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Seder Second Thoughts
Have you ever eaten spelt?
Yes, says Michael Weiss: "We have
spelt several times a week, spelt pita or spelt pasta; on behalf of
all spelt lovers, I demand a formal retraction and apology."
To all spelt lovers, we hereby retract any wisecracks we may
have made about spelt and apologize for any disrespect we may have
shown to this venerable grain.
You can get your spelt matzah from Brauner's Kosher Bakery in
Brooklyn, 1-888-NYSPELT.
The new Hagadah (the yellow one) is missing an important
bit, the berachah for the third cup of wine; it should be on page 65. We
apologize for the inconvenience, and we sent a corrected page 65 to
everyone whose address we had on file. You can also download the
correction here. This is a PDF file; when you print it, you may have to
click "fit to page." Click
here if you need Adobe Acrobat Reader.
To seat people comfortably at a table, it's ideal if you can
allow 24 to
30 inches from side to side, and 30 inches from the edge of the table back
to the wall. If you're using round tables, the ideal is to have eight people at a five-foot-diameter table, 10
people at a six-foot-diameter table.
Of course, you don't have that much room, so how many can you
squeeze in? You can give them as little as 18 inches from side to side (if your chairs are that narrow)--even
15 inches. Benches let you squeeze in more people. If you use a
round table (or a table with rounded ends), you can squeeze more people
in, because you can let them keep their chairs back a few inches and then
they only need room for their knees, not the whole width of their hips.
When singing "Dayenu," I always thought it best to
sing the chorus in Hebrew. It's hard to find an English word that conveys
the meanings of the word "Dayenu" (enough for us): we would have
been grateful for all God did for us; but without more help, we'd have
been stranded!
Dan Mosenkis suggested I give it another try, so here it is. You
can sing this to the same tune as the Hebrew:
You'd have thrilled us,
You'd have killed us,
Thrilled and killed us,
Had you done no more!
Pesach 2001 (5761) began on Saturday night.
When the first Seder is on Saturday night, we have a problem. We
need chametz for challah on
Friday night, but we can't burn it on Saturday. We don't want to use
matzah on Friday night, so close to the Seder.
The simple answer is this: on Friday, confine all chametz to
one table. Enjoy the farewell challah on Friday night; don't leave any
crumbs. Flush any remaining challah down the toilet--you can't burn it on
Shabbat.
As for Shabbat "lunch," eat it early, before "hafsakah,"
the time when you should no longer eat chametz.
You can also use egg matzah for these meals--kosher for
Pesach, but not pure enough to qualify for the mitzvah of
eating matzah at the Seder.
Got another idea? Email me!
If you're planning on psychodrama to liven up your Seder,
here are some of the characters you might use. Imagine inviting all these
people to your table, with their differing points of view. We gave each
person a card with a character and some background and invited them
to play their parts for the telling, after Kiddush and the Four
Questions:
- The Four Children--interested, blase, confused, too young to ask.
- The Fifth Child--the one who chose not to come to the family
gathering.
- The Rabbis Who Discussed the Story All Night--leaders whom the
authorities suspect of fomenting revolution. Are we preparing to
recapture our freedom on this night?
- Their Pupils--on the lookout for the authorities, or perhaps
impatient for revolutionary action.
- Abraham--what does the First Jew think of this ceremony? God told
him about our forthcoming slavery.
- Jacob and Laban--Jacob ran away from his brother with nothing but a
walking stick, but then fathered the Jewish people.
- Laban gave Jacob work, gave him girls to marry--and gave him a hard time.
- The landowner who brings a harvest to the Priest and recites
Deuteronomy 26:5 ff.--a successful person trying to recapture the
feeling of liberation. Aren't we all in this position?
- The Rabbis who discuss the number of plagues--are they joking? (Is
there a jokester at your Seder?)
- Rabbi Gamliel; "Shut up, everybody," he says when the
Seder discussion gets too far off track, "Let's talk about what's
important on this night!"
- The Psalmist who gave us the Hallel psalms, sustained by complete
faith in God's goodness and mercy.
- The Anti-Semite, convinced of the truth of the worst
anti-Jewish fantasies, the Blood Libel and the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion.
- Aaron's Rod, without which Moses couldn't do any miracles.
- A Thanksgiving Turkey, who came to show solidarity with all
sacrificial victims, especially little lambs.
- The Seder Table, full of symbols.
- Pharaoh. He lost. How does he feel now?
Go through the book and find more characters. You can assign one to
each person who will attend your Seder. Let them speak in character,
representing the character's interests and concerns, and you're bound to have
a lively time.
Okay, how are you going to get that Maror really bitter? Get a
fresh root, wash off the mud, and when it's time to eat maror give
each person a slice, like a thin slice of cucumber. Don't slice it
in advance, or time will soften the bitterness. If you had seen our
Hot Sauce Champ coughing, weeping and clawing at the wall for relief
from a fresh slice of horseradish root, you'd know this is the only
way to serve it to full effect.
Don't be fooled by any other advice. This is the only
way.
Many people add a Miriam's Cup to the Seder table to honor the
position of women in our redemption. The cup is filled with water to
recall the tradition that the Hebrews never lacked water in the
desert while Miriam was alive; a well followed her around. For some
people, this tradition is--um--hard to swallow.
As an alternative, you might place two stones on the table to
recall the Birthing Stones of Exodus 1:16. Pharaoh told the midwives
to kill the sons at birth but let the daughters live. The birthing
stones recall the midwives' defiance of Pharaoh's order.
Many people add an orange to the Seder plate to honor women. A
story goes that Susanna Heschel was making the rounds of different
congregations talking about the position of women in Jewish life. As
she spoke from the bimah at one congregation in Florida, a
traditional man yelled out, "A woman belongs on the bimah like
an orange on the Seder plate."
According to Brian Mono, writing in the March 21, 2002
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, the story is wrong! In fact, he
says, a group of feminists at Oberlin heard a comparison between
lesbianism and eating bread at Pesach; to make a truly inclusive
Seder, they included a crust of bread on their Seder plate. Susannah
Heschel suggested replacing the bread with an orange--everyone could
eat the orange and spit out the seeds as if spitting out bigotry.
You'll find the story on page 24.
Is it not instructive that stories so recent can be shrouded
in uncertainty? |
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