Our Annual Passover Seder

For a number of years now we have a Passover Seder at our house on the first night of Passover.

We have between 15 and 25 people (I recognize that is a bit of a range) including family, friends, guests from various sources, Jews and non-Jews.

Each year we try and focus on a few themes to focus the more general topic of the Exodus and its implications to us today.

The following is what we are sending out to the participants this year. In addition to the readings we do, we put quotes that at least loosely tie to the themes we are focusing on, on 3 x 5 cards. During the course of the Seder we ask participants to read the quotes and comment on them. Tomorrow, if I remember, I’ll post the quotes we are using.

We welcome all of our guests to share the first Seder this year at our house, Monday evening, April 18; the 15^th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar. Passover occurs at the full moon of Nisan, which is the first month of the Hebrew calendar.

In the simplest sense, Passover celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt after 400 years of slavery to freedom under the leadership of Moses; or as many people know it, when Charlton Heston led Edward G. Robinson away from Yul Brynner.

But in reality, this story and its associated traditions, perhaps the most accessible of all Jewish celebrations, is much richer and more complex. What did freedom mean to the Jews who left Egypt, to the Jews who edited and finalized the wording of the Bible, or to us as we sit here today in one of the most free societies that ever existed.

For those less familiar with the traditions of the Seder and for those new to its celebration in our house, we thought it would be useful to provide a brief summary of what we typically do, and how we have made some minor adjustments due to the special nature of having so many participants of varying ages.

We are commanded to tell the story of the Exodus as if we were there to experience it. We do so during the Seder, which in Hebrew means ‘order’, that is the sequence we tell the story. We use an Haggadah, which in Hebrew means ‘telling’, to provide guidance. At the beginning of the evening, we will explain the steps we will follow.

Each year, we decide on a specific theme associated with the main story of Passover. In the past this has ranged from looking at the role of women in the story to the meaning of freedom itself. This year, we touch on a number of themes, focusing on today’s events to drive the discussion.

What relevant meaning can we derive from the events in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and other places in the geographic homeland of the original Exodus?

In an age of globalization, in a country undergoing significant demographic change, can we learn lessons from how Jews were treated as strangers in a strange land? Throughout the Torah there are numerous commandments about the treatment of strangers in our midst. In a world of political and economic upheaval where globalization and the challenges of refugees are always present, what is our responsibility to the “other”?

And in a time when many people are turning to one might refer to as more traditional forms of religious behavior, what does this mean to what is sometimes referred to as the cultural ‘canary in a coal mine’, the treatment of women in society.