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Seder Supplements
Improve your Seder every year by adding to your family's traditions.
Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music
Cleaning and cooking and so many dishes
Out with the hametz, no pasta, no knishes
Fish that's gefillted, horseradish that stings
These are a few of our Passover things.
Matzah and karpas and chopped up haroset
Shankbones and kiddish and yiddish neuroses
Tante who kvetches and uncle who sings
These are a few of our Passover things.
Motzi and maror and trouble with Pharoahs
Famines and locusts and slaves with wheelbarrows
Matzah balls floating and eggshell that clings
These are a few of our Passover things.
When the plagues strike
When the lice bite
When we're feeling sad
We simply remember our Passover things
And then we don't feel so bad.
Leave a seat empty at this year’s Seder in memory of murdered Israelis. This
idea came from Dr. Gil Troy, Department of History, McGill University, after
hearing Rabbi Seth Mandell, whose son Koby z”l, was murdered last year, talking
about the empty seat at his family’s Shabbat table.
At our sedarim this year, we will celebrate our joyous holiday of liberation
with heavy hearts. Even as we revel in our freedom as Jews in the modern world,
our brothers and sisters in Israel are in pain. In the past seventeen months,
too many have died, too many have been injured on both sides of this tragic
conflict. And too many sedarim will have empty chairs—missing husbands, wives,
fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. The power of the seder
comes from the ritualization of memory. It is a most primal, most sensual, most
literal, of services. The seder plate has its representations of the mortar used
in building (charoset) and the tears shed by the slaves (salt water). The
physical acts of reclining, of eating special foods, of standing to greet Elijah
the prophet, help us feel the joy of leaving Egypt. And, in an affirmation of
the importance of peoplehood, we mark this special moment not as individuals,
but as a community.
In that spirit, we cannot proceed with business as usual during these difficult
times. We must improvise a new ritual that marks our present pain and that
illustrates our connection with Israel. Let each of us, as we gather in our
seder, intrude on our own celebrations by leaving one setting untouched, by
having one empty chair at our table. And as we do that, let us not just remember
the dead of hundreds of nameless and faceless people, but let us personalize it.
Let us take the time to find out the name of one victim of the current conflict,
one Jew who cannot celebrate this year’s holiday, one family in mourning.
Perhaps if your last name begins with G, you would read the names of those who
were killed whose names start with G. In that way, the names of all the victims
would be read collectively at sedarim throughout the country. Click
here to find the list
of names.
Let us remember the name of Benny Avraham, age 20, one of the Israelis kidnapped
by Hezbollah in October 2000, and now presumed dead. Let us remember the name of
Koby Mandell, age 13, a young American immigrant brutally killed last May, whose
father Seth Mandell talks about the empty seat at his Shabbat table, and about
the pain of other boys grow up. Let us remember the name of Ayelet Haschachar
Levy, age 28, who was “guilty” of the crime of walking down an alley near
Jerusalem’s Machaneh Yehudah marketplace, the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Let us remember the names of the Schijvescheurder family—Mordechai, 43; Tzira,
41; Ra’aya, 14; Avraham Yitzhak, 4; and Hemda, 2—five members of one family
killed in the Jerusalem Sbarro Pizzeria bombing. Let us remembr the names of the
Nehmad family—Shlomo, 40; Gafnit, 32; Shiraz, 7; and Liran, 3—the family
murdered along with three of their cousins as they spilled out of shul into the
streets at the end of Shabbat just a few weeks ago. And as we remember these
names, unlike too many of our enemies, let us not call for vengeance, let us not
call for more bloodshed. Instead, as we mourn, let us hope, as we remember the
many lives lost during this pointless war, let us pray ever more intensely for a
just and lasting peace.
Share the Matzah of Unity at your Passover Seder
Click
here for a
nice addition while breaking the middle matzah.
Before opening the door for Eliyahu, you may wish to recite or
adapt the following:
As we are about to open the door with the hope that Eliyahu will indeed come and
bring with him a happy, more secure time when all people will live in peace,
security and contentment, we think of our people in Argentina. They live with
economic insecurity, hunger, unemployment, and victimization by hatemongers in a
politically unstable society. In order to help bring Eliyahu, we resolve to do
our share to ensure that next year they can, as we do, enjoy Passover, having
been liberated from the oppression under which they live.
In every generation, each person has the obligation to look at
himself, to look at herself,
As if personally brought out of Egypt.
We have discussed liberation and sung its praises.
We have recounted oppression and remembered its tears.
We have numbered our blessings and offered our gratitude.
And now, with pangs of hunger in our bellies,
We prepare to indulge in a feast of redemption.
Still, others cannot celebrate liberation. Others yet shed tears.
Others cannot yet sing out, "Dayenu." Others yet hunger for redemption.
Each one of us has the power to act as an agent of redemption,
If only we can see ourselves as God's partners in pursuing justice.
I can stay the tears of others,
If I can see myself as diminished by their sorrows.
I can hasten the time when everyone will be able to rejoice in freedom,
If I can see myself as the companion of those fighting against oppression.
I can honor the history and struggles of my own people,
If I can respond to the struggles of people everywhere to gain dignity and
deliverance from bondage.
When I look at myself in the mirror after this celebration of freedom,
Who will I see?
Although you may include this special reading anywhere in the
telling of the Haggadah, it is especially appropriate toward the end of Maggid,
after the reading of B'Khol Dor Vador (In Every Generation) which follows
immediately after maror (pointing to the bitter herbs) .
Written by Rabbi Jack Moline, of Agudas Achim
Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia
Before the Fourth Cup of Wine
Leader: With the fourth cup of wine, we recall
women throughout our
history who have been ignored, forgotten, and left nameless. We
remember those whose names we may never know. Let them be known as the
mothers of our matriarchs, the matriarchs of all womankind.
All: Throughout time women have kept our faith alive.
Leader: For the women who stood at the base of the pyramids,
watching and waiting for a glimpse of freedom, a sign of a better future.
All: Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are we in Your
hand.
Leader: For the women who stood at the base of Mt. Sinai, rejecting
the golden idol while accepting the commandments.
All: Like stone in the hand of the mason, so are we in Your
hand.
Leader: For the women who witnessed the destruction of the Temple,
and kept the Torah intact.
All: Like iron in the hand of the blacksmith, so are we in
Your hand.
Leader: For the women who stood at the gates of Auschwitz,
protecting their children and waiting for a miracle.
All: Like a pen in the hand of a poet, so are we in Your
hand.
Leader: For the women who stood at the intersection of Ben Yehuda
and Yaffa, shielding children from the flying debris.
All: Like the score in the hand of a musician, so are we in
Your hand.
Leader: For the women who stood at the base of the Twin Towers,
helping those who could not help themselves, offering comfort and
revealing a super-human inner strength.
All: For the sake of the unnamed, we were delivered from
Egypt, and we continue to be delivered this day. We lift the fourth cup
of wine in their honor, and recite:
Barukh ata Adonai elokeinu melekh haolam, borei prei
hagafen.
All: Let us bless the wellspring of life that
ripens the fruit on the vine as we sanctify the Pesach festival to
commemorate our liberation.
Composed by Susan W. Schonberger
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Unless you have actually tasted the bitterness of bondage,
and resolve never to inflict it upon another person's spirit or will
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Unless you have felt the anguish of those whose daily fare
is not much more ample than unleavened bread, and have resolved to help
alleviate their plight.
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Unless you take fresh delight in the glories of the new
Spring season, and profound exultation in the redemption of our people
from slavery to freedom, in days past, and in your own times.
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Unless you have truly said "Dayenu" - Thank You, O Lord our
God, for the blessings which You have bestowed upon us. Even a fraction
of them would call forth my gratitude.
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Until you totally realize that like Moshe, you are obligated
to resist that evil which threatens not yourself alone, but others. and
that your fate is inexorably bound up with the fate of humankind
everywhere in the world
Leader: You haven't fully celebrated Pesach.
Family: Until every Jew, every human being, lives in freedom and
dignity, in a world in which nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
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