From Slavery to Freedom
Making the Passover story meaningful in 2023, in Huntington Woods, Michigan.
A few days ago, I hosted two Seders to kick off Passover 2023. The word “seder” means order, and it is the organization of the Exodus story that Jews are obligated to retell each year on this holiday.
After spending a decade in the Orthodox world, where Seders often lasted until 2 a.m., and I always felt left out for not knowing all the Hebrew or the tunes to songs, I vowed to make Passover fun, meaningful, engaging and welcoming. This year, I think I hit it!
Two of my kids proclaimed that it was the most fun they’ve ever had at a Seder - which made it worth all the effort. I researched ways to make the Exodus story meaningful and resonant for modern times. When we discussed the theme of Justice, I included mention of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and the 13 weeks of organized protests against judicial reform in Israel and the American journalist imprisoned in Russia, which his parents fled so they could freely practice their Jewish faith.
We discussed how many slaves we own today (you’d be surprised - check slaveryfootprint.org) and the existential enslavement we all endure to money, technology, and more. And we discussed modern plagues - COVID, yes, but also antisemitism, racism, sexism, ageism and so much more.
A good story entrances the reader. Takes them along on a journey. Makes them think. Maybe even changes them.
This year was the first time that I asserted, after copious amounts of research, that the ancient rabbis who invented the Passover Seder never intended for generations upon generations of Jews to read the Haggadah word-for-word as a script. But that’s what we’ve always done. Word. For Word.
So this year, I used it as a guide to spark debates and deep conversations. To ask people what from their professions or life experiences touches on the themes of the holiday - slavery, freedom, redemption, rebellion, peoplehood, identity, exodus, community.
We Are the Stories We Tell
The best stories change us for the better. Make us see things differently. Can you think of a story that’s done that for you?
Click here to tell me about it!
And, when a story is immersive or interactive, we become part of the tradition. This year, I created a charoset bar, which was a fun way to engage the participants on the first night. I chopped up dried and fresh fruits and nuts, put out juices and spices, and gave everyone a little dish to mix their own concoction to represent the mortar used when the enslaved Israelites were forced to work in ancient Egypt.
Mine featured macadamia nuts, dried pineapple, pear, coconut flakes, passionfruit juice and cardamom. Delish!!
Good Stories Take You on a Journey
I’ve spent enough of my years being religious to know that proclaiming religiosity is not the same thing as finding meaning in tradition. That’s why I left orthodoxy and chose to be “just Jewish.” To embrace my ancestry and the generations before me and find meaning in the rituals and recipes and traditions.
We know who we are by the stories we tell. And the stories we run from.
Love, Lynne
I love this, Lila! You’re so right about Chad Gadya - I never looked at it that way! May I share your comment in an upcoming newsletter?
I've been thinking alot about Passover in recent years. What does it mean to be free? I think that for me, freedom means freedom from abusive and codependent relationships. It means freedom from a painful past.
I've been re-examining "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, which I started working on at your retreat, and I watched the movie. I think of how Sethe carried the inherited trauma of slavery, her own trauma, and then her own choice to kill her child, and how at the end, she is delivered and set free from the demon of false guilt that haunts her. African Americans used to use the Exodus narrative to describe their own escape from slavery.
I like the song Chad Gadya, because it reminds me of the ways in which life is like one thing after another. One bad relationship takes the place of another, one addiction will replace another, until you find yourself at the feet of the Holy One of Israel, begging for mercy. The song is supposed to represent how Israel is tossed to and fro amongst the nations. One world superpower subsumes and other and then another, until God comes back and puts an end to it all. It can be a metaphor for our own lives.