Last night, we arrived back at Tzuba after being gone for about two weeks. We stayed at a hostel in Jerusalem for a few days, hiked Yam L'Yam, a trip from the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterannean, and went to host families for the first two days of Passover. My friend Aaron brought me with him to Kibbutz Urim near Be'er Sheba, where he has relatives. While there, I got to see what an Israeli Passover seder was like. and really, apart from the fact that it was entirely in Hebrew, it didn't seem all that different from an American seder. We went through the Hagaddah, which I found out is pronounced with an accent over the ah, not the g the way we say it, we ate almost all of the same food, and the children searched for the hidden afikomen. About the food being the same, the Haroset was completely different. Instead of being made of chopped up apples like I'm used to, it was balls made of date spread. I'm really not sure which version I like better. One big difference is that at one point, the endless Hebrew babbling, to my ears, was interrupted by one of Aaron's middle aged relatives leaping out from behind a curtain shirtless, donning a Pharaoh hat and wielding a fake sword. Members of the family then acted out the story of the exodus from Egypt, and at one point, Aaron and I even got to be part of it, playing the roles of two Jews walking out of Mitzrayim. Anyways, the point of all of this is that through all of this, it still reminded me of home. Almost all of the important topics we cover were mentioned, all the foods that make Passover Passover were served, and I walked out feeling like my stomach was about to burst. Passover is a tradition that has been taking place for thousands of years, through multiple continents, and has seen so much change through the world. But somehow, Jews across the world still practice the same rituals to remember what our people have been through. This made me think about the perseverance of the Jewish people, and also the importance of rituals. In Jewish History, we have been talking about the founding of the Reform movement. In the beginning, Reform Rabbis stated in the Pittsburgh Platform that rituals should be abandoned, as Judaism has changed, and it's time for Judaism to be more like other religions. But not only do rituals make us remember the past, but they bring us together as a people, another thing the first Reform rabbis said we were not. Jews everywhere have the ritual of the passover seder, and because of this, I was able to feel at home at a seder thousands of miles from my home.