.
hard-boiled egg - life and renewal

Three ceremonial matzas on a plate or special matza envelope. The middle one is broken in half, and the leader hides one half for children to find later.

Elijahs' cup - Elijah comes to every seder and drinks from the cup. He will only come back "full-time" in the Messianic Age, when we have fixed all the crappy problems on Earth.

Salt water distributed around the table for the dipping of the celery, and later for the egg.

The best part of the pre-meal ceremony is eating the Hillel sandwich - a combination of the "mortar" for the bricks and the chazeret, or horseradish, on matza.

And now, the menu:
APPETIZERS
Hard-boiled eggs with salt water

Mock chopped liver (made by my mother)

Persian vegetable soup with matza balls (made by Yuval)

MAIN COURSES

Full plate of main courses

 Quinoa tabouli (quinoa is kosher for pesach, as it is not actually a grain, but a botanical member of the "goosefoot" family. which also includes beets and spinach.)

Flat lima beans slow cooked all day with beet greens. (We eat beans, though most Ashkenazi Jews don't)

Beet salad with cumin and onions (recipe I learned when we lived in Jerusalem)

Beet salad with apples and walnuts (recipe from my mother-in-law)

Nut Loaf (made by Yuval)

Sweet potato kugel (made by Irad)

Roasted butternut squash and kale (made by Julie)





DESSERT

Plum and Apricot Compote

Apple Pear Crumble (made with matza meal)

Macaroons-to-die-for (made by JoAnne)

One other private tradition I have instituted is to hide chocolate "passover" eggs (one of the symbols, right?) for the kids to find as they hunt for the afikomen (hidden matza)