Tell Me About Your Passover

In My Humble Opinion
1

I thought about posting this tomorrow just before sundown, as is traditional for Jewish-themed threads, but here it is.

Passover is my favorite holiday.
I’ll be holding my semi-annual Passover for Goyim, in which I invite all my gentile friends over for a seder. I think that this year three out of fifteen guests will be actual Jews and two of *those *will be my parents. We’ll drink a whole lot of wine, I’ll sing some songs and tell a story, and then we’ll eat. Normally it’s a fairly silly affair but this year I’ve had some requests for a slightly more traditional seder, so I’ll be breaking out an actual Haggadah (I have a lovely illustrated one that my parents brought me from Israel on a trip a year or two back) and making them listen to a little more Hebrew than they’re used to.

Every year I try to make sure that at least one stranger (usually a friend of a friend) comes over for the meal, and this year is no exception.

For those of you who partake in such things, what are your plans for Pesach this year?

2

I don’t know what it is about this holiday. On no other day of the year would I even consider eating the boring roasted chicken or brisket. I certainly would not entertain eating gefilte fish (family tradition) with horseradish, the hard boiled eggs, the apples with honey, the insipid chicken broth with the matzo balls (okay, I don’t mind that so much), and all that gaggingly dry matzo.

But every time Passover comes around, I secretly crave the culinary punishment.

Why? TRADITION!

3

Those would be for Rosh Hashanah. At Pesach, it’s charoset! I suggest making two kinds, the Ashkenazi with chopped apples, walnuts, and concord grape wine (cinnamon optional) and some variety of Sephardic, with dates, nuts, other dried fruit and spices (more paste-like, as befits something that is meant to resemble mortar).

We will not be hosting this year, though we will be contributing some of the food and wine to the two seders we will attend. Besides the charoset, there are a couple of things I do or would like to do at some point with my seders.

First, in the Four Questions ™, we talk about “dipping” twice. One of those times (in the traditional formulation) is the dipping of the bitter herbs. In the Ashkenazi traditional, those “herbs” are horseradish, and they are dipped into the charoset. If the only horseradish you know is the stuff in the jar (which I love year-round), it makes little sense to “dip” it. For this purpose, get some actual horseradish root and serve it in slices. Those are eminently dippable, and have a good amount of bitterness to go with their nose-clearing heat.

The Israelites, so the story goes, took all their possessions (and a lot of the Egyptians’ as well), when they fled bondage. I do not wear jewelry, save for my wedding ring, most of the time. However, I do have a couple of pieces of “old Jewish man” chunky gold bling that I inherited from grandparents. I always wear those to seder.

I’ve never done this, but I am told that in some Sephardic communities, the seder plate is actually a basket, and the items (like the greens for dipping in salt water) are dispensed by tossing them out of the basket to the guests. Sounds like fun.

Make a chocolate fondue for dessert and dip matzah in it. Chocolate covered matzah, like chocolate covered anything else, is great.

Wear robes and sandals, like your desert ancestors.

4

Probably nothing. I leave it to my wife, but I think we have no plans. If our not-quite-orthodox friends were in town, we would probably invite them for a seder (or be invited by them), but they are in Florida.

On the other hand, I love gefilte fish, especially with strong horseradish, I like charoset and I will probably eat only matzoh for a week. At least one dinner will be fried matzoh (actually oven baked).

5

Couple questions from a gentile here:
–How long does a typical seder last? No matter how much I read about Passover, I never really hear this mentioned.
–Is there a “standard” Haggadah that most Jews use? Or are there multiple competing ones used?
–Do seders only happen on the first day or all days of Passover?

6

There’s a meal in the middle, so not counting that an hour or less. But with some people in charge it can go on forever.

There are many. I’ve been to seders where everyone brings their own and they’re all different. The seder is a ritual based on tradition so there isn’t any particular set of rules. The main purpose of the haggadah is to provide everyone the opportunity to participate.

The first one or two nights is what I hear of most often.

7

What a delightful idea for a thread ! Here’s a bit of help for those curious and new to the holiday.

The Story of Passover.

And, here’s a pretty decent free online Haggadah. This is the guide used by all attending a Seder.

I was born in 1962. My memories of family Seders are bittersweet. They were always at my Aunt and Uncle’s home. Since the family is German Jews- many of whom didn’t get out- and some Russians thrown in, the Seder was not a joyous laughter-filled evening. It was not until I went to other families’ Seders that I started to clue in. While the Haggadah talked about song, laughter, celebration, ours was filled with dark echoes of those who were not there. Lost relatives were mentioned. The prayers and songs were sadly spoken. It was the annual amplification of the horrendous loss that so many families endured.

Intellectually I get it now. Back then, it was a painful mystery to me. My parents, my aunts and uncles, older relatives, my German-born grandparents… all more somber than not.

Sad.

8

Matzo ball soup, arbah kushiot, afikomen, brisket, tsimmes, potatoes of some kind, raspberry ring jells, Barton’s chocolates and adir hu. Probably some chometz just because I like carbs. Also the macaroons because my husband adores them.

9

It really depends on the inclinations of the host and crowd. Like Tripolar said, there’s a meal in the middle, and the attending parts on either side can be done in as little as an hour, but only if the traditional text is greatly abbreviated and no one stops to discuss the text. For many strictly observant Jews, the time window is sunset to midnight, and singing can continue longer than that. I know people who regularly don’t see their guests leave until close to 1AM.

Seder means “order”, and there is a traditional, ordered sequence of parts to the ceremony. There is also a fairly standard core text in traditional haggadot (the Hebrew plural of haggadah). Even among haggadot with the full text, however, there are variations in design, commentary, translation, etc. There are also many modern haggadot that are edited to shorten the story or some of the prayers, or add interpretive glosses (feminist, environmental, multi-cultural). The core steps of the seder are usually present, no matter what the approach of the haggadah.

Traditionally, it’s the first-night-only in Israel, and the first two nights everywhere else. Differently observant individual Jews and streams of Judaism may also only do one seder outside of Israel. The entire holiday is likewise traditionally lengthened by one day outside of Israel, so it’s 8 days, rather than the Biblical 7.

10

The Passover holiday, and in particular the Seder, tends to be a rather festive holiday, and is commonly very much family- and children-oriented.

This follows logically from a Biblical injunction that is repeated throughout the Old Testament from the Exodus onward: We are told to remember that God brought us out of Egypt – thus there is a strong and unmistakable implication to teach the children all about it. The very format and content of the Seder and its rituals is outrightly designed as a teaching occasion.

To be sure, it’s very ritualized and ceremonialized. But the core activity of the Seder always revolves around telling the story and teaching the children.

11

Yeah, this. Not what I said earlier… :smack:

12

We are Sabbath keeping Christians and will celebrate Passover with a combination of traditional Jewish traditions and Christian glosses recalling the Last Supper. One of the things I love about Passover as we celebrate it is the combination of somber elements with great joy and celebration. This year we have 18 coming, with 5 children ranging from 1 to 10 years. So good to have children to ask the questions and lend their voices to the songs. For 7 of those attending, it will be their first Seder. Between eating, scripture, songs, stories, explanations to the newbies and sharing of past Seders, I expect it will take about 4 hours. While there are formal elements, it’s relaxed, family atmosphere, designed to teach the children and leave them anticipating next year (in Jerusalem).

13

The last few years I’ve been making sephardic-style charoset, just because it’s a bit more broadly appealing to all the gentiles I invite over. It’s crazy expensive to make compared to the regular Ashkenaz stuff, though.

14

Going to my cousins, and I’m set to bring charoset and some fresh greens for sauteeing. I’ve never heard of apples-honey-walnuts-wine charoset not being appealing to goyim.

My mom tried to convince to make brisket but I’m not gonna – I don’t like brisket, I’m not good at making it, and others are already bringing chicken, lamb stew, and salmon for meat courses… For 10 adults that eat meat. I do t get the brisket love. It’s just a form of pot roast, and easy to do badly. The last couple times I did make it, no one ate it.

15

Traditional Jewish style brisket is nothing special. But if you know any southern Jews then a smoked brisket properly seasoned is a wondrous dish.

One of my biggest hits was matzoh ball soup made with beef consomme instead of chicken soup. Just that simple change from the tired old tradition was well received. I’ve done the same thing with a vegetable broth too. Traditions can be nice, but they can be boring also.

16

Any Jewish holidays bring memories of my grandmother’s cooking. She cooked virtually anything, and it was perfect. Unfortunately, she never used recipes, because she had grown up in a *shtetl, *and never learned to read or write. I especially remember her gefilte fish. She always let me taste a little raw, which was a whole lot more flavorful than after being cooked. I still have her wooden bowl and chopper, which were never used for anything but gefilte fish, chopped herring and chopped liver.

As far as seders are concerned . . . I am a raised-Jewish atheist, and my partner is a raised Muslim atheist. So Passover food is the same as Christmas food: Chinese.

17

Why on this night do we eat matzah instead of bread?

Because it’s a commandment.

A better question is why we eat it any other night.

It depends on whether someone insists on singing every single verse of “Dayenu.”
I have a friend who is from the deep south, and she makes charoset with pecans instead of walnuts. I started doing this, and it’s soooooooo good.

18

Ah-the great Passover traditions!
The yearly confusion about who gets the older Haggadahs with the non gender-neutral language and therefore has trouble following along.
The shaming of the one who inevitably pronounces “Aramean” as “Armenian”.
The recurrent argument over whether to serve the gefilte fish before or after the soup.
The person who keeps asking why we haven’t opened the door for Elijah and must be reminded that this part comes after the meal.
The person who never wants to do the part of the service after the meal.
The child who haltingly reads the four questions and the adults who must brag “When I was your age I asked them in Hebrew! And I sang it!”
The vocal show down between those who want to sing Adir Hu in English and those who want to sing in Hebrew (and the inevitable fading out as both sides realize that they only know one verse anyway).
The guest (OK-this one is me) who refuses to eat the noodle kugel even though it is made with Passover noodles because she wants to adhere to the spirit of the holiday because if the rabbis consider chicken close enough to meat to potentially be confused for meat than logically, kosher for Passover noodles are close enough to real noodles to not be eaten at a meal where noodles are not eaten (yes-I know everybody disagrees, I’m not having this fight again, just let me not eat the kugel in peace!)

Good times!

19

Not to mention Ani mi yode’ah and Chad Gadyah (the latter not even in Hebrew, but Aramaic).

Passover noodles, and all the other Passover food meant to imitate chametz, are an abomination. For Passover, it’s potato kugel all the way.

BTW, I will be contributing homemade chocolate-covered candied orange peel and fruit salad to this year’s seder desserts. Much better than sponge cake.

20

This year, we’re having chicken soup with matza balls, pate with onion jam, a whole turkey (no stuffing), stuffed artichokes, majadera (rice with lentils), a couple of vegetable side dishes, some North African dessert my BiL’s mother is making, and fresh strawberries. We’re forgoing gefilte fish - the Sephardic side of the family has been objecting for years, and nobody actually likes it anyway - but we’re still having the traditional hard boiled eggs in salt water. Oh, and my dad’s making charoset, something he takes very seriously. He’s already got his hammer and cleaver ready.