Salt water, bitter herbs, eggs, meat and, of course, matzah. These are the traditional ingredients for a Seder dinner.
“It’s the most widely celebrated Jewish event,” said Sara Bryan of Oregon Hillel.
The Seder, which literally means “order,” is meal that kicks off the eight-day holiday Passover (Pesach in Hebrew), which celebrates the exodus of Jewish slaves in ancient Egypt. The most noticeable feature of the holiday is that Jews cannot eat any leavened food, such as bread and pasta, Bryan said. Matzah, an unleavened bread, traditionally takes the place of bread.
The largest Seder celebration connected with the University is being put on by Hillel in the Gerlinger Alumni Lounge at 7 p.m. today. There is room for 126 people, Bryan said. Tickets must be bought prior to the event; they are $10 student, $25 for community members, and can be bought at the University Ticket Office in the EMU.
Hillel will also be giving out free kosher lunches to students on Thursday and is putting on a “iron chef battle” where competing participants will put their matzah cooking skills to the test, Bryan said.
“One of the hard things of Passover is trying to cook lots of good food that isn’t leavened,” Bryan said.
The Chabad House of Eugene will host two seder celebrations, one today at 8:00 p.m. and one Thursday at 8:30 p.m. at the house at 1307 E. 19th Ave. The house has room for 35 students for each dinner.
While the dinner is the center of the Seder, many religious rituals and readings are included in the festivities, said Rabbi Asi Spiegel of the Chabad House.
Symbolism is also a strong aspect of the dinner itself. Vegetables are dipped in salt water to represent the tears of the slaves. The egg is symbolizes that the luck of all people is round. Bitter herbs (often represented by horseradish) and flat matzah are symbols of humility and humbleness, Spiegel said.
“Throughout the night, we have symbols of humility and symbols of poverty,” Spiegel said. “We believe very much in the idea that the holiday has spiritual meaning to us as we live today … slavery and freedom is something we all experience in our daily journeys. When we celebrate Passover, in addition to remembering the past of people, we also take the lessons from it and relate it to the present.”
Spiegel said handmade matzah bread will be handed out Thursday to visitors of the Chabad House. Spiegel said handmade matzah is special because “when you see it, it’s the closest thing you can get to the original. Many people eat matzah for ritual. For that they love to have handmade.”
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