After the sun goes down this evening, as families and friends gather for the start of Pesach, or Passover, a child’s curiosity about the Seder will start a conversation that has taken place around the world for thousands of years. A simple question has the serious task of linking the past and the future together, to ensure that generations to come will continue to tell the story of their ancestors’ flight from Egypt.

“Why is this night different from all other nights?”

Surely the Seder plate sets the evening apart – a shank bone, roasted egg and bitter herbs don’t show up on the table every day. In some households the plate is removed to spark children’s curiosity. But the answer lies in the actions surrounding the food, in the eating, the breaking of matzo, the dipping of vegetables in saltwater, and the symbolism behind it.

“It’s important to note every part of the Seder; every element of the Seder plate, everything we do has a tremendous significance and symbolism, particularly to the elements of slavery and freedom,” Chaya Nebel said during an interview in the home she shares with her husband, Rabbi Fred Nebel of Congregation Beth Abraham in Bangor, and their two young children. “We’re celebrating God’s freeing Jews from slavery in Egypt.”

The tradition is far from a token gesture, however. It is a commandment for Jews to relive aspects of their ancestors’ exodus from Egypt in biblical times. By combining the bitter with the sweet, the ingredients on the Seder plate represent the harshness of slavery and the pleasure of freedom.

The Haggada, which is the Passover prayer book, guides people through the order of the Seder and explains the reasons behind each element. For example, zroa and beitzah, a roasted shank bone and roasted egg, respectively, represent offerings to the holy temple in Jerusalem and are not eaten. But marror, a bitter herb such as horseradish or romaine lettuce, is eaten, and its unpleasant taste evokes the toil of slavery. The fact that the marror is dipped in charoset, a sweet mixture of fruit, nuts and red wine, mirrors the sweet taste of freedom, both in the past and the present – from work, from childhood memories, from debt or transgression – the things that get in the way of spiritual growth.

“When we sit around the table to tell the Haggada, we’re celebrating freedom – freedom from Egypt,” Chaya Nebel said, sitting at the dining room table, her dark hair tucked under a black hat. “But we’re commanded to relive the experience, to feel like we’re leaving Egypt ourselves. The freedom was to choose God. God took us out of Egypt.”

The Seder leader, traditionally the father in a family, starts by reciting the kiddush and holding a cup of red wine or, if necessary, grape juice, to inaugurate and sanctify the meal. No one pours his own wine; rather, each person pours it for someone else.

“When we drink the wine we recline,” Chaya Nebel said. “It’s the attitude of luxury.”

“Similar to the Romans,” Fred Nebel added as he finished his lunch.

“On the other hand, you have the mixed symbolism of freedom and slavery,” Chaya continued. “If it is wine it should preferably be red. That’s to symbolize the blood our ancestors shed during slavery.”

The next element, karpas, also has dual symbolism. Karpas can be any vegetable except for a bitter herb (romaine lettuce, raw horseradish or endive), but most people use celery, parsley or a boiled potato, depending on family tradition. Vegetables on their own are good, and it is a luxury to be able to dip your vegetables in a dressing, but in this case, the dressing is only salt water, to symbolize the slaves’ tears. It has another purpose as well.

“We do this to enliven the curiosity of the kids,” Chaya Nebel said. “They begin to ask questions.”

Beside the Seder plate, there is a stack of matzo, and the first piece is broken in half, with half put away to eat later. Slaves never had enough to eat, so they always saved some for later, and today, Jews set the matzo aside to remind themselves of the slavery.

“We call matzo the bread of affliction,” Chaya Nebel said.

Matzo is the only bread allowed in the Nebels’ home during Passover, because bread, cookies, pasta and other leavened products have had time to rise, and thus represent a luxury the slaves didn’t have. Though the Nebels keep a Kosher kitchen year-round, cleanliness is of the utmost importance in the weeks leading up to Passover.

“There’s a major preparation to what happens,” Fred Nebel said.

The house must be scoured for chametz, the crumbs of leavened products. Working from the upper floors of the home, Chaya Nebel will thoroughly clean each room. Nothing – including the grooves of the Nebels’ Kitchen-Aid mixer – is overlooked, and Chaya says she goes through quite a few toothpicks during the process.

“The sages refer to leavened products as comparable to the evil inclination, or arrogance – part of you that desires to do wrong,” Chaya Nebel explained. “By eating matzo on Passover, we’re making the testimony that we are ridding ourselves of the excess baggage, the haughtiness, that stands in the way of out way of serving God.”

This is explained in the next portion of the Seder, when the father tells the story of the flight from Egypt. When the Pesach story is over, the family eats a matzo and proceeds to the bitter herbs, or marror. Because raw horseradish is hard on the stomach when eaten in large quantities, many families use romaine lettuce for marror. To take the edge off, they dip it in charoset, the fruit, nut and wine mixture that mimics the appearance of river mud, which was used to make bricks in Egypt.

“In order to have marror, you have to have the equivalent volume of half an egg,” Chaya Nebel said. “With real horseradish, most people can’t do it. With romaine, you can.”

After eating a small sandwich of matzo and marror, the family continues the celebration with a festive meal. At the Nebels’ house, it usually includes gefilte fish and soup with matzo balls. As with other aspects of the holiday, the dishes vary from family to family, depending on tradition and region, but one thing remains the same.

“It’s not the most important part of the Seder as a whole, but whenever we do celebrate the sabbath or a holiday, we have good foods – fabulous dishes,” Chaya Nebel said, smiling. “It’s not simply a reward for sitting through the rest of the Seder. It’s part of the commandment.”

After dinner, the Nebels will eat the matzo that they set aside earlier, and they will sing and pray for the next year in Jerusalem – the fulfillment of an ages-old prophecy that the Jews will return to the site of the holy temple. With this hope in their minds and the taste of matzo in their mouths, the family will conclude their Seder.

“Afterward, you can’t eat anything else,” Chaya Nebel said. “You want to have the flavor of the mitzvah [the commandment] in your mouth for the whole night.”

Charoset

Makes 3 cups.

6 apples, peeled and coarsely chopped

2/3 cup chopped almonds or walnuts

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Grated rind of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons sweet red wine

In a medium-size bowl, thoroughly mix ingredients. In a food processor, blend until the mixture resembles the texture of river mud. If you prefer, you can leave the mixture coarse or chunky.

Adapted from “The Jewish Holiday Kitchen” by Joan Nathan

Knaidlach (matzo balls)

4 eggs, slightly beaten

4 tablespoons oil

4 tablespoons ice-cold water

1 cup matzo meal

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

8 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, combine eggs, oil and cold water. Add matzo meal, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Mix well. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Bring water and 1 teaspoon salt to a boil in a 4-quart pot, Reduce heat. Wet palms with cold water and form matzo mixture into balls. Drop into simmering water. Cover pot and cook for 30 minutes, keeping the pot covered the entire time and for 10 minutes longer as the water cools. For large, fluffy Knaidlach, cook in a pot wide enough to give them room to expand.

Adapted from “Spice and Spirit: The Complete Kosher Jewish Cookbook.”