c. 2005 Religion News Service

TEANECK, N.J. _ With Passover fast approaching, eight students crowded around a rabbi in a synagogue study hall.

Calling Pharaoh “the first paranoid anti-Semite” and Moses “the revolutionary who wanted to spoil all his fun,” Rabbi Baruch Price offered an overview of the Passover story, from Abraham to the parting of the Red Sea.

For the past three years Price has been director of Jewish Learning Experience (JLE), an outreach group based in Teaneck. After session one of three recent Passover classes, Price revealed his purpose: “I like people to see the biblical roots of the holiday.”

More and more American Jews are untrained in their faith, intermarried, unobservant or all of the above. Programs like Price’s, which have sprung up in response to this problem, use an interest in Passover to connect nominal Jews to their heritage.

Passover, an eight-day festival that begins at sundown on April 23 this year, celebrates the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. Among the 44 percent of American Jews who are not affiliated with any Jewish organization, Passover is the most popular major holiday, according to the United Jewish Communities’ 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey.

“Even those Jews who no longer identify as Jews, who are completely unaffiliated, still need that Passover experience. … It’s part of their spiritual makeup,” said Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, founder and director of the New York City-based National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP).

The population study found that 58 percent of unaffiliated Jews hold or attend a seder, the ritual meal held on the first two nights of Passover. Capitalizing on Passover’s appeal, outreach groups and synagogues across the denominational spectrum offer resources to bring these Jews into the community.

The JLE offers a comprehensive approach to Jewish education, and Passover is no exception. Since 1985, this unaffiliated outreach organization _ supported by Teaneck’s Orthodox community and the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Northern New Jersey _ has offered free classes to anyone interested in Judaism.

“The JLE tries to provide a comfortable, non-threatening environment for adults who did not have an opportunity in their youth to learn about Judaism,” said Price.

For Passover, the JLE offers a nine-session Hebrew class on how to read the Haggadah (the script for the ritual meal) and a model seder (a rehearsal of the dinner) as well as the Bible classes.

At the end of this process, Price said he hopes students will be able “to at least run a basic seder of their own at home.”

The seder is an elaborate ritual consisting of 15 steps. Its narrative, songs and prayers describe the Exodus. The foods are matzah (unleavened bread), bitter herbs, mortar (a mixture of apples, wine and cinnamon), a roasted shank bone of a kosher animal or a chicken neck, a roasted or boiled egg, a vegetable (usually parsley or celery), saltwater used for dipping the vegetables, and four cups of wine or grape juice for each guest.

Every action and every food helps tell the story.

“The seder is a journey from affliction and distance from God to redemption and a sense of closeness with God,” Price explained.

Outreach leaders agree that communal seders, led by those who can explain the symbolism, are a key way to reach the unaffiliated.

“This year, we’re sponsoring … model seders and communal seders in 10 different areas,” said Buchwald, an Orthodox rabbi who founded the NJOP in 1987. Next year, he hopes to roll out a Passover Across America program in synagogues of all denominations throughout the country.

Communal seders hosted by synagogues also are vital to Reform and Conservative outreach.

“It’s a wonderful way to be introduced to Judaism in a very warm, familial way,” said Kathryn Kahn, director of the Department of Outreach and Synagogue Community of the Union for Reform Judaism in New York City.

Rabbi Moshe Edelman, a member of the Central Executive Staff of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said that communal seders help unaffiliated Jews feel comfortable with the ritual.

“You integrate people, you make people feel welcome … So that’s the way the synagogue becomes very much an extended family _ a home away from home,” he said.

At Reform synagogues, communal seders typically are held on the second night of Passover as “a wonderful way for them to experience synagogue life on a particularly important night of the year,” Kahn said.

Both leaders stressed that interfaith couples and families are welcome at all events and services, with Kahn adding that “it’s very important that the non-Jewish parent not feel invisible in the holiday celebrations.”

Price said the JLE never turns away interfaith couples.

“If there’s a mixed couple, obviously that happened because the Jewish partner or both partners were not sufficiently educated or involved in their own religion. … The people should not be treated as pariahs … They should be made to feel that they can ask questions, that they can participate.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Married in 1997, Tom and Madeline Bradley of Fair Lawn, N.J., came to the JLE in 2000 as a mixed couple. Tom Bradley was raised a Catholic, but as an adult spent time reading the Bible and found himself drawn to Judaism. Though raised in a Conservative Jewish home, Madeline Bradley said, “I have a background but I didn’t have the knowledge. … I was a Hebrew school dropout.”

A couple of years into their marriage, they began learning about Judaism together through the JLE. In August 2003, Tom Bradley converted and the two were married in an Orthodox ceremony. Price was one of three rabbis officiating at the wedding.

These days, both are Orthodox. After JLE programs, Passover has taken on new meaning.

“After we learned and understood what it was really all about, then it was a very fulfilling, meaningful event,” Madeline Bradley said.

“It’s very clear to me that one of the major mitzvot (commandments) is to celebrate Passover each year,” Tom Bradley said, adding that the holiday, along with the giving of the Torah, is the greatest remembrance until the Messiah comes.

MO/PH RNS END