Haggadah, in the original Hebrew or in translation. It is traditional for the head of the household and other participants to have pillows placed behind them for added comfort. At several points during the Seder, participants lean to the left – when drinking the four cups of wine, eating the Afikoman, and eating the korech sandwich. Jews generally observe one or two seders: in Israel, one seder is observed on the first night of Passover; traditional Diaspora communities (to the general exception of Reform and Reconstructionist Jews)also hold a seder on the second night. Seders have been observed around the world, including in remote places such as high in the Himalaya mountains in Kathmandu, Nepal. Themes of the Seder Slavery and freedom The rituals and symbolic foods evoke the twin themes of the evening: slavery and freedom. It is stated in the Haggadah that "In every generation everyone is obligated to see themselves as if they themselves came out of Egypt" – i.e., out of slavery. The rendering of time for Jews is that a day began at sunset and ended at sunset. According to the Exodus narrative, at the beginning of the 15th of Nisan in Ancient Egypt, the Jewish people were enslaved to Pharaoh. After the tenth plague struck Egypt at midnight, killing all the first-born sons from the first-born of Pharaoh to the first-born of the lowest Egyptian to all the first-born of the livestock in the land (Exodus 12:29), Pharaoh let the Hebrew nation go, effectively making them free people for the second half of the night. Thus, Seder participants recall the slavery that reigned during the first half of the night by eating matzah (the "poor person's bread"), maror (bitter herbs which symbolize the bitterness of slavery), and charoset (a sweet paste, possibly representing the mortar which the Jewish slaves used to cement bricks). Recalling the freedom of the second half of the night, they eat the matzah (the "bread of freedom" as well as the "bread of affliction") and 'afikoman', and drink the four cups of wine, in a reclining position, and dip vegetables into salt water (the dipping being a sign of royalty and freedom). The Four Cups There is an obligation to drink four cups of wine during the Seder. The Mishnah says (Pes. 10:1) that even the poor are obliged to drink the four cups. Each cup is imbibed at a