That could be because there's a more intimate seder the day after at the Chabad house itself that may be the one the members gravitate to, but I know that as a non-member (but not a non-Jew) I felt like I fit in just fine.
When I walked in (early, of course), I met up with two couples (two brothers and their wives)--one with their handsome high-school-age son, and we got into a conversation. Apparently they've done seders here before, but the wives are not actually Jewish. The two brothers' father was not Jewish either, but mom was--and I met her--a sweet, friendly woman about my mother's age. The sisters and daughters arrived later.
We sat at the end of a banquet-room-length table--paired with another one on the other side of the room and a head table containing my friendly Rabbi RR and his brother, sister, and brother-in-law, among others.
A seder can go on for quite a while and you get pretty hungry before the meal arrives, so we were given a tasty salad to tide us over before the service actually began (at 8:09 p.m.--when three stars are visible in the sky). The we got down to the business of commemorating and reliving the Jews' historic exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago, led by the famous Moses.
I recognized the pieces of the seder plate (see photo) --the baked egg, lamb shank bone, parsley, horseradish, charoses, and so on--because I had seders as a kid, too. The ones I remember were in my family when I was maybe 10 to 15. The last one I had with my family was in 1968 when my father rejoined us just for the seder after my parents' divorce and we all sat around the dining room table and went through the story. I attended a seder in Israel in 1974 but I don't remember it very well--I had just arrived. I have had friendly ones in people's homes over the last few years, too.
There are thousands of different versions of the Haggadah (story of Passover in book form). Some are gender neutral, some are modern, some are quaintly old-fashioned. The book we used (in large and teeny versions) was charmingly illustrated and didn't seem to belabor any of the points. We got through the seder in 90 minutes or so. According to one of the Chabad members I knew from before--John--we may have had a little "seder lite." He noticed that the rabbi didn't always read the entire passage, but skipped some. Perhaps the significant population of non-regulars prompted his decision.
Like so many aspects of Jewish ceremony, you're supposed to relive the experience, not just sit and talk about it. That's why during the week of Passover you eat matzo--unleavened bread--instead of regular bread. Traditionally, you clean the house thoroughly of any sign of risen dough before Passover. It sounds like a great reason to do a thorough spring cleaning --always a good idea.
The rabbi said we don't want to see this as some quaint observance of things long past, but as a living participation in the seminal event of Judaism. Yes, Abraham was born earlier, but the exodus into the holy land is what made Jews Jews.
Of course, Passover (or Pesach, as it's called in Hebrew) is ancient, and has not always been celebrated this way. According to Hayyin Schauss in The Jewish Festivals, it started out as a spring holiday that was combined with an unleavened bread holiday. It had its highest level of observance when the second temple stood in Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Romans, when real animal sacrifices were done en masse and people gathered in groups to consume the special meat. Things broke down after the temple was destroyed, but Schauss says that Jews in the Middle Ages, who had many issues to contend with, celebrated Passover much as we do today.
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