A votive in a glass holder, etched with the Star of David and the words "In memory," sits on the granite table.
"We will remember the terrible tragedy," Ron Wolfson says, referring to the previous day's shootings at two Jewish facilities in Kansas. The three deaths seem particularly painful on this Monday night Seder, which marks the start of Passover, the eight-day Jewish celebration of the Israelites' flight from bondage in Egypt.
Wolfson and his wife are gathered in their Encino home with four generations — 16 people in all, family and friends from as far as New York. All evening the mood will sway between solemnity and joy. He wouldn't have it any other way.
The professor of education at American Jewish University has focused his career on attracting new generations, and those who may have fallen away, to the faith. He has cribbed ideas from successful Christian megachurches — having become convinced that their accessible style should be mimicked by struggling synagogues.
To him the Seder represents the best, most meaningful of Jewish traditions. It not only is a time to recall freedom from slavery, but also one of deep connection, as millions of families across the globe celebrate on the same night.
Welcome, says the professor, to "a talk-feast in four acts."
Act 1: The Beginning
The group stands silently prayerful for a moment as flame meets candle. But there are children present, and nobody wants them associating this evening with tragedy. So soon enough, there is laughter and lighthearted joking before the night returns to tradition.
Long, slim candles flicker. Wine glasses are filled. Hebrew prayers are said: "Barukh attah Adonai, Eloheinu ..." — Praised are you, Adonai, our God ...
Everyone sits at a long table draped in linen, set with an empty goblet and golden spoons. There's the silver Seder plate, brimming with foods key to the retelling of the Exodus. Horseradish, or maror, symbolizing the harshness of slavery; lamb bone, or zeroah, representing the sacrifice offered to God; and roasted egg, or baytsah, for the renewal of spring.
In a twist, there's also chocolate — "made without forced child labor!" someone says. And an orange meant to spark meditation on discrimination "against the LGBT community and other minorities," Wolfson, 64, explains.
There are songs in Hebrew, many of them somber. But there also is a hymn set to a Beatles tune. And conjuring Mary Poppins, everyone sings "Super-Kosher Manischewitz, Exodus and Moses."
Some at the table are devout. Others live their faith only on the holidays. The oldest is Harriet Rothkop, 91. The youngest are Ellie and Gabe, ages 3 and 1, Ron and Susie Wolfson's grandchildren.
"Honor the past, the kinds of Seders Harriet grew up with," says Wolfson, spelling out his goals for the night. "Keep the new generation excited and captivated with fun and action. Captivate people who are not terribly engaged in Jewish life."
A matzo — the bread of affliction, unleavened because there was no time for it to rise as the Israelites fled Egypt — is cracked in half. One piece, the afikoman, symbolizes brokenness during slavery.
It is placed in a pouch and hidden. The Seder will only end when young Ellie finds it.
Act 2: The Tellings
For a while the air hums with the Exodus tale. "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt ..."
Then there's a break from the tried and true.
Bob Wolfson, one of the professor's brothers, pulls out a roll of green tape and a spool of thin rope. "We're going to play with frog tape!" says the 62-year-old, a director at the Anti-Defamation League in New York.
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