Interfaith Seder at Stambaugh promotes understanding of Jewish history
YOUNGSTOWN
Before their meal was over Wednesday evening, people partaking in the Interfaith Seder at Stambaugh Auditorium would drink four glasses of grape juice or wine.
The Seder would start with one glass, and there would be two cups before the chicken dinner and two cups after, said Rabbi Joseph P. Schonberger, who led the celebration.
While drinking all that wine, the rabbi said, tradition dictates leaning to the left.
Why?
“So that if we drink all four cups of wine, we’ll look the same as we did at the beginning,” he said, to laughter.
The truth is, people in Biblical times used to eat leaning to the left if they were free, he said.
And on the Seder plate at each table were traditional foods that those gathered at Stambaugh would eat before their dinner — each food a symbol of the Israelites’ suffering and the freedom they finally obtained from the Egyptian pharaoh after they crossed the desert and the Red Sea.
Read more about the event in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.