My first experience of Passover came the spring after our wedding. My wife is Jewish, and she signed us up for the Yale Hillel Seder, a large affair of one hundred or more participants. I was at that stage of life almost always hungry. That evening in the spring of 1987, I could think of little other than the meal that only comes after the long march through the Passover liturgy: various blessings of wine, ritual symbols elaborated upon, and the Haggadah (literally, the “telling”), which recounts the story of the Exodus in an extensive, indirect, and roundabout way. (Needless to say, I was starving toward the end.)
In subsequent years, my wife and I—and in due time, our children—participated in Passover Seders of many different types.
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