Ever been to a Seder with no brisket that ends at 2 am? Twice in a row? I’m over at Mishegas of Motherhood today, blogging about just that. Check out what’s different and what’s the same no matter who you are.
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Ever been to a Seder with no brisket that ends at 2 am? Twice in a row? I’m over at Mishegas of Motherhood today, blogging about just that. Check out what’s different and what’s the same no matter who you are.
Just want to point out to your readers that many observant people do eat red meat at the seder, as long as it is cooked in liquid (unlike the Pesach sacrifice) and not roasted.
Also, I find there is a lot of friendly bragging about whose seder ends latest, and I hate it. I realize for an observant family the hours of divrei Torah and songs are incredibly meaningful, but many of these families have babies and little kids, and it is so hard on the parents and nursing mothers who have to get up with the infants and little ones very early the next morning. It's also hard on elderly people, even if they napped earlier in the day. If my seder shows signs of ending past 12:30, I just go to bed and leave the cleanup to my husband.
Yup, true about the meat. Thanks for clarifying. I was describing my experience.
RE the incredibly late hour and friendly bragging, do you think that people are staying up longer so that they can brag about how late they're ended it? I do recognize that it is taxing for some but my kids look forward to it all year, as it is the one night that there is no bedtime. I also recognize that people for whom it is taxing can certainly go to bed early. We put the littlest kids to bed after the mah nishatana or whenever is the right time for them.
No, I don't think people stay up late to brag… more like they'd feel defensive if someone said "how late did you end?" and they said "cleaned up by midnight". I remember having an eight-week old baby, ending the seder at 1:00 am and waking up a couple more times to nurse… then my husband was in shul all morning so I couldn't get much more rest. It's very hard, and yes, there might be a tiny bit of unspoken social pressure to go late. Why else do people ask "what time did you end?" I hear it all the time.
So interesting. I never experienced that as pressure, just as a curious banter kind of thing.
To clarify: there is a custom that some have to only eat chicken, but it is by no means universally Orthodox. Thanks RD and tesyaa for pointing that out.
Lots of things I didn't know in that post. I'll ask questions here.
Is there a SINGLE Haggadah? Growing up Reform and even at the Judaica store here there are different ones to choose from. Is there an O Haggadah that is THE Haggadah, like the book of Esther which is a set document? Does an O Haggadah include the entire book of Exodus, for instance?
And do you mean that each person at the table has to speak each word of the Haggadah, or that you take turns, or what?
And it sounds like kids are supposed to talk about each paragraph. 7 kids plus parents answering? Not sure I would be able to handle that!!
As a kid I found the exercise horrible and forced. Reading from this corny book with cartoony illustrations, in a sing-songy voice just because it was in that book, and I especially hated the thing about the four different kinds of children: stupid, wicked, silent or goody-goody. That was how I experienced it. Except the plagues, everyone loved the recitation of the plagues and the pinky-dipping (how we did it, not sure if Os do that).
There are many versions of the Haggadah and many publications of it, but the actual text (at least the Orthodox varieties) is identical. Only the commentary and page numbers different. Everyone doesn't need to have the same one, because the Hebrew parts are the same, and if you can follow along in the Hebrew you don't need page numbers. The kids usually use their own Haggadahs that they make in school, which is an abridged version, depending on how old they are.
Each member of the family, for sure over bar and bat mitzvah, recites all the words. The leader begins the paragraph and we say it all together. Then if anyone has something to share about that paragraph, they do. (Which is why the Zeidy limits it.)
You have to understand that the story of Passover for us is the very core of our genesis. The story is epic to who we are and what we do. This is how the kids are taught at school and this is how it's reinforced at home. So it's not experienced as corny. I'm so surprised at how much everyone loves the plagues. So not PC. And yeah – we do the pinky-dipping. Again, one of those inscrutable, obscure customs that has survived in each denomination. Fascinating.
Re the four sons. I'm always amazed at how contemporary it is. Wise, wicked, simple, and the one who can't ask. Seriously. The only update I've got is wicked. The response in the Haggadah (knock out his teeth) to this child is not recommended today, even by the most fundamental Orthodox Jews. Kids who ask rude, rebellious questions at the Seder are still to be treated with inclusion.
If you don't think the plagues historically occurred, it's not really anti-PC to have fun with them…
I see that the story of Passover is huge and that's not the corny part in my childhood experience. It was the contrived setups to different little blessings.
I absolutely am all for the story and telling the story. So why is there a Haggadah and not just reading and discussing the book of Exodus? I would like that as a Seder model. It's great reading even if you don't believe it.
I hate the four sons because it forces the kids to feel like they must be one of them, as if there is no combination of qualities.
I think the idea is that the haggadah as we have it includes every aspect of the mitzvah of telling the story of the Exodus. If you do it on your own that's fine but you might not cover everything that one is supposed to cover and that night. It's sort of the same thing with formalized prayer.
And as far as the four sons it would seem to me that the kids realize that these are extreme paradigms and that they are sometimes each or somewhere in between. At least thats what my son just said when I asked him.
All interesting. Clarification question: So is the Haggadah the name for whatever book you use for the Seder, and commentaries within it may differ on the required, set parts (which don't have a particular name)? Or is "the Haggadah" a very set text, like the book of Esther (I believe) and then for shorthand you call the object/book that you use at the Seder "the Haggadah" because it CONTAINS "the complete text of the Haggadah" plus whatever commentaries, which can vary?
So you said each person at the table has to say every word of the Haggadah (which makes me think it's the set text and not the book per se) in Hebrew. But the mitzvah is to tell the story, presumably so that it is understood? So why does the Haggadah have to be read/said in Hebrew? Is it a prayer? The commentaries can be in English though? If the Haggadah is the set way to tell "the story", then why must it be in Hebrew? (In contrast I can see why Esther or the book of Exodus must be read in Hebrew).
The required, set parts are called the "Haggadah." Also, books comprised of the set parts plus commentary, are ALSO colloquially called "the Haggadah." So yes to your final question in paragraph one.
Some of it is prayer. Some of it is actually identical to parts of prayer (Hallel). Some is selections from Exodus with commentary. I would venture that it doesn't HAVE TO be in Hebrew, but it's ideal, I guess similar to prayer.
tesyaa, I don't believe Grimm's fairy tales actually happened, and I find them offensive and disturbing, so I don't read them.
So I assume you advise nonbelieving Jews to skip the seder (or at least the plagues and similar sections)?
Not at all. Part of my whole dilemma I outlined in the prayer post. Of course I feel it's better to do it even from a none believing standpoint, I'm just mega-intrigued by how people who do that think about it.
You'd be surprised how many people don't think much about stuff, either because they're not curious or because of avoidance (usually the former, I think). And as for people in my situation, what I have gathered from Internet conversations is that the people who don't believe but still enjoy ritual is that they put it in historical/tribal terms, i.e. "this was important to my ancestors and to the development of the Jewish people… and even though we know better now, we honor our forebears and their quest for Godliness and morality by following their rituals". I personally don't feel that way, but for me, as I've said before, Pesach is something like Thanksgiving at this point. I don't know if the story of the first Thanksgiving took place as described, and who knows, maybe the native Americans in the Thanksgiving story were even exploited (I really don't know for sure), BUT I'm still going to cook a turkey.
I'm going to abate at this point, because the last thing I would like to do is discourage someone from fulfilling a mitzvah, as I mentioned. However I will just say this. There is really no comparison between cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, and celebrating grisly and deadly punishments that you're not even sure happened. With your kids.
Wait. Maybe this: "IF such an evil nation really existed, they would definitely have deserved these punishments." Maybe?
Yup! That works. And it is very easy to then connect that to modern- day atrocities.
Think about it: if we had seen the Nazis afflicted with frogs, blood, boils etc. I doubt any of us would have shed a tear.
I was once at a seder where the host, who is a rabbi and expert on halachah, "told" part of the Haggadah instead of reading it. Basically, he explained each paragraph (I think in English) and said that just by listening we would all fulfill the mitzvah. This would only apply to the "telling" parts of the seder, not the prayer parts.
I think the problem a lot of people have with the Haggadah is that they don't understand the structure of it. (I know I didn't as a kid.) Much of it is Midrash, for instance, but if you don't know what the authors are doing in interpreting the Biblical texts, you'll miss the whole point. The same applies to Jewish fixed prayer in general. If you don't understand the structure of it, you're just reciting words.
SBW: What do you mean by "contrived setups to different little blessings"? The actual blessings are mainly over eating various kinds of food. Whenever Orthodox Jews eat, we recite a blessing, so I'm not sure what's contrived about it.
I have the impression that my strong wording above provoked offense; let me say that the strong wording refers more to a bitterness I have about the way Seders were done in my house as a kid. I did not mean to insult the Seder as such, but to describe my experience as a kid. That experience in an O perspective would probably embody everything that is wrong with people doing a bunch of rituals with no idea why, not enjoying it, and no meaning whatsoever. And even without some reflective thought to say (from a non-O perspective), "You know, we (parents) don't believe this in literal terms, but we like to do the rituals and to at least ask questions about it." As you know, I'm fine with ambivalence and also fine with profound belief, but detest a hypocrisy that pretends to not be one.
So the "contrived setups to different little blessings" refers to my memory of childhood Seder where we went around and everyone read whichever lines were their turn without any reason that I could see. Some duty someone felt they were executing but I couldn't figure out what or why.
As a teenage rebel, I got ahold of some 1980s feminist Haggadahs (which included interpretations of the Exodus in terms of the oppression of women) and brought them to Seder and suggested we read them to try to get some passion in to the thing. The relatives were all totally embarrassed–not because they were anti-feminist but because
they didn't know what to do with an attempt to make the Seder passionate. After that, I pretty much gave up on it.
Except now with my kids we do a minimal Seder–I know it wouldn't be approved of much here, but we make or order the essential food elements, tell the story, I would love to actually read the beautiful text with them, and we do some basic blessings. And we do talk about it in real terms–do people believe this, what is this story saying, why are the Commandments so important in our culture. Again, not up to standards for most people here, but it is nice for me to do it in a way that feels like "who I am" and what we are.
Sorry to bring my personal baggage into this–but it is helpful for me, at least, to sort out in these discussions what was problematic in my experience of Judaism.
With respect to Grimm's fairy tales, it's commendable that you avoid them. However, there are whole swaths of people, including some Orthodox Jews, who enjoy entertainment with a considerable amount of violence. Just look at the James Bond and Die Hard franchises (my husband looooved the Die Hard movies). People enjoy fantasy, people enjoy seeing the little guy beat up on the bad guy, people know there is some element of reality to these forms of entertainment (there are real terrorists), but people don't really think of the movie villains as real people. That's why we can enjoy seeing them smashed on a cliff or eaten by sharks.
Even saying this, I'm not sure that violence is the reason people (OK, non-Orthodox people) get excited about the plagues at the seder. Honestly, I think it's all about the wine-dipping, as SBW alluded to. I found it entertaining when I was a kid, and it's a rare opportunity for adults to play with their food
DG, I like that story about that rabbi. A lot.
SBW, I far prefer your authenticity to a faked out version. Kids see through us remarkably often. I don't consider it "baggage" – but rather an honest sharing of experiences, which is what I think makes this space so sacred. Yes, sacred. Maybe that sounds corny but I really believe that.
Now, with all my talk of authenticity and whatnot, if someone wrote some blog post or article about how they were doing away with the plagues because they're too violent, I'd be scandalized. Go figure.
SBW, I really admire your trying to get some passion into a lifeless seder. Yeah, some people are uncomfortable with being passionate about Judaism. On the other hand, I can't imagine what the Exodus has to do with oppression of women.
I really think you would get a lot out of learning about the text of the Haggadah. Find out what's going on there, what the various parts of it are. Do some literary analysis (with someone who understands the Haggadah or even a book on the subject). I think you'd appreciate the seder more.
Yes, unlike for Tesyaa, the naming of the awful plagues and the violence WAS the fun part as a kid for us, and the pinky-dipping too. As she indicates it's not that often kids get to watch grownups dip fingers in drinks and make dots on plates. As a second child with a bossy older sibling, I definitely shot some celebratory looks over the "killing of the first born". Although my parents were firstborns, so I wasn't sure what was good or not about that.
DG, there are all kinds of progressive Haggadahs out there that reinterpret the Exodus in various ways, highly figuratively/allegorically of course, as part of a liberation story of different groups. So the feminist one had commentary describing allegorical ways to think about the elements of the story in terms of the oppression of women.
You mean how slavery could theoretically oppress women, for instance? The text has nothing to say about the subject, so it would have to be totally theoretical and removed from the actual account, in which case what's the point? I can't think of any indication that the women were more oppressed in Egypt than the men.
I don't remember the Haggadah much, but indeed the point was to interpret the Exodus story allegorically and connect it to women's oppression and liberation. Nothing at all to do with Egypt per se, and yes quite removed from the actual account.
But didn't Ruchi say that there are dozens of meanings of every Torah passage anyway, so why not highly allegorical ones? Do the rabbis determine which allegories are "correctly" derived from the Scripture and which not?
Let me add: If men dancing in a circle can be loftily claimed to represent the cycle of life, then why can't the "bread of affliction" be said to represent the exploitation of women's unpaid domestic labor? Who decides what represents what and what the limits of representation are?
When Rabbi Tatz advances his circle theory of dancing, he did not name a source, and I don't know what his source is. Even with a source, one is not obligated to accept this as Torah. It's a theory, that's all. Connecting the Haggadah to feminism, which is certainly permitted, does not have a source in Torah literature.
I would also ask the controversial question: which came first? Did Rabbi Tatz first seek to make a point about circles, and then use dancing to prove it? If so, what was his agenda in doing so? Feminism is definitely the target, and then the Haggadah gets drawn around it. This doesn't resonate with me.
That said, I still admire all and any attempts to make Judaism relevant, interesting, and contemporary, where traditional values are not overstepped.
You must regret the day you urged me to read Tatz, Ruchi!–I know I harp on that circle-dance motif.
Yes the feminist Haggadah takes feminism as its goal and makes the Haggadah relevant. Maybe with some interpretive liberties. But I'm interested in how this doesn't resonate with you but it still wins your admiration. I guess this is like your girls' bat mitzvah rules–you are ok with anything that goes to the very line of permitted/forbidden.
Heh. Nah. It's led to some good conversation.
It doesn't resonate with me, both in terms of "using" a holy text to make a political point, and in terms of me having more traditional values, as opposed to feministic ones. But my admiration is there, for a deeper reason, actually, than being okay with anything that is not actually forbidden (which is not precisely true:) – I admire any sincere attempt to honestly think about our Judaism and try to understand it. Even where I disagree with the conclusions a person has arrived at (despite possibly not being forbidden exactly) I respect that process.
One of the saddest things on this post is where tesyaa reminded me that so many people just go through the motions and don't even think about what they're doing. To me, that's depressing.
One more thing: you said you'd be scandalized if someone did away with the plague passages because they are too violent? When my kids were smaller we had a minimal Seder at some PC friends' house where they followed their tradition of changing the last plague to, "The very annoying behavior of the firstborn", to mitigage the scariness and eliminate the murderous part. And I guess to emphasize how the parents suffered.
Getting killed was annoying behavior? Not how I would phrase it.
What bothers me about the feminist Haggadah as you describe it is that it's totally made up but pretends to be real. If you think something is a valid interpretation, by all means, present it. But in this case I wonder if the authors even thought there was any truth to what they were saying. If not, then why didn't they just make their point and leave the text out of it? It's not a matter of who has the authority to say what represents what. (I think that sort of authority comes from knowledge of the subject.) But don't pretend it's an allegory if you don't even believe it is.
Getting killed was not annoying behavior, that wasn't what they were trying to say. The point of their change (it wasn't my idea) was to instead of scaring children with the image of the killing of the firstborn, to rather evoke a plague that we parents suffer from–annoying behavior. This was a big departure from an attempt to tell the story as it was, granted. I thought it was silly, but it was their Seder not mine, and on the other hand I am not crazy about calling out "killing of the firstborn" either. It is scary.
Now about "valid interpretation": The circle-dance interpretations aren't totally made up? And things Jews do "because x symbolizes y" where there is no absolutely intrinsic connection between what is symbolized and what is the symbol? Symbolizations are by definition where there is a "made-up" connection between things that aren't inherently connected! Horseradish symbolizes mortar (that's what we were told, maybe Os don't do that)? Ok, because it's pasty, sure, why not. But if you use the red stuff it could symbolize congealed blood, or if you use the white stuff it could symbolize matzah dough, or our unformed souls in God's mind, or God's intensity (the taste), or the power that the natural world contains, or our mortality (because it can burn your mucus membranes from inside), or whatever.
I don't see how allegories acquire authority period–they are representations that use phenomena precisely for a purpose other than their more obvious, conventional or explicit one. So why not treat the Exodus story as an allegory of something else? YOu don't have to believe a story to make it into an allegory for something else.
I think it is one solution among others for people who don't feel connected to, or believe in, the actual story of Exodus but want to celebrate anyway. A good question is where that comes from.
Actually, it's the charoset that symbolizes the mortar. The horseradish is a bitter herb that symbolizes the bitterness of the Jews' lives in slavery. I have no idea where Rabbi Tatz got his circle-dance interpretation. I've never even read the book and knew nothing about this statement until you mentioned it.
"Made up" to me means that a reader came up with it, knowing full well that it wasn't what the author meant. Still, if an allegory works, go ahead and use it to make your point. In this case I don't think it does work because it isn't based on the text. And I wouldn't consider it a seder.
As for the annoying behavior, what a climax! Water turning to blood, an invasion of everything in the country by frogs, a plague of locusts, deadly disease, a fiery hailstorm … and whiny kids? OK, whiny kids can drive anyone crazy, but still …
Oops on charoset vs horseradish. But did the inventor of charoset (did God give that recipe? With or without raisins?) intend it to symbolize mortar? Hey, when did Jews start having Seders anyway? Is it all already in the Torah, with the platter and everything?
I can see that if you think God, or I guess for Os also canonical rabbis, decides what symbolizes what, then you have to stick to that. But are Os not supposed to deviate from the symbols in the Haggadah at all? Is it like the prayers that you absolutely have to say this way and no other? If you say all the standard Haggadah stuff (and likely the feminist Haggadah cuts corners in comparison to the O versions, but then probably so do R and C Haggadahs) are you not allowed to add commentary? Do Os add stuff about the state of Israel, for instance?
the details of the hagaddah are in the talmud including the recipe for charoset (!). In the Torah text itself we are told to eat the matzo with the maror and to recount the story. The very first seder was the night of the exodus and O's believe that there has been a continuous chain of passing down this tradition through the generations as enjoined by the Torah ever since. The very fact that so many Jews today seem to hang on to Seder even though they've lost almost everything else including oftentimes the meaning or purpose of the seder is amazing to me.
Every part of the hagaddah has almost infinite depth, so there is really no end to the potential commentaries that exist for Orthodox Jews. However we do distinguish between traditional and non-traditional approaches to interpretation and I think the key to this is whether we are looking at the text in terms of "what does G-d want us to learn from this?" vs. "What do I want to read into this to further my own agenda?".Orthodox Jews are most comfortable following the traditional hermeneutical rules for interpreting texts and the views of the classical commentators who are steeped in the tradition and have an encyclopeadic knowledge of Torah texts so will not say things that majorly contradict key concepts. Of course there is room for disagreement. We are Jews after all. But when analysed, the disputants usually agree on more than they disagree on.
Re: allegory, the story itself is historical manifestation of deeper things that are happening in the spiritual realm at the Pesach time to do with freedom from constraints. I like to think of all Torah as allegory except that it is allegory that really happened. Just like if you wanted to write a play that was a parable for something you would make various things in your play happen to portray the deeper meaning, so the things that happen in the Torah are parables to explain deeper things, except that because G-d wrote the bible and made the stuff happen, they literally happen. When you start to think that way you could get very confused trying to figure out what symbolizes what!
In interpreting literature, it's completely valid to come up with an interpretation that isn't the intention of the author. I also think it's valid to come up with novel interpretations of traditional sources; after all, there is a saying that there are 70 facets of the Torah. People come up with (mildly) original divrei Torah all the time. However, there have to be limits: after all, Christian scholars – Jerome and others – interpret the Hebrew Bible and come up with lots of stuff proving that Jesus is the Messiah. It's hard to claim that those interpretations are "valid" in a Jewish context.
I think that 70 facets of the Torah means that Hashem intended all those different interpretations to be true simultaneously (like the Blind Man and the Elephant analogy) as in eilu v'eilu divrei Elokim chayim (these and these are the words of the living G-d). The beauty of mesorah is also its struggle, allowing for innovation (the prized "chidushim" (novel interpretations)) without a departure from the true essence.
Separate question about fairy tales and basically about Os and literature: Do you (Ruchi and Os) feel it is wrong to read literature that is not true? Like science fiction, or fantasy stories (even where it is not violent)? Or not plausible (like Harold and the Purple Crayon–he draws his own environment with the purple crayon)?
I've never heard of any Jewish reason not to read fiction. As a matter of fact, there's plenty of Orthodox fiction written and published. I don't see why implausible fiction should be any less acceptable than plausible fiction. It's not my taste, but that has nothing to do with religious factors.