Spring religous events to be observed

Easter, Passover to be celebrated this weekend

Holidays will become holinights this weekend, as many campus religious celebrations will take place during unusual hours.

"We're staying up all night," junior Sara Holliday said of this weekend's Easter Vigil. "We're going to eat and play board games and look at bible texts."

"We'll have an all-night seder sometime during the week, in which people stay awake studying and reading and sharing their own spiritual narrative," Rabbi Shimon Brand said.

Easter and Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Jewish exodus from Egypt, are both celebrated this weekend. The Muslim holiday of Eid was also observed this week.

Holliday is organizing the Easter Vigil. The vigil service, which dates back thousands of years, marks the end of Lent and the beginning of Easter. Holliday doesn't know how many people will participate in the ceremony.

"I went to buy food, and I didn't know how much to buy," Holliday said.

The observers will end their vigil at dawn in time to join other worshippers for the Easter sunrise service.

"We have anywhere from 30-50 people," Protestant Chaplain Fred Lassen said. "We'll have a brief service, hymns and a trumpeter."

The service will be followed by an Easter egg hunt.

Passover begins with a seder tonight. The seder is the traditional meal associated with Passover. The word 'seder' translates to 'order.'

Brand said, "It's a very ritual event. There's four cups of wine, three matzos and a service that lasts for several hours."

"The seder is pretty liberal," first-year Danielle Bensimhon said. "We're trying to have dancing at the beginning of it to psych people up."

In preparation for Passover, Kosher Co-op has been closed for a week. In addition to the two full days of cooking efforts put forth by everyone participating in Saturday's seder, the Co-op must be cleansed of every trace of leaven in accordance with Jewish law.

"It's a big deal," Brand said. "Everything is blowtorched and scrubbed and washed."

"All the dishes have to be changed," Bensimhon said. "All the utensils have to be switched, and we cover all the countertops with contact paper because nothing during Passover can touch anything that normally touches bread. We can't borrow food from other co-ops. We have to clean everything from the floors to the ceilings. It's absolutely ridiculous."