Seattle 104, or Seder pt. 1

I had washed my hands of Passover this year. I was claiming my injurious right to lie back and let everyone do the work - cleaning, kashering, food, setup. I said I'd be at the seder itself, but no one had better expect anything of my groggy, post-surgical self.

Until, of course, it was ten minutes until things were supposed to begin and Masha walked in with a bowl of matzah ball dough and asked if I'd mind shaping and cooking them. Oh, and the charoset needs wine, and the lettuce needs to be washed and prepped.

I was thrilled.

I slipped into my place at the stove as people began arriving - friends, strangers, old folks, young people, families of Kibbutzniks. As each matzah ball plip-plopped into the spare pot, I found myself mentally counting them - echad, shtayim, shalosh.... It's a reflex. I learned how to count in Hebrew from making matzah balls with Mammy. Also, kitchen math. "If there are eleven of us for Seder, and each of us gets two balls, except Gili will probably want three, how many extra do we need to make?"

People came in wanting to help. I set someone up at the sink with the lettuce, called instructions over my shoulder for the last minute charoset touches. Remembered oranges for the seder plates. Consulted on sliced vs grated horseradish (went with grated, against my advice.) In just those few minutes, it felt like a seder, underdressed as I was.

We started around, oh, I don't know, 8:30 maybe. The seder went for hours; we didn't eat until after 10, but I'd remembered to eat ahead of time this year, so it wasn't so torturous. Again, we used about half a dozen different haggadot, and jumped if any of us found a particularly good text or reading. This year, we had an excellent discussion about the "no one is free until everyone is free, including the people in power and comfort" concept. We talked about being slaves to technology, to comfort, to consumption. I performed my "Shifra the Midwife" poem. I read any number of Smith Haggadah interpretations of things. We sang lots. We finished Hallel and Nirtzah. Joel hid three Afikomen, all in the same bookshelf. The ransom? He had to sing an embarrassing country song he wrote in college called "Whiskey Bottle Mansion."

Sergey did the "It Happened at Midnight" liturgical reading, in the style of...I don't even know. A little sloshed on tequila from another seder, he careened around the Zen Room, pounding on drums and hollering "It happened at midnight!" occasionally deviating from the text to muse on the nature of eggs. This was towards the end of Hallel - after the third cup of wine, I think.

And food: my matzah balls turned out dense, but the soup broth was peppery and smooth, full of onions. Masha made a crustless zucchini quiche, with plenty of cheese, and fluffy eggs. There was Tamar's tsimmes, and hard boiled eggs dipped in salt water. By the end of the night, only half of us were left, and I was barely awake. Instead of singing "l'shana habah b'yerushalyim," I sang "l'shana habah b'kibbutz Ravenna," because, really, we need that kind of hope right now.

When I crashed into bed sometime after one am, I was full. Belly, brain and heart full. I think I'm even ready for tonight's seder - which promises to be twice as big.