Seder

Last night we had a genuine Passover Seder. The word Seder means order, and it's the name of the dinner ceremony on Passover. Granted, our Passover was definitely a month or so out of season, but our Judaism teacher said he wouldn't have been able to dedicate the time to it during actual Passover season. So we had ours in February.

It was pretty dang sweet. They set up our cafeteria like, super fancy. We had candles on every table, assigned seating, fancy napkins, and a bottle of grape juice that looked like a wine bottle. Lol, Matt, my dance partner/Bro Huff's son, was at my table, and we were joking around about the fact that the label was in Hebrew, so it could totally be anything and we would never know. We decided it would be a fantastic joke on the Center if someone had bought actual wine instead of grape juice. Although, it wasn't even real grape juice, either. But it was good. And non-alcoholic, I'm pretty sure. ;)

So we each had a Haggadah ("the story" or something like that) book, which has all the ceremony for the Passover written out with directions and readings and pictures. And it totally reads from right to left. Dude, it is so trippy opening books that way. I've only used a couple like that, but it's nuts. Our teacher walked us through most of it. We actually didn't even really do the whole thing. We were there for 3 hours as it was. But they assigned out songs for people to learn beforehand and perform throughout the telling of the Exodus story. I sang one called "Avadim Hayinu" with two other girls. Mike and a guy named Jeff did a rap. No joke. Their rapper names were He-Be-Brewin' (Jeff) and not yo' momma, but My-momma-des (as in Maimonides, a famous Jewish philosopher- that was Mike). It was seriously amazing. Mike put together this backup track on Garageband and they dressed up like *gangstas*- except still in Sabbath dress, coz that's what we were all wearing. Funniest thing ever. Loved it.

The dinner was really something. We had 4 courses, and everybody was assigned a serving group, so that one group brought out the appetizers, the next cleared that away and brought the soup (that was my group), then the main course, and dessert, and the last group cleared away dessert. I have to say, I really am a big fan of fancy banquets. For many reasons, but certainly because the food is always a cut above the norm. The Oasis did not disappoint. Our mashed potatoes had almonds in them. Ya. It was a big deal.

It was kind of interesting to go through all the ceremonial stuff and everything, like eating the bitter herbs and the matzah (which was like saltine crackers except the size of half a sheet of paper and minus the salt) and reading the story and hearing the songs. We even had a hunt for the missing piece of matzah, which I guess is a tradition to help the children keep awake and interested. ... Not sure what that says about the JC demographic. Lol, jk. One thing that was interesting is that our teacher told us that the whole Elijah thing is actually pretty much outdated. Like, in the 70's most people would set a place and a chair for him, but now they just fill a goblet with the wine and don't drink it- and even that, he said, had more to do with an old Rabbinical debate about whether 4 cups of wine should be drunk or 5. The filled glass is a compromise. Also, another tradition that I thought had to do with Elijah- opening the door- Ophir said developped in the 18th century in Europe in order to show the Christians that they weren't practicing witchcraft or anything. It's like in Fiddler on the Roof, where everything is more about tradition than faith or religion.

Well, the sunny weather has officially departed. It was still gorgeous yesterday. We went out and had a picnic on the lawn, since the Oasis wasn't serving lunch so that they could set up for Seder and gave us sack lunches instead. We fell asleep on the grass and when we woke up I went back to my room and slept some more instead of going to the review session for the quiz we had today.... It's all good tho. Mike filled me in this morning and I totally aced it. :) Today I just worked on getting my pictures all labeled (I decided I had to do it before I forgot what they all were- it's hard not having my laptop!) and then watched like, 3 hours worth of movies with a bunch of people, and we had a fireside with Elder Neuenschwander tonight, and now I'm kinda bored, because I don't really want to watch more movie- which is what everyone is doing, but the alternative is "body ball" which definitely did not look like something I would have survived. But it's all good, because it means I actually get to my blog before a week has gone by. :D Well, I'm going to go try again to find something to do. Lates.