Confessions Of A Reluctant Seder Leader
What if I skip the next few paragraphs? Would anyone notice? If they do, would they mind, or be glad?
These are the questions that can often cross your mind when you lead a seder, as I’ve found myself doing for the past 20 years or so. It’s not a role I’ve ever sought out, and I’d much rather share the responsibility with others, but it seems to fall on me by default.
Like many other long rituals, it requires fortitude and commitment, which can be difficult for those who bore easily, lack faith or just don’t, perhaps for reasons not of their own choice, have a long attention span.
I’m squarely in that last category, and will readily confess to taking short cuts around most prayer rituals, although I am far more devoted as an adult than I was as a restless child and teenager.
Two of the toughest rituals are the Purim megilla and the Passover seder, not least because they are lengthy liturgies poised between spiritual and physical fulfillment — namely, eating. Strict observance of Purim requires fasting on Taanis Esther all the way through the megillah reading, with all its numerous interruptions to blot out Haman’s name.
Likewise, fulfilling the full mitzvah of the seder means a long liturgical reading both before and after the meal. While there’s nothing wrong with an Erev Pesach snack before the seder, the reading is often done with delicious food on the table or beckoning from the kitchen via aroma, posing a willpower test, and leading to the infamous joke that the Fifth Question is “When Do We Eat?”
I’ve never been good with willpower, but for reasons I can’t fully explain, I’ve been a seder stickler for the 20-odd years I’ve been conducting them. While it’s often tempting to skip a paragraph or two and wonder who, if anyone, would notice, I’ve never willingly omitted a word of the Haggadah.
I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home with no religious relatives outside my immediate family, and so I vividly recall the annoyance that can creep into the room somewhere between “Ha Lachma Anya” and the eating of the korech, or bitter herb sandwich, which I always look at as the first real appetizer of the meal. It gets even worse after the meal, when people need a real incentive to stay at the table, especially when the grogginess of three and four cups of wine kicks in.
As a kid, the seder was led by the fastest Hebrew-reader in the family, my older brother, who tried valiantly to balance the need to keep things moving with the encouraged commentaries and discussions, despite protestations from the guests. For most secular Jews, the simple gathering at a seder table and the consumption of matza for at least one or two nights fulfills the observance of Passover. No need for lengthy passages no one understands.
Although my public-school educated, but devoutly religious father could not read much of the Haggadah in Hebrew, I vividly remember his passion for it in his English recitation, especially the part in which he spoke in God’s voice: “And I will smite all the firstborn, I myself, not a seraph;. And against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments, I myself, not a messenger!”
As he aged my father would often nod off during the post-meal portion as general fatigue mixed with wine-drenched drowsiness set in. But never once did he utter the words “hurry up” or suggest skipping anything.
It is probably that memory more than any other, even the protestations of relatives at having to eat late and their departure soon after dessert, that affected my view of the seder.
In the early years of my marriage my wife and I would host both sets of parents at our home, or take the mercifully short walk from one of their homes to the other to split the seders, and share the experience together, and I inevitably ended up leading by default. I don’t remember the last time my brother and I had the opportunity to have a seder together. Often we alternated nights at our parents so they wouldn’t be alone either night.
In his absence I became de facto fastest Hebrew reader, and always took the responsibility seriously. While I might be lenient davening for myself, how could I take a shortcut in the name of others? As any seder leader knows, some parts get more participation than others. “Dayenu” rocks. Hallel can be a drag. “Ki L’Olam Chasdo” draws blank stares. “Chad Gadya” is always a hit, and a suitable finale number. Like a director or ringleader, the challenge to the seder leader is to keep the audience engaged during the lags in the action.
For the past four years my immediate family and I have spent Passover in a large hotel setting, without our parents, surrounded mostly by strangers and by a few repeat guests who have become friends. It saddens me to be without the family elders at this transgeneration-oriented ritual, but I have been outvoted.
Three years ago was my most meaningful seder ever, seated with a group of Russian-born, yeshiva educated day camp counselors at the hotel who had a joyous passion for the seder that was nothing short of inspirational. To someone who spent his youth marching for the freedom of Soviet Jews every Solidarity Sunday outside the UN, it was like harvesting the fruits of my efforts and all those thousands of others who tore a gaping hole in the Iron Curtain. For the first time in years I didn’t feel the need to lead or be in control to make sure nothing was left out. The seder was in very good hands.
Two years ago, my wife and I and our three kids were seated alone, for the first Passover ever. The lack of company seemed unnatural, but it gave us the new experience of focusing only on each other, and for my wife and I, a chance to collect the dividends of our yeshiva tuition dollars.
This year, a larger table, again shared with teenage counselors, this time several of them born in Iran – another inspiring celebration of redemption and freedom and of a commitment to heritage that endured difficult circumstances.
Again, in my role as de facto and somewhat reluctant seder leader, I soldiered on from the more difficult passages, struggling to be heard over the din of a busy ballroom, trying to rush to the fun parts, and to get to the meal quickly for the kids’ sake. (Why is there no allusion to the Fifth Son, the one who is too cranky to ask?)
But even with my tired voice cracking and the effects of wine and too much food making it difficult to keep my eyes on the page, I recited every word until Chad Gadya.
Just because my father couldn’t be with me, doesn’t mean he couldn’t have a place at the table.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:50 am
I found your comments fascinating, and the descriptionof your seders depressing. The seders of my childhood followed the traditional text and omitted none of it, even as we plowed through Grace after meals, Hallel and Nishmas all in English, quite boringly. My cousins were not interestedin much of it, and most regard it as an unpleasant ordeal.
At our sedorim feature almost everybody joins in singing all of Hallel, Bircas HaMazon and the other songs, plus a couple in English (including the Morror song, which I wrote). We have lively discussions on various parts of the Haggaddah, and somebody always tells us what it was like for him or her when we came out of Egypt. But we seldom multiply the plagues, and Nishmas gets delayed until Shachris. And as for the relatives who prefer something much shorter, we invite them for Friday night or 7th or 8th night, or even Sunday brunch, when we can enjoy Pesachdik foods, have just a bit of ritual and converse about anything at all.
This year we were invited to our son for 2nd Seder; it was wonderful. The discussion about morror was more profound than any I’ve heard before. We went from 7:30 until 1, but still didn’t have time for Nishmas. (And the only adult who fell asleep was one of the guests who happens to be a rabbi.)
May 5th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
As a parent who is finally in the closing few years of his career paying day school tuitions, I can empathize with those who still have many years left on this journey. I certainly agree that the day schools cannot be faulted for the tuition situation; nobody is getting rich on the tuitions and most schools have significantly reduced many programs and services.
I’m not sure when day schools were affordable to all, or whether they ever were. But it became clear in the last half of the 20th century that in the modern Ashkenazi Orthodox world, day school education moved from being an option to becoming accepted as mandatory for its children [Among non-Orthodox, who generally did not sponsor the day schools, it depended on the particular community].
The one area in which day schools have had mixed results is that of education in which the outlook of the school provides a unified vision (if not an integrated curriculum) of what the educated Jew knows, believes and feels. And yet, with mixed results, that is truly the only outcome that advocates for a day school approach; arguably, education in which “Jewish studies” take place for half the day and “General studies” the other half is no better than public school by day and Hebrew school in the afternoon.
There are a few challenges standing in the way of what was suggested in the blog piece. First, the modern Orthodox community would need to support public education. Currently, some Orthodox communities landed in places in which the public schools were less than excellent. That would no longer be acceptable. Secondly, a system of afternoon education would need to be developed, at a time at which the entire system of congregational / supplementary education is begin reexamined. Thirdly, some of the socialization opportunities for Orthodox children, which have become part of many day schools’ operation, would need to be reinvented outside the day school structure.
This is a time that calls for experimentation. Day schools thus far are still strong and are likely to continue to be strong. But it may no longer be possible for it to remain as the only available option.