Rodney’s 1st Seder

A few months ago, Josh started teaching a very special man who doesn’t fit neatly into either group. Rodney was raised as a religious Catholic and always attended Catholic schools. Rodney’s mother’s parents divorced when she was a young girl, and she was raised her Catholic father. Rodney’s mother barely knew her own mother, a Holocaust survivor who herself was also the product of an intermarriage between Rodney’s Jewish great-grandmother and German great-grandfather.

Rodney is a successful TV producer in Hollywood, and about a year ago he was having lunch with a Jewish woman he was interested in dating.

“Listen Rodney, I see where this is headed,” she told him, “but this isn’t happening. I only date Jewish men.”

“For real? Only Jewish men? Well, I do have a bit of Jewish background.”

And that was when Rodney discovered the unlikely fact that his single Jewish great-grandparent rendered him 100% Jewish.

For the last few weeks Rodney and Josh have been learning about Passover to prepare Rodney for his first real seder (which he will be attending with his girlfriend, also one of Josh’s long-time students, the same woman who told him a year ago that she only dates Jewish men:) Rodney is even working hard to kasher his home for Passover for the first time.

This past summer, Rodney also came on his first trip to Israel. “I was blown away by Israel,” he told Josh, “I couldn’t get over the fact that just 3 years after the Holocaust you got your own state!”

“This year,” Josh responded, “by the end of the seder, if it’s successful, you will understand that it’s not that ‘You Jews” who got a state…”

“You are right. Immediately after I said that I knew that was wrong,” Rodney nodded with emotion, “My grandmother survived the Holocaust. I am a Jew. This is my state too.”

Welcome home Rodney, and Pesach Kasher v’Sameach!