The Seder Meal, Then and Now

Seder. In Hebrew, Sedher means “order,” or an arrangement or service.

In Judaism, the feast commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt is a Seder Meal. The feast has been celebrated for thousands of years.

It is observed in the home or community on the eve of the first day of Passover. Orthodox Jews have a second such feast on the eve of the second day of Passover.

The menu, each item with specific meaning to the Jews, is: Unleavened bread; parsley; boiled eggs; horseradish or “bitter herbs”; an apple-cinnamon-walnut mixture; red wine; and lamb. Salt water is used as a dip for the parsley and eggs.

The menu is significant because it is said to replicate the food taken for the journey into the exodus in the first place – no leaven was brought for the bread, for example.

It marks the point at which the Israelites were raised from bondage under a foreign tyrant to become a free people. It’s an important demarcation. The people no longer owe allegiance to any except God. It’s the birth of a nation and is celebrated as a birthday would be.

Detail in a true Seder is immense. Every moment has specific meaning. Specific rules apply to clothing and cleanliness. There are songs and prayers and four occasions on which wine is drunk. It’s not a meal of sustenance so much as it is a meal of symbolism.

Some modern Christians celebrate the Seder – this includes my church, St. Peter Roman Catholic Parish in Greeley. There is a direct connection between the Jews and the Christians – we Christians are heirs to Judaism and have much in common with it. The Seder is an acknowledgement and celebration of that.

Peloubet’s Bible Dictionary says, “As the Israelites ate the Passover all prepared for the journey, so do we with a readiness and desire to enter the active service of Christ, and to go on the journey toward heaven.”

All this is well and good, right?

A broken vow

Every year for several years, right after the Seder Meal at St. Peter, I have made myself a little vow not to attend again. (Bear with me. This is going somewhere, I promise.)

Some years I have had the intestinal fortitude to actually say “no” and stay home. Other times, as this year, I have caved in.

The event is not listed in the vows I made when I was confirmed. I never said I would go, and the Seder is optional. I did vow I would go to Mass and receive communion at least once a week, and I have no problem living up to that.

But the Apostles’ Creed doesn’t say anything about the Seder. The rather large mitigating circumstance, however, is this: The Seder at St. Peter constitutes the final class in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults – and I am one of the teachers serving RCIA.

Oops. The teachers should really be there for the final class, as well as Holy Week and Good Friday and Easter Vigil.

So I am hoist on my own petard. Attendance has been a problem, particularly this year. My presence at the Seder was probably not noticed much – but my absence would be notable to persons I have counseled to “Be there or be square.”

Background

I spent 25 years as a newspaper reporter, editor and photographer.

As a part of my job, I was assigned to attend every kind of banquet there is, bar none. I’ve been to Chamber of Commerce dinners, political rallies, church fund-raisers, graduation ceremonies, weddings, athletic awards banquets, school board annual dinners.

I have eaten – and sometimes refused to eat – every description of rubber chicken and liver-tasting prime rib.

As a graduate of the Idaho State University Culinary Arts College, I know that food poisoning almost always occurs at banquets. Erk.

So I come to events like the Seder Meal with a monumental aversion reaction firmly in place.

Deeper background

My Dad and Grampa were not happy when sheep or goats were brought to the Community Cold Storage stock yard to await being slaughtered. The only meat animal more despised by my forbears was the turkey.

It’s true, sheep are filthy. During the slaughtering process the blood gets all mixed in the wool, difficult to clean.

The viscera do not easily “fall” from the cavity as is the case with hogs; exceptional care must be used to assure the knife doesn’t cut something ugly.

The meat itself does not have a pleasant odor. Likewise, the blood and the hide and the wool give off unpleasant odors all their own.

We did not have mutton or lamb on our table in my childhood home. That was a fact that suited me just fine. It was something disgusting that I did not have to eat. Thanks be to God.

I had big ears, and I heard the soldiers returning from the Big War. A portion of their rations while overseas had been mutton. To a man, they did not like it.

Never did I fall for the idea that “lamb” is edible while “mutton” is not. To me, sheep is sheep. Case in point: Is veal better than beef? No.

Is it the aroma?

My church always has a certain aroma, a combination of smells that has over the past decade become familiar and comforting to me.

The church smells like a hundred candles burning night and day. There is always a vestige of the incense used for some Masses. For much of the year, freshly cut flowers contribute their pleasing aroma. Live flowers are sometimes brought for funerals, and their aroma is pleasant as well.

During Mass, one will benefit from these aromas as well as the perfumes, colognes, deodorants and hair dressings people use to prepare themselves for Mass. Pomade doesn’t bother me; it means the man cared to groom his hair.

Finally the big night came up on the calendar; it was time for the Seder Meal.

We didn’t even get one step inside. When we opened the door, there was a stench filling the entire church.

It smelled to me like a sheep had somehow caught afire in the janitor’s closet. The stink was enough to knock a buzzard off a garbage truck.

So how did the aroma of roasting lamb become so unpleasant to me? I didn’t smell that as a child. I have never bought or prepared lamb in my own home.

Were others adversely affected in a similar way? I didn’t want to ask, “Hey, doesn’t that meat stink?” (I was on my best behavior.)

I endured the Seder Meal, only to return to my computer and spew out my report just for you. I know the Seder wasn’t set before me to test my endurance. But endure, I did. Wish I knew now how I’ll deal with it next year . . .

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Word of the week: Modicum. It’s Latin, the neuter of modicus, and to us it means a small amount or portion, or a bit. Please class, can we not have a modicum of decorum? Can we go to church without the backwards hat, the chewing gum, the cell phone? That would be a modicum of decorum.