Some events in the past few weeks reminded me of a story from years ago. In Huffington Post religion, I discuss the relative merits of ignoring unreasonable voices, and of calling them out.

A number of years ago, a prominent member of congress, a Christian, was a guest at our seder. Though he was a friend, we had assumed that he would never make it past dessert, if that long. Over the years, plenty of Jews had politely excused themselves as the afikomen was being passed around just before midnight, gently shaking their heads while a bunch of still wide awake kids continued to sing out loud and strong in way-past-everybody's-bedtime territory.

But our politician friend surprised us. He energetically participated in the discussion, and he was still standing as we began to clear the tables around 1am. He nearly begged to help with the cleaning, but we thought the kashrut issues too difficult to explain to a novice in the middle of the night, after all that wine. Still, he insisted.

"At least let me load the dishwasher."