SEDER: Act 3

• Ritual washing of hands in preparation of eating the matzah and for dinner in general.
• Recitation of blessings over the matzah.
• Eating of the maror (carefully -- it's hot stuff).
• Hillel's sandwich: maror is eaten once again, this time between two pieces of matzah. Some folks add charoset to their sandwiches.

Finally! Dinner is served. It is customary to start the meal with hard boiled egg in salt water. The egg is both associated with mourning and with rebirth.

After dinner, the Afikomen, originally put away at the Seder's start, is eaten. In many homes there is a tradition that children hide the Afikomen, forcing the leader of the seder to redeem the Afikomen. Other traditions have an adult hiding the Afikomen and the children searching for it.

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