c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The Passover Seder traditionally concludes with the phrase”next year in Jerusalem,”a statement of Jewish attachment to homeland during nearly 2,000 years in diaspora.

Thursday (April 24), the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, joined Jewish leaders in Washington for a Seder that ended with the words”next year in Lhasa”_ Tibet’s capital.

The Seder, held on the third day of Passover, was organized by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to draw attention to the plight of Tibet under Chinese occupation.

Since 1949, when Chinese troops invaded Tibet, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have died, thousands have been jailed, and hundreds of thousands more have fled into exile, including the Dalai Lama, who left in 1959 following a failed Tibetan uprising.

The Dalai Lama says he only wants religious freedom and genuine self-rule for Tibet. However, Beijing claims Tibet has historically been ruled by China and the Dalai Lama really wants full independence for Tibet.

Wednesday, the Dalai Lama met at the White House with President Clinton, who said he is willing to suggest to Chinese officials they enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives.

The Seder was the idea of Rodger Kamenetz, a college professor and writer from New Orleans, who since 1990 has been part of a Jewish group that has met periodically with the Dalai Lama. Faced with a Tibetan diaspora, the Dalai Lama, who now lives in India, has sought advice on how Jews managed to retain their religion and culture despite two millennium in exile.”We must copy some of the Jewish determination to keep their identity and traditions under difficult circumstances,”the Dalai Lama said at the conclusion of the Seder.

As the Dalai Lama _ wearing a Jewish skullcap and the traditional maroon and saffron robes of a Tibetan Buddhist monk _ listened, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, retired president of the Reform Union of American Hebrew Congregations, explained the importance Seders have played in maintaining Jewish culture.

The heart of the Seder, Schindler noted, is the retelling of the Exodus: the biblical Israelites departure from slavery in Egypt and their eventual resettlement in Canaan, the land of Israel.”In the form we know it today,”said Schindler,”the Passover Seder originated out of the shattering of the Jewish people, 2,000 years ago (after the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple), when all hope to stay in the homeland was lost and we were facing exile and dispersion.” Schindler also noted how the Seder’s story of freedom has been modified in contemporary times to emphasize the struggles of both Jews and non-Jews. In the late 1960s, for example,”freedom Seders”dedicated to the black civil rights struggle were popular.

Over the years, some Jews have added to their Seders such themes as the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa and the efforts of Jews to emigrate from the former Soviet Union.

Thursday’s Seder _ conducted primarily in English with just a few touches of Hebrew so the Dalai Lama could more easily follow the liturgy _ contained both traditional and non-traditional elements. Most of the latter related to the Tibetan struggle, including the playing of a tape secretly recorded by jailed Tibetan nuns singing of spiritual freedom.

However, there were also references, among others, to the independence struggle in Catholic East Timor and the plight of Christians facing persecution”from Sudan to China.” Everyone who attends a Seder _ generally held the first two nights of the eight-day (seven for Reform Jews) Passover holiday _ typically participates in the reading of the Haggadah, the Seder liturgy. So did the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace prize winner.

He read a section that referred to the incremental nature of all struggles toward freedom.

If”we reject each step because it is not the whole liberation, we will never be able to achieve the whole liberation,”he said in part.

Lodi Gyari, a close aide of the Dalai Lama, said the Tibetan leader”probably understood that section to refer to more than just his struggle with China. As a Buddhist, he no doubt understood it as the search for inner meaning as well, and how that comes slowly, in stages.” As is traditional, the Dalai Lama also ate the unleaved Passover bread called matzoh. But he substituted grape juice for the traditional four glasses of Passover wine.

Because he, like most Tibetans _ natives of a landlocked, mountain nation _ does not eat fish, none was served, despite its inclusion in the Passover tradition. However, he did eat traditional matzoh-ball soup, which he appeared to enjoy thoroughly.

Throughout the Seder, the Dalai Lama repeatedly flashed his signature smile, an infectious, ear-to-ear grin that borders on a laugh. At no time was it more prominent than when a group of Jewish children recited the Four Questions, which launch the retelling by adults of the Passover story and the transmission of the story of freedom to another generation.

MJP END RIFKIN