An Unorthodox Seder

Every Passover, the "goyim" at my festivities always outnumber the Jews. It makes for some interesting seders.

There was the time a friend offered to make the beitzim for the seder plate and arrived with eggs her children had dyed for the "Jewish Easter". One year another kind and well-intentioned friend brought Saltines to the seder, suggesting they might be a little more tasty than the "Passover crackers" I had served the year before.

My husband and my brother-in-law always gamely don their kippot and do their best to help my sister and me observe a traditional chag. They have gotten pretty good at it over the years, but they've never quite mastered the Haggadah.

My brother-in-law reads in English and his pronunciations have become the running Passover joke. "Pharaoh" always somehow becomes "Pa-ha-ROW-ah" or "Pa-HAY-row". My husband, on the other hand, has (correctly) concluded that if he uses Hebrew, almost no one at the table will notice his mistakes. My Israeli friends tell me his accent is actually quite good. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of his memory. This year, when he offered to do the blessing over the first cup of wine it came out like this: "Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu....[dramatic pause]... MEGA SHALOM!"

Yep. I'm pretty sure there's never been a seder quite like mine.