If you stand in Marrakesh and go due west, just before your toes dip into the Atlantic, you'll find Essaouira. Such magical, musical names. Such beautiful cities. Essaouira is blue like the sea, and its shops overflow with exotically colored spices. Marrakesh is pink like the desert at dawn. It has fakirs and snake charmers and acres of alleys within the walls of the old city. Outside the walls is a bustling town with tons of antique shops.

That's where I tripped on the seder plate.

We were browsing -- staring, really -- at the tiny engraved Koran holders, and the daggers, and camel saddles, and tent hangings, and fabulous amber necklaces and bracelets. And sterling silver Torah pointers, and breastplates, and ties. And kiddush cups and spice boxes, all filigreed and polished. I was so busy looking at what was on the walls and in the cases that I never noticed the pile of platters on the floor. Until I tripped and tumbled over them. And once I was on the floor, I could see that the one on the bottom, the biggest one, was different.

It had Hebrew letters around the edge. We dug it out and saw more words, larger ones, toward the center. Maror, haroset, matza. It was, we realized, a silver-colored, metal seder plate for Passover. Almost 30" across. But who needed such a large one? Where had it come from? And what happened to the Jews who used it?

We started asking questions, and here's what we learned.

Jews have been in Morocco for centuries, since before the expulsion from Spain in 1492. As valued members of the merchant class, they led a good life. No ghettos. No persecution. No citizenship either. But they were very comfortable.

The ports of Morocco were famous for shipping sugar cane, cotton, spices, and dyes to Europe. And the Jews were central to the trade economy.

In the late 1600s the sultan had a problem, something to do with taxes, in one port city, Agadir. So he summarily shut the port, and moved the Jews -- and therefore the commerce -- a few miles up the coast to Essaouira.

The town prospered, and so did the Jewish community. They built schools, shuls, and bought land for cemeteries. And they took care of their poor.

Morocco is a communal society. Few traditional homes have ovens as we know them. Every town or neighborhood has a communal oven. Each morning the women bring dough marked with the family icon to the baker, and each afternoon they pick up the round, brown, aromatic loaves they use for the evening meal.

So that's why the seder plate was so big -- because it was used for a community that made a place for all who were hungry.

What happened to the community? As the shipping business fell, so did its fortunes. But it stayed proud and maintained its institutions. Isaac Disraeli, whose son Benjamin became prime minister of England, came from Essaouira. The majority of the community left in the 1950s once they could move to Israel. However, they still send money back, to maintain the shuls and the cemeteries. There are no students, so the schools have closed. And many of the items that were lovingly used for generations are now in antique shops in Marrakech.

Of course we brought the seder plate home. Getting it through security was funny. No one really understood what we were carrying, or why. But the words ritual and slavery and freedom seemed to resonate. Then the airplane stewards said it wouldn't fit into the overhead compartment. Of course it did. Perfectly.

Now each year during Passover, surrounded by our own community of family and friends, we tell the story -- re-tell it actually -- of the seder plate that tripped us. Of a time and place where our people lived the words, "Let all who are hungry come and eat."

Then we read the Hagaddah to learn why.