pesach

Some things just go better together. Movies and popcorn. Strawberries and chocolate. Campfires and marshmallows. Passover and moshing.

After a morning of running from the supermarket (plastic plates, horseradish), to the computer center (haggadahs), to the Noordermarkt (parsley, eggs), I spent the afternoon converting our dorm room into a banquet hall and crafting fake matzah ball soup from potato dumplings. Just before sundown my eighteen guests arrived, representing seven countries.

Most represented country at my seder: Turkey.

Most represented religion at my seder: Islam.

Christianity, Catholicism, and Atheism also made a showing, and in the end there were two other Jews: Elisa, a friend of Natalie’s who I heard was Jewish, and Aylin, a Turkish girl with Sephardic ancestery and only vague memories of Jewish holidays from when she was small. I had invited Aylin a week ago and not heard back from her, and I had assumed she was not coming. Then, five minutes before guests began arriving, I got a text message from Hoske, who was supposed to come. He was still hung over from the night before and he wouldn’t make it. I was really angry, having spent a lot of time preparing plates and places for each guest. And then, just like that, Aylin came to the door. She had tried to find me all week with no luck. And there, a very small but sweet blessing, was a place waiting for her at the table where Hoske would have been.

There were red tulips and red plastic cups of wine and dishes of soapy water and salt water. There were cushions for reclining, and candles, and a big glass for Elijah.

At one point in the seder, after the part that read, “The sea’s salt not only reminds us of life’s start, but also of the brine of tears shed by our people and by all people striving to be free,” the boy sitting next to me – a friend of one of my Turkish friends who I had never met before – leaned over to me and pulled up his sleeve and said, “Look, that part made my hair stand up.”

Later after explaining that my seder plate differed from the norm by having a beet instead of the typical shank bone, and also an orange to represent women in Judaism, one of the guests commented, "So this seder is vegetarian and feminist." At this point the boy leaned over again. "My religion has a saying, 'Heaven lies under mother's feet.' The mother is the most important. So I can go with this."

Another Turkish boy I hadn’t met, who was in town for two days on vacation, quietly passed the first time it was his turn to read. “My English is bad,” he said softly. But the next time around, and after that, he read out loud. That was really something.

My Dutch friends made macaroons and my Venezuelan friend made tsimmes and my German friend made latkes, and everyone was nervous and everyone was brave. And when it came to the four questions I asked Elisa to sing them, and she said, “I haven’t been the youngest in a long time!” And when we sang Da’yenu everyone joined in. And Canan hid the afikomen, and since there were no children we all looked for it when the time came. Seventeen grownups drunk on sweet red wine and stuffed with charoset and eggplant, poking around under napkins looking for the afikomen. Renske found it. “I was always the best at finding Easter eggs,” she said.

Long after sundown we lingered over wine and maccaroons, discussing religion and blonde jokes and Belgians.

And then Nati and Elisa and I went to Bitterzoet for Rock n' Roll Picnic, and moshed.