Passover from the Mediterranean

Do you remember when you were a child, you'd fall asleep in the car or the sofa, but you'd wake up the next morning in bed. Cruising is a bit like that. We went to sleep in the Adriatic sea yesterday, and woke up in the Mediterranean today headed to Malta, a small island off the coast of Italy. While cruising has some drawbacks, like cancelled ports of call due to weather and civil unrest, the best part is you go to sleep one place and wake up in another. And besides, weather and civil unrest impact flying and driving too......it just feels worse on a cruise.

I worked on the blog site this morning but haven't published the changes yet. Under "ports of call", I'm a bit behind providing historical information and pics summarized by port, but I was able to get all the pics organized, so once I get good internet, I'll publish the updates.

Otherwise it was a lazy day. I ran 3 miles and took a work call. My wife and I played cards for a few hours. Then we got ready for the seder.

The seder

It far exceeded our expectations. It was held on one side of the buffet, which they corded off pleasantly with a "reserved for seder" sign. Sometimes in a situation like this, there's no sign at all or a "private function" sign, "reserved" sign or a "no admittance" sign. All of those seem exclusionary so it was nice it said what caused the seating change. May seem small but it doesn't take much to annoy people these days so I liked how they did it.

The organizers had a central table set up with all the seder elements. Each dinner table was set with just the elements each participant needed. We all don't need our own lamb shank 😉.

We got a table for the 6 of us. Anita and Scott are Christians (originally catholic), Hasida is an Israeli jew, her husband Ference is a blend, my wife is a lifelong Christian and I'm a completed jew. So we had a nice mix of backgrounds.

We all had our own haggadah and there was a nice balance of Hebrew and English. While it was an abbreviated service, it had all the required elements and it still took 3.5 hrs. Shocking.

I was even asked/invited/volunteered to speak a portion of the service.

The food was quite good as well. They started with gefilta fish, then latkas (normally served at Hanukkah, but I'll never say no to a good latke), matzoh ball soup, roasted chicken and 3 types of dessert, including the best almond cookie I ever had. Apparently, the italian jews celebrate passover with them. Neither Hasida or I had ever had them and we both got wide eyed when we tried them.

It's a tricky task to make a good dessert with no flour and no levening (a Passover rule). I think American jews gravitate to macaroons out of tradition going back to who-knows-when. They contain no dairy, and thus can be eaten alongside meat. And since they rely on egg whites to rise, they don't use flour, a banned ingredient during Passover. While I love a good macaroon, the almond cookie was better. I'll need to research it.

The first pics are of our personal passover plate with salt water and bitter herbs and the hagaddah, the program we follow during a seder

So all in all, it was a great passover. We enjoyed the melting pot of some new and different customs as well as the comfort of some traditional favorites. We enjoyed sharing it with friends and connecting the jewish seder to the Last Supper as celebrated by Jesus and where the concept of Communion began. So many Christians aren't aware that Jesus's last Supper was at a seder

As a completed jew, I shared with our friends an uncommon but wonderful belief some have about Elijah's cup at the last Supper. Elijah's cup is the fifth ceremonial cup of wine poured during the family seder dinner on Passover (Pesaḥ). It is left untouched in honor of Elijah, who, according to tradition, will arrive one day as an unknown guest to herald the advent of the messiah. On jewish passover tables around the world for centuries/millenia, this cup goes untouched as a truly sacred tradition. Some believe that in DaVinci's Last Supper, Jesus is actually reaching for Elijah's cup as his 4th and final cup of wine at the seder. It would be THAT cup he raised when Matthew reports, "Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”—Matthew 26:26–28. No one knows for sure one way or the other but it would be incredibly symbolic if he had.

Tomorrow is Malta and we have a ship's tour planned, meaning an easy day for me as I get to follow, not plan/organize/ lead. It's a lot of work and responsibility planning excursions but I'll discuss that in a later post. Good night to all.