Dayenu! (let it suffice!)

Leo and I actually learned something yesterday, about faith and tradition and the evil of chametz. We were invited to a traditional Seder dinner, which is a ritual feast held during Passover (although due to scheduling, the dinner was held early). For those who don't know, neither Leo nor I are Jew. Not being a member of the club, I never knew what Passover was. For those of you out there who are also not members of the club, or privvy to the holiday, there is really interesting history behind it. I'll spare you the details of retelling the history, as there are better sources out there than I. The predinner rituals can last up to three hours, but our host referred to the "30 minute Seder" (www.30minuteseder.com)guide and kept it brief. The children hide chametz throughout the house, and then after dark the adults search the house by flashlight to find and rid the house of the hidden chametz. As the tradition goes, once the bread is found, a feather is used to sweep away stray crumbs onto a wooden spoon, which is then burned altogether. We skipped that part. We did, however, look under our plates and pretend to sweep away chametz from underneath. There was candlelighting, reciting of things, and ritual eating and dipping in saltwater of matzah, marror, chazeret, charoset, egg, and karpas. Leo's favorite part was that it is traditional that each persons cup is filled by the person sitting next to them, as though each person had a servant. Furthermore, when drinking the wine you are to recline, to the left, and finish the entire cup.

We were far from the only non Jews at the table. The only Jew, actually, was the host, who is admittedly an atheist, who wants to pass along the tradition to her daughters, who are half jewish half Kazak. And the diversity didn't stop there. Her husband, of course, is from Kazakstan, the husband of the other couple present is from Greece, and one of their two children is adopted, from Guatemala.

Dayenu!