My Passover Seder

The Jewish congregation in Kobe is quite religious, so I was not allowed to take pictures to accompany this entry. However, I attended the first half of the seder at the synagogue near my host family's home to commemorate Passover, which began this Monday evening at sundown. I say the first half of the seder because although it started at 7:30 P.M., due to the number of people present and the rather religious manner of observation of the service, I had to leave around 11:00 P.M. even though the service was only half-finished.

I learned it is a mitzvah (good deed) to drink four cups of wine (although I was served grape juice) during the seder, but I only finished two cups before I left at 11:00 P.M. I also learned something new, that when we eat the matza, or unleavened bread, we must recline back in our chairs and lean to the left. I was told that kings in ancient Israel ate in a reclining position and leaned to the left while eating, which is why we do so during the Passover seder.

The bitter herbs were not spicy at all like the horseradish I usually eat in the U.S.; in fact, I did not eat horseradish but I ate chopped up vegetables. The flavor was definitely different, but maybe they were slightly pickled as opposed to bitter. Also, instead of dipping parsley into salt water, I dipped raw onion into the salt water and ate it. That's what was provided on the seder plate, so I made sure to not lean in too close to anyone when conversing with them after I ate the onion!

There were probably fifty to seventy-five people at the seder, and two orthodox Jews from New York were leading the seder. One of them spoke fairly good Hebrew, but he still had a strong American accent. The other did not speak very much Hebrew, so the Israelis that were there seemed to be carrying on their own conversations a lot of the time during the service. There were only two things that made the event seem even remotely Japan-related. One, there were some Japanese people there. Two, I used Japanese sometimes when conversing with people. Otherwise, the seder may as well have taken place anywhere. This year I'm following the Sephardi Passover tradition so as not to cause my family problems by severely limiting the foods I can eat. Therefore I am eating white rice for breakfast every day this week instead of bread. Also, there are not normally foods with leavening agents in my host family's diet which makes it rather easy to observe Passover.