Reaching outside the faith

The dinner invitation was unexpected, from an acquaintance I’d written about years ago.

And since I’ve never been one to turn down a good meal, I headed to Santa Monica on Wednesday -- the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover -- to my first Seder.

My host, Herb Hain, said dinner was scheduled for 6 p.m. . . . more or less. They’d be running, he told me, on “Jewish Standard Time.”

I made the conversion to my own age-old cultural standards, and arrived closer to 7 . . . on “CP Time” (Colored People Time).

The 20 guests were already seated, and Hain had just begun explaining the history of the holiday, which commemorates the Jews’ freedom from bondage in Egypt.

They had finished their first glass of wine, dipped their parsley into salted water and broken the first piece of ritual matzo. I was asked to read the evening’s introduction from their family’s Haggada, the book containing the story of the Exodus and the ritual of the Seder, read at Passover.

“This is the bread of poverty, which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry enter and eat. Let all who are needy come to our Passover feast. This year we are here, next year may we be in the land of Israel. This year we are slaves, next year maybe free men.”

Immediately, good-natured haranguing began. “Free men. Why is it always men?” asked Randy Hain, Herb’s daughter-in-law.

“Because God was a man,” Herb said.

“How do you know that?” Randy asked. “Where does it say that God is a man?”

And I knew I was in for an interesting night, a challenge to my own Christian traditions. I couldn’t imagine anyone at my family’s table interrupting Easter dinner with doubts about the Resurrection.

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This was new to me, but I felt right at home at Herb and Eva Hain’s spirited celebration, where they reserved a center table for their non-Jewish guests.

Every year, the Hains invite someone who is not Jewish to their Seder. It’s a sort of “mitzvah” -- a worthy deed -- rooted not in religious tradition, but in the memory of a Passover 63 years ago.

Then, in 1946, Hain was an American soldier spending a day’s layover in Liverpool, England, with a fellow GI named Ivan Prosise. Hain was invited to share Passover dinner with a local rabbi’s family. He was overjoyed and asked if Prosise could come. But the rabbi said no; their family had never had a non-Jew at their Seder.

So Prosise returned to their ship alone.

And Hain -- hurting over his shipmate’s slight -- vowed that when he had a family of his own, his Passover would always include a non-Jew and a telling of that long-ago story.

Nine years ago, I wrote a column about his tradition. Hain had tracked down Prosise in Illinois, and he and his wife flew out to attend the Hain family Seder.

On Wednesday, Prosise was back in California for his third Hain Seder. His wife died not long ago, but he brought his son Mark, and Mark’s wife, Mona. “This is our first Seder,” Mark told me as we lifted the second of the evening’s four glasses of wine.

It was the first time Mark had worn a yarmulke, perched on the back of his blond head. And the first time Mona had made matzo ball soup, the first course in a dinner that would last for hours.

One of the Hains’ sons brought a neighbor, Alvena Williams. And their longtime friends Sid and Rona Katz invited Carolyn Leal, whose family traditions tend more toward tortillas than matzo.

Like Prosise decades ago, Leal had not been allowed to attend another dinner this night. Her boyfriend -- Sid Katz’s son -- was attending the Seder of a childhood friend, whose family follows strict Orthodox traditions. That meant only Jews at their Passover table.

“It’s an insult to turn down such an invitation, so he had to go,” Hain explained to us. “So we set a place for Carolyn at our table.”

Leal got teary-eyed when she heard Hain and Prosise’s story. “I’m not normally a cry-baby,” she said. “But I felt so overwhelmed. To not be wanted because I’m not Jewish and then to be welcomed here.”

She felt blessed this night, to be both friend and stranger.

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I’m not sure how closely our meal hewed to the traditions of a typical Seder.

We followed the rules about the bitter herbs, the sweet charoses, the four questions and four glasses of wine.

But the skit with the grandkids playing the Pharaoh and Moses, and the guests singing spirituals that I recall from our Baptist church choir . . . well, I didn’t see that in the Haggada.

But it was a celebration of rituals nonetheless -- some that belong to the Jewish faith and some that every family dinner shares.

The prayers and stories go on too long. Parents brag between bites about their children’s exploits. Bored teenagers text their friends under the table. The women take the seats nearest to the kitchen, and admonish the kids heading back for another serving of potato kugel.

And no one leaves without a round of hugs.

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sandy.banks@latimes.com