Passover observed

The Passover Seder, a ritual yearly meal that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, is meant to honor the past. But Rabbi Reuven Mintz of the Chabad Jewish Center in Newport Beach also sees it as an opportunity to plan for the future — and to put the present in context.

Foods on traditional Seder plates symbolize aspects of the exodus story, including bitter herbs for the hardships of slavery and charoset, a fruit and nut mixture, for the mortar the slaves used to build the storehouses of Egypt. The roasted egg represents the cycle of life itself.

“It’s round,” Mintz said Saturday at the Fairmont Newport Beach, where his center hosted a Passover Seder for more than 100 people. “Sometimes we’re on the bottom, but we look forward to the future.”

Also on the tables that filled the room were flat slabs of matzo bread and saltwater that symbolized tears shed by past generations.

“The focus of tonight is not only commemorating the past but focusing on the bondage in our lives, the things we want to break away from,” Mintz said. “We look to the magnitude of what took place 3,200 years ago.”