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The Four Children were dressed in Gospel, shared their space in the Haggadah with Bob Marley and got zapped with a Zen twist Monday night at a San Francisco Freedom Seder.

After the Glide Memorial Church Choir had shouted out the last chorus of "God Is," Rabbi Alan Lew took the microphone at San Francisco's Congregation Beth Sholom and explained the significance of each child's role during the seder.

A crowd of more than 150 — mostly African-American, Jewish or both — heard Lew say that in many Jewish traditions, the "Wise Child" of the Haggadah wasn't always the most revered.

"Let's not forget about the Rebellious Child, because it's always good to ask questions," said Lew. "And let's also remember the Fourth Child, who is experiencing some existential realities and is so blissed out that she can't even speak."

Calling on his "partner in crime" to join him, Lew handed the microphone over to the Rev. Douglas Fitch of San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church.

"Reading this Haggadah is turning me on already," the pastor said, tapping his foot and sipping the first ceremonial cup of wine. "And I hope it is for the rest of you as well.

"The thing to remember," Fitch continued, placing his hand on Lew's shoulder, "is that you and I, and the rest of the people in here, are not the people I'm concerned about.

"The people I'm most concerned about are the children — children so full of anger and hate that they walk around with fire in their loins. They are the ones we need to be concerned with because they are the product of an aggregate hatred that wreaks havoc in our communities."

There were few children present at the fourth annual seder, which was sponsored by the Isaiah Project under the auspices of the Jewish Community Relations Council. However, they were often referred to in the figurative sense.

In between taking his first-ever bite of gefilte fish ("It tastes a lot better than it looks"), Glide choir member Dignan Banes noted that there were commonalties among all of "God's children."

"Too often we try salve our pain with a quick fix," Banes said. "I think that as a country, we're addicted to the whole notion that pleasure is the real deal — and the only deal.

"There's pleasure is taking part in something like this," he added, "but the joy is the lasting memories and remembrances that we take from this."

As Lew led the crowd through a recital of the 10 plagues (in both English and Hebrew), followed by the Glide choir's rendition of "Go Down, Moses," Rachel Weinstein touched on some of the evening's themes.

Asked if eating matzah ball soup was a facile way to build bridges, Weinstein, the Isaiah Project's coordinator, quickly took exception.

"I think that laughing at each other's faces when we eat the maror [bitter herbs] is a part of expanding relationships," said Weinstein. "Part of building bridges is seeing how we eat, how we pray and how we live.

"The other part is putting that learning into action," she added, noting that those attending the seder were urged to support state Senate Bill 1389, which bans racial profiling by the police.

Mutual lessons were very much on the mind of filmmaker Mukulla Godwin, who recently produced a documentary called "The Jewel in History — the Story of Homer G. Phillips Hospital for Colored."

The hospital — where Fitch, coincidentally, was born — served the black community in St. Louis and beyond for more than 40 year. In the film, Godwin interviews several African-American doctors from the facility. Some of them talk about the help they received from Jewish doctors during their tenure.

"Disease has no color line, and I think the cooperation between black doctors and Jewish doctors shows how much history we've shared together," Godwin said.

"There is another very valuable lesson for us in the experiences of our Jewish brothers and sisters," she added. "The black community, with all the adversity and negativity we face every day, must wake up and take control of our destiny.

"Because if we don't, we might face a Holocaust of our own."