Pesaj

Last night I went to the Sedar held by one of the local synogagues. The dinner wasn´t held at the synagogue but rather a community center. One of the members told me that they held it their because it was closer to everyone´s homes, rather than the synagogue which is in the center and far away.

About 100 people showed up to the dinner. It kind of surprised me because none of the folks looked chilean, it looked like they had planted a Jewish community in the states in Santiago. Isadora sat with me, she´s a friend from my program who found the sedar.

There were a bunch of tables and the rabbi and the cantor sat on the stage and led the ceremonies. We played Passover Bingo, and sang songs, and did all of the traditional stuff, although at a brisk pace, I think the Sedar only lasted about 2-3 hours. Just the way I like my religion short and sweet.

Our Hagadah´s were in spanish and hebrew, although I thought it was interesting that when the rabbi led the sedar he didn´t speak hebrew with a chilean accent. However, when they were talking to one of the kids on the microphone I noticed he had a chilean accent when he spoke. The ´ch´ sound in hebrew, ´ch´as in Chanuka and Chag Sameach, is with a J, as in Pesaj.

The dinner was okay it was just chicken, latkas, and two glazed carrots. We also had gefilte fish, which I thought was dry and surprisingly fishy tasting. Not as good as grandma´s definitely, I like it sweet. They had horseradish too, the purple kind. But for 6.500 pesos what do you expect?

All in all, it was a neat experience. Isadora and I got a ride back to our houses from one of the congregation members who were sitting by us. She came with her daughter. It turned out she was a commercial realtor, very nice. We got back around 1030 just in time for to study for today´s test in my Teoria de Politica Moderna class, which I couldn´t finish because it was so hard to right such complicated things in spanish. At least I´m only taking the class for credit and not a grade. But the Sedar was very nice