(apologies to the Marx Brothers)
Passover comes at a lousy time in the first year of law school because there's way too much going on, and it's all important. But it's a fun holiday and I wanted to mark it. So my friend and I organized our own seder, a first for both of us, and invited our friends. I borrowed some Haggadah's from my step-sister (easy, fairly ecumenical ones) that we added to along the way as somebody had a favorite piece that they wanted to include. And we made the seder potluck so it didn't involve too much cooking. All told it turned out to be surprisingly easy to pull off and we're glad we did.
I led the seder, which was also a first for me. When I spend the holiday with my family usually my dad leads, or when I was very little my grandpa would lead. He died when I was 8 so these are old, dusty memories but I remember some of them well. I remember the hiding of the afikomen:
There are three matzohs at the table ceremoniously. The middle one gets broken and the leader hides it, the afikomen, for safe keeping. He needs it to be able to finish the seder. But, normally, the kids find it during the meal and then ransom it back to the leader. He needs it, so he pays. (This is the way that we used to do it, and it's the way it makes sense. My step-family, however, does it that the kids hide the afikomen and the parents find it. I don't think this makes as much sense. Why would the kids have it in the first place?) My grandpa used to routinely hide it behind the cushions on his chair - we never had trouble finding it...
It's a reasonable prize to get some gelt in exchange for the afikomen, a small amount of money or some other nominal prize. My grandpa was a coin collector, though, so he'd always give us a special coin like a silver dollar. So at our seder I did the same. I gave out "feminist coins," a Susan B. Anthony dollar and a Sacagawea dollar. Handing out a dollar bill or two just wouldn't have been the same.
Date changed closer to when Passover actually occurred, which is when I intended to post this. Not 4/18/04 when it was actually posted.