Seder Anyone?

With passover beginning Wednesday, memories of my 'Seder' last year come to mind...

I was in my last semester of grad school, and I was feeling a little burnt out, especially in my super boring 3 hour long Social Policy and Welfare class. Before lecture, I was leafing through the syllabus and stumbled upon a paragraph that stated students would be excused from class for observation of any religious event.

Just my luck, it happened to be this exact same time of year, and the first night of Passover happened to land on the same night as class, so, I announced to the professor in front of the class that I had a Seder to attend that evening and that he should do the right thing and cancel the remainder of the class and allow me to observe the religious holiday (knowing my professor was Jewish I thought certainly he could appreciate this). At the time, he did not respond favorably, however about 30 minutes into class, he announced he was dismissing the entire class early for the evening. I was elated. Proud of myself, and thanked many times over by my friends, I thought nothing more of it until the following week when he began asking me all about the Seder - yikes! I think I pulled it off and did a darn good job of it seeing as how I'm not Jewish and have never been to a Seder.

Well, the story does not end there...just my luck, the entire remainder of the semester (6 LONG weeks) happened to be lectures on the psychology behind genocide, terrorists, and the like. It gets better - several of the weeks included 3 hour long lectures on the HOLOCAUST, complete with personal pictures, passed around to the class that were taken by my Professor during his many visits to those historical sites (did I mention he's Jewish and practically old enough to be a Holocaust survivor himself), anyways, believing that I was Jewish also, he delivered those lectures straight to me, rarely breaking eye contact. Needless to say, I was forced to pay strict attention and offer frequent head nodding as if to say 'Yes! Our People!' My younger brother at the time told me I was going to go to hell. More importantly though is why wasn't my professor at a Seder that evening?! Who's the one going to hell now?