Happy Passover!

[donutsweeper]

A very late happy Passover to everyone!

I meant to take pictures of everything as we did the seder, (seder is the Hebrew word for order and is the special dinner that tells the story of Passover) but everything kind of got away from me so... here's a few pictures instead.



This is the seder plate. Going clockwise you can see the roasted egg, shank bone (really a turkey drumstick that's been frozen a reused for a good decade now), an orange (more on that below), parsley and charosets. In the center is horseradish.

Charosets represents the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build the pyramids, etc in Egypt. I make two kinds, the traditional Ashkenazi version with apples, walnuts, sugar and wine and a Sephardic version with dried fruit (raisins, currants, dates, prunes), nuts and wine.

New this year is the orange, my 15 yr old daughter learned about it and asked we included it. It was first added to the seder plate by Susannah Heschel, a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. (More info here.)



Here's the matzoh cover my mom's had forever and we use every year. It has 3 pieces of matzot inside, the middle piece is broken in two during the seder and hidden as the afikoman. My kids are way too old for this tradition but hey, tradition and all that.

And here are my candlesticks, we got them as a wedding present from my parents, way back when.

Comments

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing these - very interesting.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing! I didn't know much about Passover, but your pictures and the Wiki article were really interesting.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Glad you found it interesting! :)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

If you have any questions about Passover (or anything Jewish) just ask, I might not know the answer, but I'd be happy to help if I do

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm always interested in customs that are different to my own and sometimes it's hard to ask without it coming across as 'what is this strange thing you do, not normal person?'. :-D

Is the horseradish normally in the middle of the plate or did you move it for make room for the orange?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

We've always put the horseradish there. Our seder plate actually has labels where everything should be (you can vaguely see the Hebrew letters under the egg for example) and has an extra slot that is supposed to be used for charosets (we were never sure why there would be the need for two) so we just stuck the orange there.

'what is this strange thing you do, not normal person?'

*giggles madly* I know exactly what you mean by that!

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing! That is really neat about the orange. And your candlesticks are beautiful. Charoset sounds delicious. :)

Why does the matzoh need a cover? Is there a symbolism to it, or some practical purpose? (It's neat, I like it!)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

We have a plate that's for the matzot that will be eaten just as matzot, but there has to be a special plate/pile of 3 matzot that can have its middle one broken and used as the afikoman. I suppose there is no specific reason for it to have a fancy cover/container/whathaveyou, but every seder I've ever been at has had one. (I suppose, to an extent, it's an excuse to have something pretty to show off and pass on to future generations).

This particular cover is more of pillowcase/pocket sort of thing and the matzot fits perfectly inside.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Why are there three, and why do you break the middle one? Do the kids get to break it or does someone else do it?

(Why on this night is Rusty asking all these questions?)

:) Thanks for explaining stuff.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Here's some basic info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afikoman

Hmmm, I actually have no idea why it's the middle one that is broken an becomes the afikomen. It just is, it's even in the haggaddah (the prayer book used during the seder) saying the middle one is the one broken.

I do know that how the afikomen is treated differs in different families. The tradition in my family was the parents hid it and the kids found it and then presented it to finish the seder (and usually got a present of some sort) This is what my dad did when he was little, his grandfather gave out silver dollars to the kids. In some families however, the kids steal the afikomen and the adults either look for it or offer a trade/prize for the kid returning it.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

I knew basically what was done with the afikomen, but I didn't know why or the individual traditions. Thank you!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I've never been to a very strictly religious seder so I can't comment on how it's done there. There are some seders done entirely in Hebrew and they last ALL NIGHT and if someone makes a mistake you have to start over from the beginning (a woman I worked with at the JCC was very religious and this was a huge problem because the dinner would be cooking and get ruined and people would get drunk- there are 4 glass of wine drunk during different parts of the seder with a prayer for each and sometimes the youngest would fall asleep before it was time for them to ask the ma nishtana, the Four Questions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_four_questions))

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Wow, that would be a lot of pressure!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Our seder is SHORT. It was about 15/20 minutes when the kids were little and is only maybe 45 min now but I still spend the whole time back and forth to the kitchen checking on things and stressing. (Not sure why, yes there are several courses, but most can't be screwed up) And there's never a ton of people, I think the most I ever had was 12, including 3 kids. Some people have 20 or 30 or even 40 people and make it this HUGE DEAL and whatnot. We are rather low key about the whole thing.