Sharing the Seder Enhances Special Flavor of Passover

Judy Solomon began preparing last week for Passover, which began last night at sundown. She rid her house of hametz, food that is forbidden during the eight days of the Jewish holiday, and brought out the Passover dishes and utensils.

She also fulfilled another ancient Passover tradition by inviting three strangers, who had nowhere else to go, to share her family’s seder, or traditional dinner, Wednesday night.

It is a meal that includes the same beloved foods year after year. It fills her Woodland Hills home with a special odor that lingers in the memory a lifetime--chicken soup with matzo balls, gefilte fish, brisket, turkey and Passover cakes and cookies for dessert.

Most Observed Holiday

Passover is the most observed Jewish holiday, more so even than Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, or Yom Kippur, the holy day of atonement, because it “has all the best qualities of a great holiday,” explained Judy Aronson, director of education and administration for Shir Chadash New Reform Congregation in Encino. “The fact that it centers in the home has made it a rallying point for families.”

Rabbi Dan Dorfman, who leads the California State University, Northridge, Hillel community seder tonight, said Passover is so loved because it is “dramatic and fun.”

“The foods--the very nature of the celebration--make it very tangible, something you can literally sink your teeth into,” he said. “It is familial and communal; it relaxes and brings people together. The ideas are very appealing--liberation, oppression, followed by a springing up again.

“We see many places in the world where people are being oppressed. Passover brings us hope. It brings a sense of joy, of being bound and then unbound. It comes in spring because spring is a time of hope and renewal,” he continued.

Release of Jews

Passover celebrates many things--it is a festival commemorating the release of the Jews from bondage in Egypt, it is an agricultural festival and a festival of pilgrimage. As the story goes, the Jews had to flee Egypt so suddenly after a series of plagues that they had no time to allow their bread to rise. So they took along unleavened bread, or matzo, as they wandered for 40 years until they reached Canaan, the Promised Land.

Passover is being celebrated in many different ways in the Valley. Besides individual family seders, there are seders at hospitals, senior citizens’ centers and nursing homes. And Passover baskets filled with special holiday foods are delivered to the poor and those unable to leave their homes.

Central to the celebration is the seder, a ritual guided by rules in the 2,000-year-old Haggadah, which contains psalms, prayers of thanksgiving and children’s songs. The ritual includes the tradition of Four Questions, usually posed by the youngest child. The questions ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

Candles, Wine, Goblet

On the seder table are the candles that mark every Jewish celebration; four cups of wine to represent God’s four promises to free the Jews from slavery and the cup of Elijah, a goblet of wine for the spirit of the prophet when he enters the home.

An important symbol is the seder plate, which contains three whole matzot, covered with a special cloth; a roasted shank bone to symbolize the lamb sacrificed at the ancient temple; a roasted egg, another symbol of sacrifice; bitter herbs, usually horseradish, to remind the Jews of the bitterness of slavery; haroset, a mixture of nuts, apples, wine and cinnamon symbolizing the mortar made by the Jewish slaves, but sweet to symbolize God’s kindness, and karpas, or greens--usually celery or parsley--to symbolize the poor nourishment that the Israelites had in slavery. The greens are dipped in salt water as a reminder of the tears that were shed.

On Passover, the Jewish community makes a special effort to see that everyone has a seder. Many temples and organizations have communal seders costing $10 to about $30. But they also take care of the poor, the ill, the disabled and those with no families.

Rabbi Bernard M. Cohen of Temple Solael in Canoga Park, who has been taking Passover to the community for about 10 years, led a seder for nearly 400 people last Thursday at the Ernani Bernardi Multipurpose Senior Center in Van Nuys. The interfaith program represented both Passover and Easter rituals.

Cohen talked about the “religious and universal message” of Passover.

“Passover is based on freedom,” he said. “It is a universal holiday.”

Cohen also led a seder at a Canoga Park nursing home for victims of Alzheimer’s disease and at a psychiatric hospital for adolescents.

Passover Workshops

But one of his favorite activities came the evening of the first seder when he held a special Passover workshop at Temple Solael, teaching congregants how to get ready for the holiday and how to conduct a seder.

“It’s quite a scene,” he said. “We have wine and matzo, and families come with pencils and paper to take notes.”

There was another learning experience at Shir Chadash last weekend when 60 of the congregants went on a Passover retreat in Santa Barbara, discussing how to prepare for the holiday both physically (cleaning the house, changing utensils) and spiritually.

“We learned about the history, the music, made some crafts, even baked some matzo,” said Aronson.

Groups Contribute Funds

The Jewish Federation, with aid from the United Jewish Fund, helps the elderly, indigent and lonely celebrate Passover by sponsoring five seders in the Los Angeles area, serving about 500 people, and providing money to another 6,000 to purchase special Passover food or utensils.

On Sunday, the Federation, aided by the B’nai Brith, holds its first Valley seder at the Valley Storefront in North Hollywood.

“We want to give people a touch of an old-fashioned service,” said Al Leader, community service chairman for the B’nai Brith Valley Council. “It’s like Christmas in that there are a lot of organizations making Passover baskets for those who can’t get out or can’t afford the special food. Passover is the time of year when everyone is made welcome and provided for.”

‘Always Room for More’

Opening her house to strangers on Passover for the past nine years “has given us a tremendous feeling of contact with the Jewish community,” Judy Solomon says. Although 15 were at the Solomon table for dinner, she noted, “There is always room for one more. We can’t turn anyone away.

“It is a very fulfilling, very satisfying experience to be able to provide a home for those who don’t have one. We gain more than they do. To watch the face of someone who walks into your home when they have nowhere else to be--the rewards are indescribable.”

Her children, she said, would feel very cheated if they didn’t live in a home with an open-door policy.

“It becomes a very emotional experience,” she said. “The realization that we are lucky to have a family when others don’t brings us closer together.”

Matching Service

Shir Chadash also matches single people with seders on the first night and celebrates the second night with a $10-per-person communal dinner at Pierce College.

“There is a real sense of family and community in this congregation,” said Aronson.

And those too busy to cook have the option of “seder-to-go” from Renta Yenta in Encino. For $35 a person (including delivery), there is a choice of a gefilte fish or chopped-liver appetizer; marinated cucumber salad; an entree of turkey stuffed with matzo or roasted capon or brisket; a sweet potato dish or cooked carrots; a matzo-apple kugel, and, for dessert, a spongecake with lemon or strawberry glaze. Also included is the traditional seder plate, matzo and enough wine for everyone, including Elijah.

Renta Yenta owner Lila Greene said the dinners--she sold 500 this year--are made by real yentas in Palos Verdes. Greene fed her own family of seven with a seder-to-go.

“After thousands of years of cooking,” she said, “enough is enough.”

Involving the Youngsters

Jewish schools also make the most of the holiday. Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge and the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills provide examples of how schools involve youngsters.

Starting several weeks before Passover, the children, some as young as 2 1/2, begin making Passover items that are sure to become heirlooms--decorated matzo covers, kiddush cups for wine, personalized yarmulkes for the boys, seder plates. They also make their own haroset, substituting grape juice for the traditional wine.

A Visit From ‘Moses’

At Ramat Zion, one of the highlights is a visit from Rabbi Solomon Rothstein, who dresses as Moses and leads the children on a symbolic march across the “desert.”

Each class at the Heschel Jewish Day School in Northridge held its own model seder before the school closed for the holiday. The sixth grade simulated a seder as it might be held in the Soviet Union today, using a potato instead of the greens and hiding the Haggadah under the cover of an official Soviet book. There was very little matzo because it is so hard to get there, and, at one point, the students conducted the seder by candlelight to symbolize the fact that religious ceremonies must be somewhat clandestine.

Fifth-grade students linked their celebration to the study of the American Westward Movement by going to a national park near Santa Barbara. They took a trip in a covered wagon and celebrated Passover as the Jewish pioneers did, even trying to bake matzo.

The holiday ends next Friday.