ÁÅÒÉt Ï√u ‰@êbʼn “The real question is not why do we keep Passover but how do we continue to keep Passover year after year and keep it from becoming stultified! How can we be privileged to plan it so that, as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook said, ‘The old may become new and the new may become holy.’” Leader’s Guide for IRA STEINGROOT A DIFFERENT NIGHT “One must make changes on By Noam Zion and David Dishon this night, so the children will notice and ask: ‘Why is this night different?’” MAIMONIDES “Only the lesson which is enjoyed can be learned well.” THE SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE JUDAH HANASI JERUSALEM, ISRAEL Library of Congress Catalog 96-71600 American Friends of the Shalom Hartman Institute © Noam Zion and David Dishon 282 Grand Avenue, Suite 3, Englewood, NJ 07631 Published in the U.S.A. 1997 Fax: 201-894-0377 P.O. Box 8029, Jerusalem, Israel 93113 E-Mail: [email protected] 2CONTENTS a Table of Contents I.INTRODUCTIONS FOR THE II. SEDER SUPPLEMENTS LEADER OF THE SEDER Chapter 6 Chapter 1 The Four Questions in Depth: A Guide for the Perplexed: Ma Nishtana . 24 Clarifying the Roles • Maimonides: How to Activate Spontaneous Questions of the Leader of the Seder • Four Ideas to Stimulate Questioning by Noam Zion. 4 • In the Vernacular: Chapter 2 Ma Nishtana Translated in Many Languages The “Jazz” Haggadah . 8 • Interrogating a Famous Text: Questions and Answers about Ma Nishtana Chapter 3 • Quotations to Encourage a Questioning Mind Preparing for Seder Night: A Practical Manual . 9 Chapter 7 Chapter 4 Storytelling — Maggid . 30 Young Children at the Seder: • Roleplaying at the Seder: Age Appropriate Activities . 16 Experiencing the Exodus by Aliza Arzt Chapter 5 • Bibliodrama Short Cuts Through the Haggadah: by Peter Pitzele How to Pick and Choose . 20 • Chronicles: The Newspaper of the Exodus by Israel Eldad • The Inner Journey from Slavery to Liberation: Egypt and Exodus as Metaphors for Personal Growth by Joel Ziff CONTENTS 3 III. BACKGROUND ESSAYS Chapter 8 Chapter 12 Recalling Great Seders and On Passover and Family Education Great Exoduses of the Past . 47 by the Jewish philosopher David Hartman . 68 • The First Passover in Eretz Yisrael: • The Art of Storytelling Joshua at the Hill of Foreskins • The Covenant of Common Destiny: • Marranos Observe Passover in Spain and Portugal Leap of Solidarity (after 1492) • The God of Surprise: Next Year in Jerusalem • The “Seder” of Righteous Gentiles: • On Family Education: The Netherlands (1945) Memory and Values • Our First Seders in Israel: Soviet Jews (1990) Chapter 13 • The Exodus from Ethiopia (1991) Exploring Exodus by Micha Odenheimer by the Biblical scholar Nahum Sarna . 78 • The Legendary Seder in Katmandu (1991) Chapter 14 by Joel Zack Exodus and Revolution • My Parents’ Personal Passover Ritual (U.S.A.) by the political philosopher Michael Walzer . 83 by Danny Siegel Chapter 15 Chapter 9 “Here Am I” — A Personal Midrash The Four Children . 55 on Moses’ Search for Identity • Examining a Midrash: by Julius Lester . 87 The Biblical and the Rabbinic Four Children Chapter 16 • A Multigenerational Symposium on the Four Types of Children Moses and Herzl by David Golinkin . 91 Chapter 10 A Symposium about Slavery and Freedom: Permissions and Notes . 96 An Anthology of Quotations. 63 Chapter 11 Elijah’s Cup: A Time for Vengeance or for Reconciliation? . 66 4CHAPTER 1THE LEADER’S ROLE 1 PART I INSTRUCTIONS for the LEADER a Chapter 1 A Guide for the Perplexed: Clarifying the Roles of the Leader of the Seder I by Noam Zion he leaders of the seder often face contradictory demands often struggle among themselves to shorten the score in the Tfrom the heterogeneous “audience” at the table, on one middle of the performance. hand, and from the Jewish tradition embodied in the Yet everyone seems to have such high expectations of the Haggadah, on the other hand. Personally I feel like the conduc- seder. It is no surprise that I feel inadequate to the task at hand. tor of a symphony orchestra with a complex operatic score to After all, I am no rabbi. Yet my grandparents and all of Jewish perform. The Haggadah jumps from one movement to the next tradition peer over my shoulder insisting I carry on the torch, with very disjointed transitions. The audience is made up of a doing it all as it has been done for generations and engaging the diverse group: some dislike classical Jewish “music” altogether next generation to boot. and many cannot read the Hebrew libretto. Others remember What is the leader’s role at the seder? By what criteria the masterly performance of a beloved grandparent, against must you judge the evening successful? How do you which they measure my poor imitation and condemn my every concentrate on the main goal and avoid getting distracted by the innovation as an unforgiveable deviation. Non-Jewish guests details? Rabbinic tradition offers three models for the seder and young children are totally unacquainted with the leader: “program.” The age range produces differing attention spans and (1) the priest/rabbi who is the Master of Ceremonies many unscheduled intermissions. As for the hungry, and not-so- (2) the host of a symposium who is a Talk-Show Moderator silent majority of the audience, they sometimes prefer to end the “concert” after the first overture rather than demanding encores. (3) the parent educator who is a Skilled Storyteller The guests at the seder are, in fact, meant to be the musicians, yet they are often reluctant to participate in the concert. They CHAPTER 1THE LEADER’S ROLE 5 (1) The Priestly Seder: (2) The Symposium: Maintaining the Traditional Protocol A Lively, Thoughtful Discussion The final poem of the seder (o˙ÄÎÖÏщÖk Á¡ÒÉt ¯ecÑÒ Ï¡ÒáÁ) declares: The Rabbis envisioned an additional role for the leader of the “We have concluded the seder performed according to all the stan- seder very different from the religious legalist. They sought a 1 dards of Jewish law.” It reflects the satisfaction of priestly/ gracious and sophisticated host of a symposium. The meal, for rabbinic leaders who have completed all the steps of the seder on Greek upper classes and for Rabbinic scholars alike, was a place time without skipping anything. They fulfilled their duties not for intellectual discussion — serious and light at once. only to religious law but to the age-old tradition of their While reclining on couches (living room in Greek is grandparents. It was “done right,” with the same conscientious- tri-clinium — three beds or couches), sipping wine (“symposium” ness with which the priests once conducted the Pesach sacrifice means “drinking together”), and dipping vegetables in appetiz- in the Temple. Even though the age of sacrifices is over, the ing sauces, the host would propose a topic for discussion such as Rabbis codified the “seder” — which means “the order of rites” — the nature of love (as in Plato’s Symposium) or the origins of the to allow lay persons to transform their homes into miniature holiday being celebrated. Later the celebrants would sing songs Temples. After a religiously meticulous purification of the house to praise the Divine. The qualities demanded of the leader from chametz, the leaders become the stand-in for the priest at remind us of a top-notch talk-show moderator: this home service. Since Pesach is the covenant renewal The leader of the symposium “took pride in gathering about ceremony of the Jewish people, the punishment for a Seder him many persons of culture and entertaining them with improperly performed is figuratively karet — to be cut off from conversation . now proposing topics worthy of enquiry, now one’s people. disclosing solutions of his own; for he never put his questions In the twentieth century, rabbis are often hired to serve without previous study or in a haphazard way, but with the utmost critical, even Socratic acumen, so that all admired the priestly roles in synagogue rites, but on Pesach the home is the keen observation showed by his question.” synagogue and each parent must become the master of (ATHENAEUS, DEIPNOSOPHISTS, 2ND C. GREECE) Jewish ceremonies. Even if we are lax on kashrut or holiday observance generally, Pesach is not to be taken lightly. It cannot “Questions should be easy, the problems plain and familiar, not intricate and dark, so that they may neither vex the unlearned be just a social get-together. The table must become a kind of nor frighten them from speaking up . the discourse should be altar, and the atmosphere must be more formal, more sanctified. like our wine, common to all, of which everyone may equally However, choosing the priestly/rabbinic role often means partake.” fighting a rear guard action against all those who want to “get to “A symposium is a communion of serious and mirthful the food already.” Many leaders think that the seder requires entertainment, discourse and symbolic actions . (It furthers) them to read all the Hebrew even if incomprehensible. Under a deeper insight into the points debated at the table. For the time pressure, the priest-in-us may squelch adult discussions and memory of the pleasures arising from the food is shortlived . postpone the need to dramatize the story for the children. In but the subjects of philosophical queries and discussions the name of the demands of tradition, innovations may seem remain always fresh after they have been imparted.” threatening. The priestly leader may feel that without faithfully (PLUTARCH, QUAESTIONES, 2ND C. GREECE AND ROME) sticking to the order, the family seder will disintegrate and with The Rabbis, like the Greeks, loved to delve into the classics it perhaps the family cohesiveness.