Chocolate, Chocolate Everywhere!

By Jaclyn Platt, Class of 2018
Rutgers Hillel Student Board Conservative Community Chair 2015-2016

Paulee Manich '18, Julia Motis '17 and Jaclyn Platt '18

Paulee Manich ’18, Julia Motis ’17 and Jaclyn Platt ’18

As a young child Passover was always my favorite holiday. At the same time, I always felt like I was missing out when my other friends at school who belonged to other synagogues would talk about their mock seders in their Hebrew Schools. While mine was serious, with matzoh, horseradish that burnt your throat, and everyone’s favorite Kedem grape juice, they got to eat CHOCOLATE! Chocolate replaced everything at the Seder, and they got to enjoy it all while I was chomping on bitter herbs. When I became chair of the Koach (Conservative) community on campus, one of my hopes was to create a chocolate seder of my own for the whole community to enjoy! I excitedly teamed up with Paulee Manich and Julia Motis, the Reform Community Co-Chairs, to make a seder for our two communities.

Shopping for the seder was half the fun! Running around filling an entire shopping cart with chocolate (and getting longing stares from the small children in the grocery store) was very exciting. When the day of the seder came, the scent of chocolate was everywhere. Everything was so creative, from the charoset made out of frosting, chocolate covered raisins, chocolate covered pretzels, and chocolate chips, to bitter-sweet chocolate bars in place of the bitter herbs.

Jaclyn Platt - chocolate matzah - croppedI loved reading our Hagada. It was filled with the 10 plagues of eating too much chocolate and multiple prayers for chocolate and chocolate milk. I don’t think I’ve prayed about chocolate that much in my life, or ever! I would firmly say my first ever Chocolate Seder was a huge success, and I didn’t even leave Hillel with a belly ache!!

Thanks to Paulee, Julia, and Sarah Magida, the Reform Community Educator at Rutgers Hillel, for collaborating with me on this amazing event!  🙂

 

 

Chocolate Seder at Rutgers Hillel in April 2016

Chocolate Seder at Rutgers Hillel in April 2016

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