Passover 5775

How many cups of wine do you drink at your seder: 4 or 5?

What do you dip the parsley in: saltwater or haroset?

Are the matzahs on a plate or in a basket? Are they round or square, soft or hard?

Do you have hard boiled eggs on your plate, in a soup, or not at all?

Is there an orange on your seder plate?

Do you say "Pour out your wrath who the nations who do not know you?" or "Pour our your love on the nations who know you?"

In one week 90% of North American Jewry will tell ourselves the ancient narrative of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, the root experience of the Jewish people, as the seder says, "In every generation each person is obligated to see himself as though he came out of Egypt."

Keep the children engaged, that is a cardinal rule of the seder. Have fun, that's the solution. Whatever it takes! Be flexible! Each of the customs above was or is practiced in pious Jewish families. I haven't found hard boiled eggs as a meal item in a seder before the middle of the 19th century! Oranges are from the 1990s. In 14th century Europe, some people drank 4 cups and some drank 5 cups. Before the 16th century, karpas was dipped in haroset not salt water. What's the determining factor? What is most meaningful to you? Discuss at the seder table what each ritual means in your life!

The seder narrative begins in Aramaic, the language of the common people, with, "This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate in the Land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat..."

What does that mean to you? Typically I find people answering the question by saying, "We invite the poor into our homes."  But how could that be? If you have invited guests, you're not going to begin the seder by telling them, "You're here because you are poor." And if you haven't invited guests, it's too late to do it now. You've already started the seder. So what does it mean?

What are you doing at that moment? You raise the matzah, the central symbol of Passover, and declare that it's the bread of poverty/affliction (the word anya means both). We begin (At least in my opinion. What's yours?) declaring our intention, that we are going to eat the bread of poverty. The same paragraph concludes the way the entire seder ends, bookending the seder: Next year in Jerusalem! Next year, let everyone be free.  Next year, may the messiah have come to free all people. Next year, may no one eat the bread of affliction and poverty. But now, let's tell the story of how once we were slaves, and now we are free!

But even as we declare that once we were slaves eating poverty's bread, we lean to the left the way free Romans ate their meals in leisure, discussing serious matters  as they supped in splendor. So do we!

Once there was a man who was very poor and dressed in rags. But over time the man became rich, lived in in a large home, and hired servants. The man had his servants store away his rags. Each year the man instructed his servants to bring out the rags for one day. He'd dress in them, and live as he had when he was very poor.

The servants asked, "Master, you can afford whatever you want. Why would you live the life of a beggar." The man said, "Because I never want to forget from where I came."

This is the story of the Jewish people: May we always remember, always recount, always relearn and experience, the lessons of the encounter with God that made us a people.

L'shanah ha-ba'ah b'Yerushalayim!