PassAvviv 5775

Sephardic Traditions

Keter Torah's rabbi shares non-Ashkenazic rituals for Passover seders.

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Stacy Gittleman
Contributing Writer

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ou will not find matzah
ball soup at a Sephardic
seder. A round, softer
unleavened bread, reminiscent of
pita, replaces that crunch of the
very first bite of matzah on the first
night of Passover.
From eating rice and corn to
varying seder rituals and melodies,
a seder celebrated in the homes of
Jews of Sephardic ancestry may
Keter Torah members inspect dates to be used in the
Rabbi Sasson Natan of Keter Torah
differ widely from the majority
charoset.
Synagogue grills special soft, round
of American Jews with Eastern
Sephardic matzah.
European lineage.
According to Jewish Virtual
Library, the term Sephardim, stemming
Jews read the same liturgy of the Hagaddah
According to the traditions of a 16th-
from the Hebrew word for Spain, Sephar'ad,
that is from the Talmud — and Sasson sticks century rabbi, each symbolic food on the
is defined as Jews who left Spain and
to the tried-and-true text from the Maxwell
seder plate corresponded to one of the
Portugal after the 1492 expulsion. Over the
House Hagaddah — Sephardic Jews focus
sephirot, or qualities, of the mystical tree of
years, the term has melded to include other
upon Kabbalistic interpretations of the ritual life. The highest sephirah, the quality that
Jewish communities that did not come from
meal.
encompasses all these qualities, the crown,
Eastern Europe.
A Sephardic seder may start with a knock is not included in the seder plate. This is
In Metro Detroit, Jews of non-Eastern
on the front door. Dressed in biblical garb
why in some communities the leader of the
European descent find a home at Keter
and carrying a sack on his shoulders, the
seder gently taps each guest's head with the
Torah Synagogue in West Bloomfield. Each
leader of the seder enters the home. The
bottom of the filled seder plate to connect
year, it hosts community seders full of tradi-
children at the seder follow him to the table
their life's energy to the tree of life as the
tions from different global Jewish communi- in an opening procession symbolizing the
plate's final and completing ingredient (see
ties.
Jews going out of Egypt. This, and other
sidebar).
"For the Sephardim, the seder holds many sights, tastes and smells are designed to
mystical meanings," said Keter Torah's Rabbi transport participants back to the time when The Seder Plate
Sasson Natan, a descendant of a long line of
Jews were slaves in Egypt.
The foods on the seder plate in Sephardic
Iraqi Jews who can trace their ancestry back
Kabbalistic rituals include the woman of
communities may vary. Instead of parsley,
to the destruction of the first Temple and the the house lighting seven candles at the start
Sephardic Jews use celery. The apple-and-
Babylonian exile around 500 B.C.E.
of the seder and specific placement of the
nut mixture used in Ashkenazic communi-
"At our seder, everything is explained
food on the seder plate. Natan explained
ties for charoset is replaced by a thick date-
in its fullest detail. You need to know and
that the seder plate is arranged in such a
nut mixture called silan.
understand why you do a ritual. After all,
way that guests can glean different mean-
According to Natan, a Sephardic seder
Jews are not supposed to be robots"
ings from the foods on it depending on the
also puts a focus on human strengths such
While both Sephardic and Ashkenazic
angle they view it.
as wisdom, and human failings such as

Global Pesach Rituals

Keter Torah is the only Sephardic syna-
gogue in Metro Detroit. Though the term
Sephardic is understood as Jews with
origins from Spain and Portugal, Jews
from Arabic lands, Asia and Africa have
also fallen under this umbrella term.
Keter Torah's congregants represent
more than 20 countries. Here is just a
taste of how Jews around the globe cel-
ebrate Passover:
Destroying earthenware dishes: The
Jews of Ethiopia strongly identify with
the Exodus story, as they themselves
were airlifted to Israel during Operation
Moses. And, in commemoration of

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Passover and their own past, they break
all of their dishes and make new ones
to symbolize a complete break from the
past and a new start. Families would
bake homemade matzot from chickpea
flour and eat lamb at their seders.
Using leeks or scallions: Jews living
in Afghanistan developed the tradition
of using scallions or leeks to stand for
the Egyptian slavedrivers' whips.
Though there is no longer a Jewish
community in this war-torn country,
the largest group of Afghan Jews in the
world is in Queens, N.Y.
Tapping Guests on the head: In 14th-
century Spain, the seder leader walked
around the table three times with the

seder plate in hand, tapping it on the
head of each guest. Many Moroccan,
Turkish and Tunisian Jews adopted this
tradition, which is sometimes connected
to the Talmudic custom of "uprooting"
the seder plate so that guests might ask
questions about the Jews in Egypt.
Letters made of matzah: It is cus-
tomary in the Syrian community to
break the middle matzah and shape the
pieces into the letters "daled" and "vay."
In Gematria, or the study of numbers,
the numerical value of these letters is
10 representing the 10 holy emanations
of God. Jews from North Africa, includ-
ing from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and
Libya, break the matzah into the shape

parental favoritism and jealousy.
After all, it was the jealous acts of
Jacob's sons against their brother,
Joseph, that caused the Egyptians to
enslave their Hebrew descendants in
the first place.
"The symbolism of dipping twice
can be interpreted as the two times
our ancestors dipped things in
blood," Natan said. "First, Joseph's
brothers dipped his coat of many
colors in goat's blood to trick their
father. Then, the Hebrews were
commanded to dip a hyssop branch
into goat's blood and paint their
doorposts so the Angel of Death
would pass over them. It is because
of these two instances of dipping
that we sit at our seder tables today"
When it comes time to recite the plagues,
Natan said that instead of each guest remov-
ing 10 drops of wine from his glass, the head
of the seder pours some wine into a separate
bowl. The wine in the bowl, believed to be
cursed, symbolically distributes the plagues
to other nations who are enemies of the
Jewish people.
"I remember my grandfather and uncle
joking and arguing about what to do with
this wine Natan said. "One of them would
want to empty it into the kitchen sink, but
because it was believed to be cursed, it
would be dumped in the bathroom"
Natan lovingly remembers the seders of
his childhood. His grandfather would lead
seders that had up to 50 guests. When the
family moved to Israel shortly after the
country's founding, his grandfather led the
seders every year up until his death at age
85.
"As long as he was alive," Natan said, "no
one else was permitted to lead the seder."

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of the Hebrew letter "hey," which corre-
sponds to the number five.
Three silver boxes: The descendants
of the Jews of Cochin, India, use a sil-
ver tray that sits on a stand for their
seder plate. Three silver boxes sit in
the middle of the tray: one for charos-
et, one for vinegar (used for dipping in
place of salt water) and one for wine.
The rest of the symbolic foods are
placed around the boxes. The entire
tray is covered by an embroidered
cloth and surrounded with 12 pieces of
matzah, each to symbolize one tribe
of Israel.

Source: www.beliefnet.com

