Valley Village : Passover Seder Makes Disabled Feel at Home

More than 100 people are expected next Tuesday at Temple Beth Hillel’s Moses Seder, a Passover service and feast for Jews with mental and physical disabilities and their families and friends.

The Seder--a celebration of the Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt--is being sponsored for the 11th year by the temple’s Moses Program, which attempts to mainstream Jews with disabilities into worship services and temple activities.

“Passover is really a family holiday,” said Iris Wechsler, who coordinates the Moses Program.

“For some of [the participants], this is the only Seder they can go to because they have no family here.”

Temple Beth Hillel’s Moses Seder costs $12, she said, but “no one is ever turned away for lack of money.”

The meal includes all the traditional foods, including matzo, an unleavened bread; parsley and lettuce, symbols for the coming of spring; hard-boiled eggs in saltwater, a symbol of tears shed during the exodus; and charoses, a paste of ground nuts, grated apples, wine, cinnamon and honey, a representation of the mortar that enslaved Jews used in building for the Pharoah.

During the services, Rabbi Jim Kaufman will lead participants in singing “Dayenu”--or “We Should Have Been Content”--and the folk song “Blowing in the Wind.” For visually impaired participants, Haggadahs--Passover prayer books--are available in Braille and large print.

“It’s the most homelike evening you can imagine,” said Wechsler, whose 38-year-old daughter, Cheryl, has cerebral palsy. “People are just beaming and glowing.”

Moses had a speech impediment and his brother, Aaron, regularly spoke for him, she said.

“If Moses were alive today,” Wechsler joked, “he would have to use a TDD”--a telecommunication device for the deaf.