Gaining Insight Into Passover : Celebrations: Model Seder at historic Wilshire Boulevard Temple teaches Catholic students the Jewish faith.

So what was a nice Catholic boy like 15-year-old Eddie Fernandez doing at Wilshire Boulevard Temple?

As a matter of fact, what were more than 1,500 Catholic elementary and high school students doing at the historic synagogue earlier this week?

Ask Rabbi Harvey J. Fields. Catholic youths such as Eddie have been coming to the temple every year about this time for the last 14 years to learn about the Jewish holiday of Passover--and have a little fun in the process by sharing in a model Seder, or ceremonial family meal. Passover begins at sundown tonight.

“They have the opportunity of crossing over from their own tradition to another tradition and returning to their tradition enriched with new understanding that illuminates their own,” Fields said in an interview.

It was also a demonstration of the strides made in relations between Roman Catholics and Jews after centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.

Gathering Catholic youths inside the historic synagogue--a national landmark with an eight-story dome and heroic murals depicting the history of Judaism--was an opportunity to dispel myths about Jews found among some Catholics, according to Father Vivian Ben Lima, director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“When you entered this sanctuary building, you felt like you were in a church,” Lima told the students, who came from 29 Catholic elementary and high schools, before the Seder began. “I’d like to tell you that you are in a house of God. This is a place of worship and a place of prayer for our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

The model Seder at Wilshire Boulevard Temple is one example of a larger movement toward reconciliation between Catholics and Jews worldwide.

In December, for example, the Vatican and Israel signed an accord that will lead to the exchange of ambassadors this year and full diplomatic recognition of Israel by the Roman Catholic Church. There have also been Catholic statements of repentance for anti-Semitism and a declaration that Jews “still remain most dear to God.” In 1965, the Catholic Church officially absolved Jews of blame for the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Throughout this time, religious leaders in Los Angeles have been in the forefront of interfaith dialogue.

The model Seder program was inaugurated 14 years ago by Rabbi Emeritus Alfred Wolf and the Rev. Msgr. Royale Vadakin of the archdiocese. Since then, it has been adopted by synagogues throughout the United States, Fields said.

Catholic youths participating in the model Seder were able to share in the rites and symbols commemorating the liberation of Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.

“It’s the first time for me. It’s quite an experience,” said Fernandez, a freshman at Our Lady Queen of Angels High School seminary in Mission Hills. “It’s something I don’t see in my religion as a Catholic.”

He and the other youths learned about the parts of the Seder, including the wine and an unleavened bread called matzo that reminds participants of the haste in which Jews left Egypt. Green herbs known as carpas are tokens of gratitude to God for the gifts of the earth. They are dipped in saltwater as a symbol of the miracle recounted in the book of Exodus in which the Jews crossed over the Red Sea.

There is also charoset , a mixture of finely chopped apples, nuts or almonds and raisins. Because of its appearance, it came to be regarded as representing the clay with which the Israelites made bricks or the mortar used in great buildings erected by the Jewish slaves in Egypt. There also is a bitter herb known as maror , representing the bitter life of slavery.

Also explained at the model Seder were the ritual of dropping one drop of wine for each of the 10 plagues visited upon Pharaoh by God for refusing to free the Israelites, and the Cup of Elijah symbolizing the expectation of his return.

“This is an opportunity to look back into history and come forward and ask ourselves the question: How can this great moment of Jewish history be of significance to us here today?” Fields told the students.

He said they may also come to a deeper understanding of the Christian Eucharist and Christianity’s roots in Judaism.

“(The Seder) obviously has incredible parallels to the Lord’s Supper (or Eucharist) for Christian kids,” Fields said.

“Ritually speaking, it is a real learning experience, and an engagement of real values of Judaism and Christianity--the sanctity of individual reverence for life and of the Spring and renewal, not only of the Earth but of ourselves,” he added. “This is reflected in Passover and, in a way, in the deepest sense of Easter.”

It was also an opportunity to dispel myths about Jews found among some Catholics, according to Lima.

Some Catholics, he said, incorrectly believe that the Passover Seder is incomplete without the Christian Eucharist. “I want to dispel that completely,” the priest said. “It is an authentic, complete and wonderfully profound worship of God who involves himself in history.” Lima noted that Pope John Paul II has said that “all of us are spiritual Semites.”

“We are the wild shoot grafted onto the olive tree (of Judaism),” he said. “This means the old tree still exists and the life-giving sap gives life to the wild shoot (Christianity).”

Finally, Lima reminded students, anti-Semitism has been defined as a sin by the Catholic Church.

Despite the spiritual common denominators, there was no mistaking the great divide that separates Jews and Christians--the nature of Jesus.

That overarching distinction was apparent when a young Catholic boy approached a microphone after the Seder during a question-and-answer session.

“Do you believe in Jesus as being the Savior?” the boy asked the rabbis.

Fields smiled and deferred to his associate, Rabbi Steven Z. Leder.

Jews, said Leder, view Jesus as “a great and wise teacher,” but not as the son of God. “I know this maybe is very difficult thing to understand,” Leder told the boy. Nonetheless, he said, Jews respect the Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah.

As the model Seder came to an end, Fields looked out across the faces of the assembled students and said, “Happy Easter.” Moments later, Father Lima was at the podium wishing his Jewish hosts “a wonderful and holy Passover.”

“The only thing that can save us,” Fields said earlier, “is our sense of hope and decency--and our own relationship with God.”