Rachel Pearlstein is this year’s JCC Tzedek Resident. Among many other things, she managed this year’s Pesach Without Borders Program. Our thanks to Rachel for sending this in.
What a busy few weeks it has been leading up to the Seders. As the Tzedek Resident at the JCC, I worked on a program called “Pesach without Borders.” This program matched community members to local family Seders. The last two weeks before Passover, everyone seemed to need a Seder and the calls flooded in. There were more requests than volunteer hosts. Then a Passover miracle occurred. In the week before Passover, I started receiving calls from countless people who had extra room at their Seder tables. In the end, we were able to match eighteen people with a Seder.
At the same time, I was helping plan the Queer Seder at UNC-A with a group of other community members and UNC-A students from Hillel. This Seder took place on the first night of Passover and was part of the UNC-A Queer Studies Conference. This was my first time planning and being a part of such a non-traditional Seder. What a great experience! The Seder was attended by over fifty people.
I was fortunate enough to spend the second Seder with a wonderful group of people at the Holan’s home. I was truly touched by how much I felt like I was part of a family. I had only known the people I was sitting around the table with for five or six months but thinking about how close I had become to these people was really a great feeling.
The most impactful thing for me about all my Passover planning and involvement in Asheville was learning how many different ways there are to have a Seder and how many ways there are to celebrate this several thousand year-old, rich tradition. It doesn’t matter if you attended the Queer Seder, the Secular Community’s Seder, a Reform Seder, or the Chabad Seder. We are all celebrating the same thing. Some of us just like to get to the “food part” of the Seder quicker. All jokes aside, this Passover was a reminder of not only how special it is to be Jewish but of how special, diverse, and warm the Asheville Jewish community is.