Our First סדר - An Exercise in Fun

Last night T and I ran our first סדר, an attempt to integrate two lives of traditions and memories that had positive and negative attributes with our own educational sense. We were blessed with an awesome crowd, including my sister, her boyfriend Gabi, Tamar's brother Etan, dear new friends Jen and Doniel, and two of my dear friends who are also former campers - HAZ and Reis-a-roni.

We began with introductions and people sharing where they would be if they weren't at our סדר and a מנהג from home that they were bringing to our סדר.

קידוש, ורחץ, and כרפס progressed as normal, and that's when things got fun.

We retired to the couches and pillows in our den area for מגיד (the suggested מנהג of b-i-l Etan from his friend's Syrian סדר in Brooklyn where he would have been had he not joined us) and T brought out our little כרפס surprise (not quite snake surprise or the monkey dish from The Temple of Doom, but hey, what is?): a mashed potato bar.

During my time at Heschel we would stop the 10th grade תלמוד curriculum around פורים and transition into learning the 10th chapter of מסכת פסחים in preparation for a "Tannaitic Seder," following the (imagined) plain meaning of the משנה. One of the many differences that comes across through a close reading of the משנה is that "כרפס," as we know it, was initially an appetizer course (sans salt water) that lasted until (we think) the beginning of the main course. Such was the style of the Greco-Roman symposium (made famous by Plato, and Fellini in Satyricon, among others) - including מגיד on couches and lots of reclining. My long-term goal is to move towards a massive sushi course for כרפס but that is, at the very least, quite a ways away (legumic rice being morsel-non-grata in the veto-possessing half of the Bednarsh-Cytryn household). If you're not into the two-types-of-mashed-potatoes + sweet pecan crumble + sauteed mushrooms and onions approach, we also suggest crudites.

מגיד itself was accompanied by lively conversation which I will not attempt to recreate her, other than to highlight several observations I made (if these were, in fact, the חידושים of others at the סדר, then I beg their forgiveness for stealing intellectual property):

• The juxtaposition of the story of the five תנאים in בני ברק and then the halachic discussion of בן זומא and the need to be מזכיר יציאת מצרים בלילות had never occured to me before last night. It seems to me that the בני ברק anecdote is meant to serve as proof in a not-fully-fleshed-out discussion of whether or not we need to recount the exodus at night. These five rabbis clearly believed that we did. Their story, perhaps more than anything else (Bar Kochba and long-סדר interpretations aside), is part of a halachic dialogue about קריאת שמע. Why it's in the סדר? Still don't have a good answer for that one.
• my sister suggested an innovative debate about the four sons: which kind of child could be taken farther? who has the most potential? which would you prefer being charged to educate? (this opposed to, for example, asking students to identify themselves as one of the children - oy.)
• in a lively discussion about the "if we hadn't been redeemed, our children, grandchildren, et c. would still be slaves to פרעה in Egypt," that included a number of wonderful reads, I had two ideas: the text makes more sense to me if we assume that, at this early stage of the סדר, we already have the instruction of "בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים" in our mind, because if we, ourselves, were actually redeemed from Egypt, then it is easier to imagine that "our children and grandchildren" would still be slaves if we were not. Alternatively, during this first פסח of a new era of American history, the political parallels to the African American community in the United States are noteworthy. The community has not "known slavery" for nearly 150 years, but it is, in many ways, still enslaved. So then, we might imagine that the distance provided by the exodus, the fresh start, the divine intervention, is more important than the "mere" event of "freedom." Inertia is dangerous; the exodus is, if anything, a story about how important traumatic breaks from the past are.
• the parallels of עבדים היינו and עובדי עבודה זרה are striking. Someone (sister's boyfriend, GM? Doniel?) pointed out that both rely on the same root (ע.ב.ד). What's clear is that one posits an historical answer and the other provides a spiritual one. Such is the context, I believe, in the גמרא. However, both also provide both sides to the answer, just in different orders. Whereby עבדים היינו begins with the political, it transitions (post-ברוך המקום - back to that in a moment) into the spiritual, with the discussion of the four sons (כנגד ארבעה בנים דיברה תורה). Similarly, while עובדי עבודה זרה begins with the spiritual, after its own interlude (remarkably parallel to ברוך המקום in its ברוך + X + ברוך הוא format) it transfers into the clearly political agenda of the ברית בין הבתרים and ארמי אבד אבי.

The conversations were truly great - exciting and fulfilling.

For the next part of the סדר we transitioned away from the straight text of the הגדה. Instead of recounting the extensive מדרשים on ארמי אבד אבי, we asked Doniel to bring a rabbinic text to teach. He chose the stunning מדרש from תנחומה about the role of the women of Israel in the exodus, particularly as it relates to the mirrors used in the building of the משכן and enticing their husbands to sleep with them. I love this text, which was first introduced to me years ago by Ruth Fagen, and which I likely would have chosen had I gone searching for a powerful text. It also happened to account for a long-standing tradition at the Bednarsh household for the סדר: T's mother's lengthy excursus on the overlooked role of the Israelite women in the whole ordeal.

We then transitioned into a bit of Bednarsh family awesomeness that worked better than T and I could have imagined. The Bednarshes, for reasons not exactly clear to me, treat their סדר as a bit of פורים with lots of shtick and fun (together with masterfully covering all halachic bases necessary). This particular section involves assigning different people at the סדר a plague and having them do some sort of "presentation" on the plague. Past highlights have involved T's grandmother (Savti) coming out with dracula fangs for blood and dabbing calamine lotion on everyone for boils; my wife presenting a variety of movie lines from films whereby human beings were killed by animals for ערוב; and more.

Because they all deserve discussion, here were our plague presentations from last night:
1. Doniel: A series of vignettes from the "Darwin Awards" of people who died from blood-loss or other hilarious stories relating to Israel/Egypt/Passover. Got things started off phenomenally.
2. Sarah (the sis): Everyone went around the circle doing their best "ribbit."
3. HAZ: Read us the absolutely (unintentionally?) hilarious Israeli children's book "הכינה נחמה" - Nechama the Louse - about a little louse's journeys around the world on people's hair. HAZ did a great job of translating the book into English (mad props to the Rothberg International School's Ulpan program for that, I imagine) and we were rolling on the floor from laughter.
4. Jen: Passed out pictures of her cuter-than-words son (sleeping in the next room) Micah in his Purim costume (a lion suit) and on the back of each picture was a fact about lions and Micah that we each read. For example: "At about a year old lion cubs join the hunt for food. By the age of 2 they can bring down a gazelle by themselves. Micah is still learning to master putting toys in and out of the toy box."
5. Etan: Handed out typed-up copies of a comedy sketch imagining ENN's (Egyptian News Network) reporting of the דבר outbreak in Egypt as it happened, as reported by animals including: Kermit the Frog (anchor); Wolf Blitzer; Rush Lamb-augh; Dolly the Sheep; and Michael J. the Fox. We all read the sketch with our assigned parts. Quite cute.
6. Gabi: Had us go around the table telling gruesome stories of terrible illnesses we've had. Highlights included (the names have been omitted to protect those who suffered once and need not suffer again): sun poisoning (twice) and constipation.
7. T: Threw "hail" on us - crumpled up pieces of paper with either a picture of the Virgin Mary or the Presidential Seal on them. Get it? (I thought she also should have added pictures of Hitler.)
8. Reis-a-roni: Wrote a rap based on some rap song that my sister knew but no one else did ... performed said rap. It was money.
9. Jacob: Tried to play the game "celebrity" with 39 pieces of pop-culture utilizing the words "dark," "night," and "knight" (and almost those words, like Dirk Diggler and Bill Nighy) but things were cut short because (a) it was already after 11 p.m. and (b) my associative mind made some of these quite, quite difficult (though, in my defense, the beauty of the game celebrity is round 2 and 3, not round 1).
10. Person who was supposed to present didn't show.

We transitioned back to the table for the end of מגיד.

We ate well.

We sang a lot, as people faded.

Great סדר - thanks to all who joined us. We'll attempt to replicate the creativity front next year.