Passover has to be my favorite holiday of the year.  Yes, I must admit that by day 5 or 6, I’m really sick of matzah and I am craving chametz, but aside from that, I think the festival of Pesach is fabulous and the Seder is one of the most beloved Jewish customs of all time.  Ask almost anyone who grew up Jewish and they can recount for you some of their fondest (or funniest) memories that took place at a Passover Seder.

First of all, it’s one of the few occasions on the Jewish calendar where the observance of the festival is done almost completely at home.  It is a special thrill for me to enjoy a Jewish holiday around the dining room table with my family, and not have to feel the stress of rushing off to temple to lead services!

Second of all, it celebrates the blessing of freedom, an ideal that rings just a true today as it did in biblical times.  While spring and rebirth and unleavened bread are themes that run all through the haggadah, the true meaning of the holiday is freedom and redemption, and our Seder gives us the opportunity to turn the events of our ancestors into a living experience for us.

But perhaps most importantly, Passover allows us to add our own family rituals into an ancient custom and create Seders that reflect who we are and what is important to us, while still remaining true to the meaning of the holiday.  One could attend a Seder almost anywhere and recognize the four questions, the four cups of wine, the symbols on the Seder plate and the matzah in the middle of the table; and yet one family’s Seder might focus on human rights or animal rights; another might tie the readings in the haggadah to what’s happening on the political scene, either here or in Israel: another might re-enact the story with puppets of props; and still another could focus on women’s issues.  No matter what the style of the Seder, the themes of freedom and redemption are front and center as each family adds to that story with their own personal experiences.

One of my beloved professors, Dr. Eugene Borowitz, wrote:  “The real test of the evening’s festivity, I suggest, lies less in being able to add to its pleasures than in overcoming its difficulties.  What bothers you the most – long Hebrew passages?  Dry political interpolations about true freedom?  Relatives who repeat the same tiresome stories?  Matzah balls that come out too soft or too hard?  People who can’t stay on tune or don’t like your favorite?  They, too, are part of Jewish celebrating.  Consider them, if you can, a challenge to your Jewish spirit and see if on this holiday, you can find a way to sanctify what annoys you.

My model in all this is the great unwritten but perennially observed folk rite of the Seder: knocking over a glass of wine (perhaps breaking a beautiful crystal goblet in the process).  Rarely does a tablecloth go unscathed through a Seder at our house – and we are lucky if our haggadot and clothing escape the miniature deluge.  I have long since given up the possibility that we could make this the Seder’s equivalent of breaking a glass at a wedding; could we, then, work out ways of making it unlikely that wine would ever be spilled?  Probably we could, but why bother?  A little spilling and a stain or two are hardly enough to dampen our joy at not being slaves.  And by now, we have gotten so used to them, that we consider them a part of the festivities.  This, too, helps constitute that wonderful web which Judaism teaches us to weave, in order to integrate the ordinary and the metaphysical.  Not every spill can become a part of our rejoicing; but knowing which ones are worth our seriousness is part of what each Seder and Judaism, as a whole, wish to teach us.  May you celebrate in high, human, holy joy.”

L’shalom,

Cantor Jodi Schechtman