Kindergartners Enact Exodus for Model Seder

Pretending to be the biblical figure Moses, 5-year-old Kyle Sullivan led his people on a make-believe trek from Egypt to Israel on Thursday at the Adat Ari El school and synagogue in North Hollywood.

Fellow kindergartners played Egyptian soldiers who drowned in the Red Sea while trying to stop the Exodus of Jewish slaves during the model Seder, a sort of dress rehearsal for the coming feasts celebrating Passover.

“My favorite part is when they (the soldiers) cross the Red Sea and it closes in on ‘em,” said Kyle, who wore a white rag and headband on his head during the skit as his mother looked on.

At Jewish day schools throughout Los Angeles, model Seders full of symbolism are being held to help children know what to do and expect when the actual Seders take place in Jewish homes on Saturday and Sunday.

Kids aren’t the only ones sitting through the preparatory ceremonies. For years, adults have also been drawn to synagogues, jails, hospitals and nursing homes for model Seders, said Michele Kirsch, administrative associate for the Board of Rabbis in Los Angeles.

Passover, some say, has taken on a wider meaning as a holiday for any and all suffering groups of people, including earthquake victims and former cult members.

At Adat Ari El, 20 Russian immigrants have been invited to take part in a community model Seder on Saturday night, said Principal Lana Marcus.

On Thursday, Marcus pulled a fake beard over her head and posed as the prophet Elijah in front of a group of parents and their kindergarten children, hoping that the kids would “see a connection with the past and with the past to the present.”

The kindergartners sang from orange prayer books and ate from paper plates with symbolic food, including a bitter herb representing the bitterness of slavery.

Leslie Alexander, a rabbi at the school, held a disposable camera as she watched her 5-year-old daughter, Shira Aitchison, participate.

“As parents, we are very proud of how much they’ve learned by the time they’re 5 years old,” Alexander said. “They’re already a part of carrying on the tradition.”

During one skit, some of the children picked up toy hammers and shovels and led the entire group in the following verses:

“For it’s work and work and work, every day and every night. For it’s work and work and work, when it’s dark and when it’s light.”

“It teaches our children about persecution,” Anne Sullivan, Kyle’s mother, said of the program. “We make a very big deal about this because we want to make sure our children don’t grow up and persecute other people.”