“All right, let’s go around the table,” our rabbi said, sweeping his gaze over the people crowded around the long, tall table at the back of the bar’s patio. “Tell us your name and, let’s see… your favorite Passover dish.”

Sampson and I arrived late for the pre-study schmoozing yesterday evening, but we were just in time to dive into the monthly “Torah on Tap” discussion. We know almost everyone’s names without being told, and the regulars know ours by now. As the imaginary introduction baton passed from person to person, we learned that matzoh ball soup is a near-universal Passover favorite, that Sephardic versus Ashkenazi charoset is a topic of some debate, and that people who claim to love fiery, fresh-grated horseradish are acclaimed as stupendous tough guys and gals.

With the key issues (i.e., best Pesach food) settled amongst ourselves, we were free to begin our loud and lively conversation on the month’s topic: “Plagues, Torture, and Collective Punishment.” We read selections from Torah and Talmud, rabbis both modern and ancient, Israeli Supreme Court rulings and psalms. The intensity of our discussion was balanced by our comfort with one another as we sipped our stouts or our sodas.

I like to think that anyone who saw us there, a group of Jews freely and publicly displaying our passion for our text, our tradition, and our deep commitment to ethics, would have been able to tell that something vital and vibrant was at work. All of us there were busy people, many having come straight from a long day at work (which, in Sampson’s case, involved two draining flights with brand-new students), and yet it mattered to us all enough that we made the effort to come together with our community to study big issues through a Jewish lens. That tells me something about my people and my Judaism.

#BlogExodus, the brainchild of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, invites participants to chronicle the weeks leading up to Passover through blog posts, photos, and other social media expressions.

Believe, believe… I believe I need to get my rear in gear for Passover preparation, because I just had my very first Pesach stress-dream of the season last night.

We had just arrived back in Pensacola after a whirlwind jaunt up to Northern Virginia to celebrate my amazing father-in-law’s 70th birthday. While my parents’ guest room is quite comfy, the sheer concentrated fun of the short visit meant that we were up past our bedtime every night. We arrived home yesterday evening after a day of schlepping through crowded airports, looked at the flight schedule, and discovered that the Navy was welcoming Sampson back from leave with a 5:30 AM brief. So much for easing back into things.

My attempt to squeeze a few more hours of rest out of the pre-dawn darkness after Sampson headed to work was thwarted by an intensely vivid dream about showing up at a seder where they were using a strangely colorful Hagaddah and playing rock music for accompaniment. The “stress” part of the dream came halfway through the (bizarre, rock-and-roll-laden) service leading up to the meal, when I realized we had forgotten to make the dish we’d promised to bring. Ack! The shame!

And then the dream morphed into me and Ecco the Dolphin rescuing other dolphins who were beached on a marshy shore, but that is less relevant to the subject at hand.

In real life, some friends from our synagogue have invited us to their seder this year. I already know that our contribution to the festive meal will be a vegetable dish of some kind, but I haven’t made a final decision on what it will be. My dream would seem to indicate that the prospect of cooking something to delight the palates of twenty-one people is weighing on my mind more than I’d realized.

I believe I’ll get out my cookbooks and make a final recipe choice today.

#BlogExodus, the brainchild of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, invites participants to chronicle the weeks leading up to Passover through blog posts, photos, and other social media expressions.