Choate Students Gather at Sally Hart Lodge to Celebrate Passover Seder
By Jillian Ruben ’08
News Reporter
On Friday, April 11th, a full week before Passover was actually due to start, eleven students, over half on whom were not from Jewish backgrounds, gathered in the Sally Hart Lodge to hold the annual Choate Seder. A traditional Seder can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 7 hours, but the Choate Seder was kept to an hour and a half, and was far from traditional. Rabbi, Suri Krieger, who drives up from New York every week to celebrate Shabbat at Hillel, led the night filled with prayer, songs, and vegetable-shaped maracas.
Although Passover will not begin until April 19th, Choate held its Seder at a time when Rabbi Suri was available to lead. Because so many of the students on campus will not be able to go home for the Seder due to the Saturday classes this week, the first priority for this Seder was to make it as welcoming and inviting as possible for everyone who wanted to take part. The group did not follow the Seder guidelines of any one division of Judaism, but rather created its own Haggadah, or prayer book, to suit the needs and interests of the different students and faculty members.
“The Seder was very unconventional,” said current Hillel president Zoe Gorman ’09, referring to the numerous creative songs added to the programme such as Suri’s own “Passover Rap.” “It was a good adaptation that welcomed members of the Choate community with multiple backgrounds and interests.”
The group began with an introduction into Passover, and the telling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Tying Moses and the Jews’ flight from Egypt to modern struggles in areas like Darfur, Suri adapted the Seder to apply the 21st century. The group discussed the constant struggle for worldwide freedom, and some of the more contemporary philosophers’ reinterpretations of the ancient stories.
In the Jewish tradition, Passover is celebrated in the spring as a remembrance of the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt--the liberation of an enslaved people. The holiday is thus named because the ultimate of 10 plages that G-d unleashed on Egypt through the prophet Moses was the Angel of death who would slaughter the first born in every Egyptian home but would pass over the home with a blood mark over the doorposts.
The Seder plate consists of a shankbone, commemorating the sacrifice before the passing over, an egg symbolizing fertility and rebirth, maror, bitter herbs symbolizing the bitterness of slavery, the charoset, a paste of fruit, nuts, and wine symbolizing the mortar the Jews built with when they were enslaved, and the karpas, vegetables dipped in salt water to represent both the tears of the enslaved Jewish people and the tears of the Egyptians who suffered the plagues.
However, as in any good celebration, there were many lighter moments to the Seder. Suri adapted the traditional story of Moses, the 10 plagues, and the Exodus from Egypt into a rap. The tunes of tradition prayers and songs blended with some of the traditions we have established at the Choate Hillel, creating a warm, cozy setting for the telling of one of the happiest stories in the Jewish tradition. The traditional prayers were chanted in both English and Hebrew, to the accompaniment on guitar by both Rabbi Suri and Zoe Gorman, in addition to, at times, the vegetable maracas which have become a staple of Choate Seders.
Mr. Backon, the faculty adviser of Hillel, seemed pleased with the turn-out. “The kids seemed to be having a great time,” he remarked. Freshman Ross Henry Freiman-Mendel played a major role in publicizing the event and drumming up this enthusiasm.
After the prayers, the group sat down to an Aramark meal including the traditional matza ball soup. There is a tradition within the Seder called the Afikomen, where a matzah is broken during the prayer section and hidden, and the children of the family search for it during the dinner. The three findres won matza-frisbees.
The Seder incorporated a wide variety of beliefs--a reassuring mix for students of familiar elements and Choate innovation.
