My Experiences from the Biggest Seder in the World 

By Rahav Meir

Good morning from Thailand, from the island of Ko Samui.

So what did I see here, at the world’s biggest Seder?

I saw about 2500 Jews, who are very different and distant from each other, yet know that every year in the middle of Nissan the most important thing to do is to sit at the Seder table and repeat the principles of our faith in our own ears, and in the ears of our children.

I met a woman who is a family doctor from Australia, who became a Ba’alat Teshuvah here in Thailand many years ago and now came with her husband and kids to show them how and where it had all begun.

I met Ro’ee and Moriyah Solomon, who arrived here for their honeymoon, but Ro’ee, as a ZAKA volunteer, heard about the terrible terror attack in Sri Lanka and waited to be taken there (with his wife).

I met the Chabad shaliach (emissary) to the island of Ko Samui, Rabbi Mendy Goldsmidt, who ran this huge production. At 11 pm, after the biggest Seder in the world was over, he started the _latest_ Seder in the world: he returned with his family to the Chabad House, and there he conducted all over again their Seder night, because they hadn’t yet done Kiddush.

I met the dozens of young men who had arrived from New York and Israel to volunteer here, around the different tables, and to help people with the smallest questions (“Can I have some more lettuce?”) and the biggest questions (“Why, in fact, do we even eat lettuce tonight?”). They, too, started their own Seder only after 2-3 hours of standing on their feet.

And at the end of the holiday, I received a reminder to the fact that with all due respect to Thailand, this is a global Jewish story: The Shlucha, Sarah Goldsmidt, heard from all her siblings how the seder was at their place of mission, each in their own Chabad House: Mendy in Istanbul, Eliezer in Germany, Leah and Chani in Florida, Shmulik in Russia, Kayla in Kfar Vitkin and Esti in the Ukraine. We had left Egypt.

Mo’adim L’Simcha!