Last night, my Best Friend and I went to a Passover Seder.

It was AWESOME.

Talk about a little bit of food-shock, though. Oh man! It was rough. But incredible.

There is an instructor at BYU who does dozens of Passover Seders all over the place. He said he was recently in Arizona and is headed to Texas later. Super cool, right? It was legit. I know, because there was a man sitting at our table (Elliot, by name) who grew up Jewish and told us all about his grandma and the dishes she would make and how excited he was. He said it was legit (though not exactly in that phrasing) and so it must have been. Woot!

The night started at 6:30. We arrived, had a little intro from the guy in charge, and then got down to business.

We said prayers and sang a song, drank fruit of the vine (grape juice, obviously), ate bitter herbs (NASTY - very very very strong horse radish) aka Maror, Haroset (apples, nuts, cinnamon, and wine), had the greens (parsley), the meal (chicken & latkes), the unleavened bread aka Matzah, Shepherd's bread (delicious), the Afikomen, etc. etc. etc.

It was incredible. And took four hours.

Yup. What a date night.

Here was our program for the Seder Service:

1. The Kiddush - prayer and drink first cup of wine
2. The Hands Washed
3. The Greens Eaten - parsley dipped in salt water
4. The Afikomen (broken and hidden by the children)
5. The Passover Story Recited
    The Story of the Oppression
    Dayenu - a thanksgiving song: "Dayenu" means "it would have satisfied us"
    The Passover Symbols (Shankbone, Matzah, Bitter Herb)
    More Prayers and drink second cup of wine
6. The Hands Washed
7. The Blessings over the Matzah (then eaten)
8. The Bitter Herb (eaten alone, then with haroset)
9. The Hillel Sandwich (bitter herb, haroset, matzah)
10. The Passover Meal (we had chicken, latkes, and veggies - but it is different everywhere)
11. The Afikomen (super fun - whoever has the broken piece of Afikomen gets to negotiate with the leader aka patriarch for a gift. Usually something awesome. Ie: one girl wanted her grandpa to take her to McDonalds - just the two of them - in Honolulu. So of course he did. Woah!)
12. Grace after the meal and third cup of wine
The Cup of Elijah
13. Psalms of Praise and fourth cup of wine
14. Closing Prayer - "Next year in Jerusalem!"

*phew* What a night, right? It was amazing. Really spiritual in an awesome sort of way.

Conclusion: If you ever get a chance to go to one of these you should DEFINITELY go. Just don't try to be brave like Best Friend did and eat a lot of the bitter herbs. It comes back to haunt you. *shudder* Plus it's gross. And makes your eyes water and clears your sinuses. Yum.

Signing out.
Me.