The other day, my dear (and hilarious) friend Tania responded to an apology-packed email (I had to reschedule a long-planned meeting) with, “Hang in there, remember our people have suffered enough!”

I cracked up. As usual, Tania’s timing is perfect. It’s Passover, the week the Jews celebrate our collective suffering more than any other time of year. A novice might think that the height of suffering is Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement, when you are expected to fast from sundown to sundown in apology for myriad transgressions — but anyone with that impression has never caught a whiff of gefilte fish on Passover.

To be fair, not everyone hates gefilte fish, which I believe is only a traditional food, not one included in any religious observations. In fact, my friend Todd happily took the second untouched jar home Tuesday night, at the conclusion of what I considered to be a darn successful Passover seder.

Todd deserved the gefilte fish – and in a good way. The guy not only made his own horseradish, HE MADE MATZOH. No, that is not a typo, and for details you can check out his blog.

The homemade matzoh drew whoops from the crowd. It was that kind of night. Instead of lamenting the Jews’ exodus from Egypt (though that was mentioned — and even reenacted in an impromptu skit by the kids, featuring Anna as the Red Sea, Annabelle as the holder of Baby Moses and Sophie as Pharaoh) we celebrated family and friends, toasting with sangria instead of the traditional god-awful Passover wine. (The evening was deemed a success when one guest, even before we’d sat down for the seder, announced, “I’m drunk!”)

I think all 17 guests had a good time, with the possible exception of my father, who complained of a sore butt from sitting for so long even after I rushed to serve the matzoh ball soup in the middle of the seder program.

Todd’s spouse Robrt had a brisket cook-off with my mother (recipes here), I made my first seder matzoh ball soup (from the box, don’t be impressed), we sang happy birthday to party guests turning 12, 70 and 84, and Ray gave a presentation — complete with audio and a reading from The Bible — entitled, “A Heavy Metal Passover.”

Yes, as my friend Kathleen put it the next day, the whole thing was quite “unorthodox.” But if you’ve ever been to a real Passover seder you know how miserable (let’s be honest) that experience can be and frankly, collective suffering aside, I felt I’d personally suffered enough after searching the city of Tempe for kosher wine and matzoh. (Next year I’ll head to Scottsdale.)

I’m glad my father suffered through the evening, because while I have very few memories of religion from childhood — and even fewer involving him — hearing him read a paragraph of the Passover story from the Haggadah (the “official” Passover prayer book, mine was a little non-traditional this year) as we went around the table brought me right back to my Great Aunt Charlotte’s living room, where we celebrated Passover every year when I was a kid. I even had to wipe away a couple of tears. (Same deal when Annabelle read the Four Questions –another seder tradition — albeit in English instead of Hebrew, since we still haven’t gotten around to joining a temple.)

As my dear friend Deborah — pious enough that she was the one chosen to “run” the seder yet cool enough that she named it “Let My People Go Go: A Very Groovy Passover” — put it so wisely the next day, that’s the stuff that’s important.

Oh, and here is a drawing my mom whipped up for the Haggadah that — I swear, Mom — was inadvertently left out.