A Seder Planner: How to Customize Your Passover
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A Seder Planner: How to Customize Your Passover PICKING AND CHOOSING — USING BLESSINGS, ACTIVITIES, ART AND READINGS FROM A N IGHT TO R EMEMBE R FIVE TIPS FOR A GREAT SEDER The Seder leader’s dilemma: How can I get through all the classic parts of the Haggadah to satisfy the traditionalists and yet add creative activities to engage the children and interesting discussions and stories to involve the teens and adults? Can that be done and still get to dinner before starvation overtakes everyone? Not easy. But by setting priorities and planning in advance you can build you own balance of these three demanding audiences. 1 Make sure there are extensive appetizers to flesh out the usually meager parsley or potato dipped at Karpas (see NTR, page 12). Preparations Checklist: 2 Identify your household’s essential seder by marking the column of the chart below entitled “Sed- er Elements.” (See the parts marked with a * which many consider the bare basics of a Seder). Getting Together the Props 3 Pick your main audience. If there are younger children, then the first third of the Seder before they Seder Plate go to sleep or to play should offer diet of active participation and many songs. (See below the list of ideas for a child-centered Seder as well as the column of the chart entitled “For Families with Pillows to recline 5 Children.”) for Kiddush 4 Enlist help from your closest allies at the Seder, the ones who will support your experimentation, Extra dips and vegetables 10 for Karpas and with their help pick a few new ideas from the column for “Interested Adults.” Or just ask someone to browse this new Haggadah and stop the Seder to read aloud interesting things. Afikoman bag and prizes 12 5 Survey the strengths of the participants and delegate, even in advance of the Seder if Dress Up clothes 14 possible, a reading or activity. Note who sings well, who reads Hebrew easily, who tells sto- for Passover Skit ries well or play acts, who has psychological insight for the Four Children, who can interpret the art and who can provoke a good discussion. Haroset Taste Test 16 (prepare recipes from all over 101 Don’t change more than 10-15% of the Seder in any one year, but do follow Maimonides’ the world) advice to be creative each year: “to make a change in the routine on this night,” so as to actively engage all the participants in a genuine search for meaning and understanding. Remember the advice of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi who said: “Only the lesson which is enjoyed can be learned well.” BARE BONES BASIC SEDER: HITTING THE HIGHLIGHTS and adding some SIDE DISHES SEDER for for for for ELEMENTS Pre-Schoolers School-Age Teenagers Interested Adults PRE-SEDER Six bags Hide & Go Seek 3 Inspection and Hametz Search 2 hidden in Burn Hametz 4 Introspection 3 illustration 3 Seder Plate Add-Ons 5 * CANDLES 6 Blessing Our A Soul Woman’s Children 6 on the Rise 7 Prayer 7 * FIRST CUP Dip in Volunteers Varied Dips 12 Four Mothers 9 Kiddush 11 Salt Water 12 to Carry Bowl Seder for Dreamers Seder for Dreamers Karpas Dip 12 to Wash at Table 12 in Prison 13 in Prison 13 * YACHATZ 14 Skit 16 Being Poor 15 Haves and Broken World 14 Breaking Matza, What if There is Have Nots 15 Percy’s Poem 18 Hiding the Afikomen, No Bread 15 In Haste Refugees Hiding and Making a Skit from Russia 17 Skit 16 Under Bima 18 Hide Afikomen 14, 105 * HA LACHMA Open Door 20 Service with a Illustration: Needy But Not Poor 21 Bread of Poverty 20 Smile 21 “The Wall of Synagogue Hotel 22 Indifference” 21 What Acts of Jewish Mayflower 22 Hospitality 21 Volunteer Work 21 Four Cups of Milk 23 * FOUR QUESTIONS 24 Sing Throw Candies 25 Identify the How Am I Ma Nishtana 24 Uncle Eli/Dr. Seuss Language 27 Different? 27 Four Questions 26 No Questions, No Class 26 * AVADIM Storytelling Sing “Let My Degradation: We Were Sixties The Story: Ideas 32 People Go” 28 Slave Woman’s Rebels (etc.) 31 “We Were Slaves” 28 Art: Slavery 33, 65 Art 29 Story 30 Bibliodrama 33 Story: “Way Down Hieroglyphic Times Toni Morrison 73 Newspaper 34-35 in Egypt Land” 143 Defining Freedom 73 Daughter’s Dilemma 75 FIVE RABBIS Dream Freedom — Syrian Prison Seder 37 Ethiopian Seder 38 in Bnai Brak ?? liberating a Hunger Strike Seder 39 (see photo & poem 67) Sudanese slave 39 * FOUR CHILDREN Art: Art: Art: Four Daughters 43 Danny Siegel: Read aloud and Animated Israeli Four Children 41 Who are you Special Needs Child 41 compare illustrations Haggadah 47 Art of Four Books 49 calling “wicked”? 45 Art: Marx Brothers 44 42-48 Loose Connections 47 Where did you go? Art: Four Children Out! 49 With Us 53 Parents’ Four Generation Gaps 55 Questions 52 Yehuda Amichai 55 IDOLATRY 56 Art: I Break, Therefore Jewish by Choice 57 Abraham I am a Jew 59 Art: Breaks Idols 57 Why Have You Name Your Changed 58 Addiction? 58 ARAMI Illustrated Stages Being a Stranger 69 Oppression in Symposium 64 of the Exodus 65 Beloved 73 * TEN PLAGUES 78 Song and Art: Art: Missing Plague 79 Pesach Math DAYEINU 82 Frogs on Drops of Wine 78 Riddles 81 Pharaoh’s Head 81 Song and Art: Afghani Onion Frogs on Free-for-All 85 Pharaoh’s Head 81 Afghani Onion Free-for-All 85 * PESACH, MATZA Hold up matza Poem: MAROR 86-88 and maror 88 Matzoh Photo: by Marge Piercy 89 My First Matza 89 * DOR va DOR Art: Time Traveling In Every Generation 90 Camels 91 Jew 91 * HALLELUJAH 92 Art: Sing 94 Miriam’s Cup 97 * SECOND CUP 96 Exodus 93, 95 * EATING Do It Yourself Blessing for Haroset Taste Test 101 Matza, Maror, and a Haggadah 99 Hametz 99 Hillel Sandwich 98, 100 Maror Contest 101 * DINNER 102 * AFIKOMAN 104 Game and Prize 105 Poem: Leonard Cohen 105 BIRKAT HAMAZON After the Guests Blessing After Eating 106 Depart 111 * THIRD CUP 110 * ELIJAH’S CUP 112 Tale: Note to Leader 113 Fill Our Cup Old Man’s Curse 113 of Redemption 112 SONGS Khad Gadya Who Knows One Who Knows One Who Knows One Adir Hu 126 132-135 with 127-130 127-130 127-130 * Who Knows One 127 animal sounds Khad Gadya Khad Gadya Khad Gadya * Khad Gadya 132 132-135 with 132-135 with 132-135 with animal sounds animal sounds animal sounds * NEXT YEAR Art 137 Art of Contemporary Songs of the Soul 138 IN JERUSALEM 136 Song: Jerusalem 137 Reflections on Israel: BaShana HaBa’ah 138 Reflections on Hope: Riding on a Bus 139 Anne Frank 140 Martin Luther King 142 Customized Journeys through A Night to Remember Haggadah A CHILDREN’S SEDER n Eating Matza, Maror n Prepare Night Before Seder Maggid Skit with props Art: Missing Plague 79 and making a Hil- n multiple Seder plates n Search for Hametz 2 16 Refugees give refuge Pharaoh’s Frogs 81 lel Sandwich 98, 100 n Seder placemats Hide and Go Seek 3; 18 n Dayeinu 82-84 Haroset taste test 101; n n Lego pyramids Burn Hametz 4 Ha Lakhma Bread of Afghani Onion Maror-Eating Contest Poverty 20 Opening n illustrated Bible books Seder Night Free-for-All 85 101 Doors 21; Illustration of and movies n Candle Lighting 6 n Pesach, Matza Maror n Eating Passover Dinner Blessing Children 6, Homeless 21; Folktale: 86, 88 101 n props for Exodus skit: Four Cups of Milk 23 dress-up clothes, A Soul on the Rise 7 n B’khol Dor va Dor In n Find, Return, and Eat n Ma Nishtana Four Ques- walking sticks, n Signposts for the Every Generation 90 the Afikoman 104 tions 24 Throw Candies backpacks, and a basin Seder 8 — sing Kadesh (see Dream Freedom Prizes 104-105 25; Uncle Eli/Dr. Seuss 26 of water to represent Urkhatz — liberate a slave today n Drink Third Cup 110 n Avadim “We were Red Sea which children n Drink First Cup: 39) n Pour Elijah’s Cup 112 Slaves” 28 and More will cross Kiddush 10 Bring n Hallel song 94 (see il- Tale: Old Man’s Curse Storytelling 32 Sing n fun dips and cut pillows for everyone; lustration of King David 113; Tale: Mikhel 116 “Let My People Go” 28; vegetables for Karpas use white grape juice to and the Levite Band Hieroglyphic Times n Drink Fourth Cup 122 (examples: strawber- avoid stains — don’t 119) 34-35; “Way Down in n Songs: ries in chocolate dip, or worry about spills n Drink Second Cup 96 Egypt Land” (long story) Ekhad Mi Yodeia ‘Who potato chips) n Handwashing 12 Fill Miriam’s Cup with 143-147 Knows One” 127-131 n Afikoman bags and Ask children to bring water 97 and tell her (See illustrations of the Khad Gadya Just One prizes around pitcher, plastic story 144-145 Exodus: Egyptian 65, Goat 132-135 with basin and towel n Optional: Sing Khad n candies for rewards for 81, 95; Russian 55; and animal sounds n Karpas Dips 12 Gadya good questions Ethiopian 67) n Conclude with “Next Use fun dips! before n green onion stalks for n Four Children 40, 42, Year in Jerusalem” 136 n Yakhatz Breaking dinner Dayeinu 44, 46, 48 Art of Four Matza 14 Break 132- Children — pick an middle matza and hide 135 interesting illustration multiple Afikomans to and explain your choice allow many children to 40-53 succeed in search.