Every year we host, well mostly Ellen to be honest, I just show up, she does all the work. This year is the 20th year we will have done this.
Anyway, every year we host a Passover Seder with anywhere from 15-25 attendees. Ellen has allowed me to adapt the Seder to be something I can understand better (I can read Hebrew very slowly alliteratively but do not understand what I am reading. I learned enough to not embarrass my family when I did my Bar Mitzvah mumble-mumble years ago, but that was about it.
We use a Haggadah called A Different Night which includes Hebrew and English passages from which we select selections. In addition we have a theme each year which reflects something we think is important, as you might expect the theme ties at least loosely to the broad Passover theme of achieving freedom. What I wrote as introduction for this year is:
“As we said last year, tumultuous events have been happening and continue to happen that divide the world, our country, our friends, and even, sometimes, our families. So much of that division results from our disagreements on the use of language, of ideas, and even our interpretation of facts – a more malleable term than most of us have traditionally been used to. Our Exodus narrative assumes we have a common understanding of first principles, when that becomes less true, what then?”
Finally, I wander around the Internet and pull together quotes that relate to all of the above for people to read during the Seder.
I have attached my annual write-up and the quotes we will be using this year.
Seder Notes 2018
2018 Passover Quotes – Part I
2018 Passover Quotes – Part 2
2018 Passover Quotes – Part 3
