A few pics from yesterday's seder

I spent most of yesterday at the Church building in Cornland, preparing food for the Passover seder we held last night. We had a decent turn-out. Some repeat offenders. Some new folks. Streamlined the meal a bit and did some editing of the haggadah, so that we only ran a bit over two hours, start to finish, not counting casual greetings before and cleaning up afterwards.

Unfortunately, I'm still learning how to use this camera, (like waiting until the electronic beep before moving the camera) so the pics I took aren't generally very good. Sorry. I'll try to include just the better ones.

A couple pics of the table itself, before anyone else arrived. Those haggadahs on the plates are either blue or purple (some of each, due to what paper I had on hand.)

You can see my larger haggadah in the lower right corner here. Funny story about the candles: I bought four white tapers, and two broke. Fortunately, I had three blue candles on hand. It added some (Jewish) color and looked nice, I think. (Okay, so it wasn't really funny.)






The place reserved for Elijah. We open the door at the prescribed time to see if Elijah is waiting outside to join us, and to usher in the Messianic age. This is because of Malachi 4:5, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD."

And Christians remember that Jesus says about John the Baptizer:
"And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come." Matthew 11:14

and again,

The disciples asked him, "Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist. Matthew 17:10

Also, aficionados of ugly carpet should take a gander at ours!

A pretty decent pic of the matzoh. I didn't have a matzoh "tash" (3 pocket cover for the matzoh)on hand, so I just used some linen and folded the rest underneath. The pic needs some cropping, to remove the point of the knife at the bottom lefthand corner, but it's probably still my favorite from the evening.

I didn't have a special seder plate, so I lined the symbolic items up in the middle of the table, which worked fine. From the top left corner, the bowl of charosheth (mix of apples, raisins, walnuts, with cinnamon, honey, & wine for flavor & consistency. Very tasty. Symbolizes the mortar used to build Pharaoh's cities); the zero'ah (lamb shank bone) on the plate, in lieu of roasted paschal lamb (and a reminder that with a mighty hand and outstretched arm [Heb. "zeroah"] God freed his people.) On one side of the bone, in the bowl, is maror, bitter herbs (fresh grated horseradish, aka "Jewish Dristan"), and on the other side, the karpas, greens. Typically lettuce or parsley, I used cilantro this time. Next to that is the beitzah, the egg, sliced for easy dipping in the salt water, next to it. (Cool symbol--you slice an egg, and it resembles an eye, and then you dip it in salt water to represent tears.)

The only decent "people" picture of the bunch--after sharpening it up a bit. The candles are lit, the glasses are filled, and people are enjoying the meal I cooked. There were a few other folks at the seder not pictured here, because they were getting food or dessert or something, I guess. I rather like the image here of the young girl on one side of the table and the older woman on the other side. The message of Passover speaks to young and old alike.

L'shanah haba'ah Biyrushalayim! Next year in Jerusalem!
Or, if not, L'shanah haba'ah B'Cornland!