seder #1

[cellio]

Monday night I went to Chabad for the first seder. This was new for me; the only other community seder I've been to was a university Hillel, and the only other time I've been to anything Chabad was a Shabbat dinner when traveling once. The people there were nice, and it turned out I knew one person at my table, someone who was in that class I took last year.

Unanticipated (but if I'd thought about it...): a community seder draws people who don't have anywhere else to go, which includes people who aren't otherwise very Jewishly involved. (So it's great that somebody is there for them.) Being asked to teach somebody the blessing for candle-lighting came as a surprise to me. (She was very nice, and at my table. Later I taught her the blessing for hand-washing.)

Halachically speaking there is a minimum amount of matzah you have to eat and a minimum amount of wine (or grape juice) to drink. Handing out maatzah in pre-measured bags makes sense in retrospect, but I was surprised by it at the time.

Acoustics in a large room with children running around making noise where the leader can't use a microphone are challenging. I hope the poor rabbi had a voice left the next morning.

Noted in passing: Chabad doesn't do matzah balls. (I don't know if that's "at all" or "at the seder". I think the former, and that this is something called gerbrokts.)

Interesting logistics: they gave us a small meal (which they called a "snack") before the seder got started, which was after 8PM. We probably got to the meal around 9:15 or 9:30, which I don't think of as terribly late, but people with kids may have a different view. (In a similar vein, both last year and this I put out munchies -- raw veggies, pickles, etc -- during the first part of my seder, so people would have more than a sprig of parsley before the meal.)

Contrary to what I've heard about the length of Chabad seders, we were finished before 11.

Comments

Snacks

[hlinspjalda.livejournal.com]

I've been doing something the last few years that I like. Mr. Fixer's grandmother used to put out celery and olives on the table. I was never at one of her seders, but the family has fooled around with that idea ever since. Now that we're making our own (nuclear) seders, I've been taking my cue from Numbers 11:5: “We remember the fish, which we were wont to eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.” So I serve a chicken dish that has leeks, onions, and garlic, and I put out melon and cucumber bits for eating after the parsley. We went through rather a lot of watermelon chunks this year. :-)

I think osewalrus comes from a family that eschews gebrokts too.

Re: Snacks

[cellio]

Oh I like that idea! Thanks for sharing it. (Chicken rather than fish?)

Re: Snacks

[hlinspjalda.livejournal.com]

Well, Mr. Fixer and Sparky sometimes have themselves a course consisting of gefilte fish. (I'm a fish hater, so I don't look back fondly on Egyptian fishes.) The chicken dish is because we don't eat quadrupeds either, and the method is more practical for serving at seder than most other poultry preps I know. But the alliums are totally because reasons Egypt!

It puts me in the mental place of "yes, it was scary leaving those things, but look, now we have them without the slavery."

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Many communities now observe gebrokts as a way of making a fence around potentially encountering uncooked flour in matzo (which in almost 40 years of eating matzah I have never encountered). Forget that it would be more than covered by batel ba'shishim, if there's any chance that uncooked flour might be in there and mix with a liquid, then "Ack! Change the tablecloth!" There are even people who go so far as to say that you can't salivate while eating maztah, which is more ridiculous than I can countenance.

I am somewhat under-awed by people who make more laws for Passover, especially since so many food manufacturers have gone out of their way to cater to the 'no gebrokts' crowd. As someone who can't eat potatoes, this means I literally have to make everything from scratch on Pesach, including gefilte fish, chicken soup, and yes, cookies and cake, because the obvious substitute for matzah meal is potato starch.

[cellio]

I'm with you: gebrokts sounds like a chumrah too far to me.

I wasn't aware of the problem posed by manufacturers trying to accommodate gebrokts. What a hassle for you! When we already have to fuss more than usual with food, not being able to just buy some things is a real problem.

[goljerp]

I've heard that the 'dipping' was originally a sort of crudite / salad course, and the salt water was, of course, salad dressing. So my mom makes it an actual salad now, that people eat after that part of the seder.

As far as gebrokts goes, I agree with ladymondegreen about the wisdom of whole-scale adoption of the custom. While we're at it, why not forbid onions? (There are people who forbid garlic, I don't know why).

My (Conservative) Rabbi from a number of years ago had a family tradition of following gebrokts -- for the first 7 days; on the 8th day, they didn't. I remember the matzo balls were delicious the time he invited me over to lunch on the 8th day. :-)

(Note that this was his family's tradition, and he did not ask or expect the rest of the community to follow it.)

[cellio]

Salad: interesting idea! Thanks.

I've heard of the opposition to garlic but I don't know the reason either.