what makes a good seder?
On Friday a coworker asked me how my Pesach sedarim had been and
I said "eh", and she said something like "that's too bad -- mine
was great". Hey, I thought to myself, I didn't know you were
Jewish. She saw my puzzled expression: no, she's Roman Catholic, but
several years ago she asked friends if she could join their seder
because she was curious, and it was great, so she does it every
year now. She described some of what they did and I was drooling
inside. ("I thought of you!" she said. Rub it in. :-) )
Edited to add: let me be clear that everyone involved in the sedarim I went to acted with good will. These are good people; we just have some differences in approach that are turning out to be hard. Clear? (end edit)
The thought of "how come my Roman Catholic friend gets a more fulfilling seder than I do?", combined with a recent discussion in a locked entry, leads to this question: what is it that makes a seder fulfilling for me? What elements make me come away at the end feeling that I'd been at a good seder? (I encourage y'all to chime in.)
There are, of course, lots of factors. Here are some things that matter to me; I think a seder must have most of them for me to feel satisfied. Some of these might be essential on their own and others might be more like "minimum N of these"; I'm not sure yet which are which. And I'm sure I haven't figured them all out yet; it's taken me many years of sedarim (some good, some not) to get even this far.
Some commonality of purpose. There are lots of reasons to hold a seder. Mine include recalling God bringing our people out of Egypt. (Fact or shared mythology? Doesn't matter. But either way, it has to be important.) You might think "well, duh", but there are sedarim out there that are primarily about modern Zionism, and ones held by people who don't believe in God, and ones that are so much about freedom in general that the exodus core has been lost.
I used to think that it was enough that I am there for a particular purpose, and that others' intentions don't matter. I now question that. I think some amount of this is essential for the rest to follow. We are affected by each others' moods and attitudes.
A spirit of education, inquiry, and discussion. It is not sufficient to just read the fixed text of the haggadah; the seder should evoke questions (beyond "ma nishtanah", which was originally just a starting point), and people should bring things they've learned or thought about. We should be willing to pause at almost any time to have such conversations. (And, to be clear, this should not just be the dumbed-down stuff for little kids that some families do; the adults should be getting something out of this.) At the end of my ideal seder, I have learned something and taught something.
All the traditional elements are present. I don't require that every word of the haggadah be read in order to feel satisfied; there are parts that you can linger on or cut short, based on the people there, and that's fine to a point. Lots of people cut out the talmudic reasoning about the number of plagues, for instance. (I personally think that part is fun just because it's so over the top, but I have been overruled at every seder I've attended where I knew enough to have an opinion, so I'm used to it.) Some people object to "pour out thy wrath"; fine.
So we don't have to do everything, but if we skip sections entirely, or don't do the blessings before certain ritual elements, I feel a little out of sorts. I can compensate for dropped blessings (I know all the relevant ones and can say them for myself if the group doesn't), and that's survivable, but it's one more little nudge in the "you don't really belong here" direction. And we have to at least touch every part, I think. I've been to sedarim that end with the meal and skip the second half entirely; that doesn't work for me.
Related to this: there are zillions of haggadot out there, some very traditional and some so creative as to be nearly unrecognizable. I certainly don't insist on Artscroll and I welcome supplementary on-topic material, and it's certainly ok to take a light approach, but if the creativity gets too far out of hand that can make me feel disoriented. As with a siddur (prayer book), I should always be able to tell how what we're doing relates to the standard outline of the service.
Spending adequate time. There is a joke that the four real questions at the seder are "when do we eat? when do we eat? when do we eat? when do we eat?". I don't want to rush. It's ok to take an hour or more to get to the meal, and to spend a couple hours on the part after the meal. This shouldn't be forced, of course; if everyone is tired or out of it or something, lengthening it is not going to lead to better discussions. But we should be willing to spend time on it, and if we get into a really good discussion, we should let it run its course, even if it's 2AM when we finish. Where did you have to be the next morning anyway?
Singing. It is, after all, a festival. I want to sing. (But not that Clementine song... :-) )
There are some things that I don't think matter to me. Who's there, for instance. While it's nice to be with friends, of course, I think I can be comfortable in a seder with strangers. (Was the one time I did it.) For some people the seder is all about the family reunion; that's not true for me. (This should surprise no one.) As for children, my only concerns are in the cases where the presence of young kids causes the adults to change the seder in ways that would violate the principles above. That doesn't mean don't bring kids; it means give them a place to go (away from the table) if they're bored or sleepy or misbehaved, and don't start skipping parts to speed it up for their sake.
So, if you've read this far, what makes a seder fulfilling for you?
Edited to add: let me be clear that everyone involved in the sedarim I went to acted with good will. These are good people; we just have some differences in approach that are turning out to be hard. Clear? (end edit)
The thought of "how come my Roman Catholic friend gets a more fulfilling seder than I do?", combined with a recent discussion in a locked entry, leads to this question: what is it that makes a seder fulfilling for me? What elements make me come away at the end feeling that I'd been at a good seder? (I encourage y'all to chime in.)
There are, of course, lots of factors. Here are some things that matter to me; I think a seder must have most of them for me to feel satisfied. Some of these might be essential on their own and others might be more like "minimum N of these"; I'm not sure yet which are which. And I'm sure I haven't figured them all out yet; it's taken me many years of sedarim (some good, some not) to get even this far.
Some commonality of purpose. There are lots of reasons to hold a seder. Mine include recalling God bringing our people out of Egypt. (Fact or shared mythology? Doesn't matter. But either way, it has to be important.) You might think "well, duh", but there are sedarim out there that are primarily about modern Zionism, and ones held by people who don't believe in God, and ones that are so much about freedom in general that the exodus core has been lost.
I used to think that it was enough that I am there for a particular purpose, and that others' intentions don't matter. I now question that. I think some amount of this is essential for the rest to follow. We are affected by each others' moods and attitudes.
A spirit of education, inquiry, and discussion. It is not sufficient to just read the fixed text of the haggadah; the seder should evoke questions (beyond "ma nishtanah", which was originally just a starting point), and people should bring things they've learned or thought about. We should be willing to pause at almost any time to have such conversations. (And, to be clear, this should not just be the dumbed-down stuff for little kids that some families do; the adults should be getting something out of this.) At the end of my ideal seder, I have learned something and taught something.
All the traditional elements are present. I don't require that every word of the haggadah be read in order to feel satisfied; there are parts that you can linger on or cut short, based on the people there, and that's fine to a point. Lots of people cut out the talmudic reasoning about the number of plagues, for instance. (I personally think that part is fun just because it's so over the top, but I have been overruled at every seder I've attended where I knew enough to have an opinion, so I'm used to it.) Some people object to "pour out thy wrath"; fine.
So we don't have to do everything, but if we skip sections entirely, or don't do the blessings before certain ritual elements, I feel a little out of sorts. I can compensate for dropped blessings (I know all the relevant ones and can say them for myself if the group doesn't), and that's survivable, but it's one more little nudge in the "you don't really belong here" direction. And we have to at least touch every part, I think. I've been to sedarim that end with the meal and skip the second half entirely; that doesn't work for me.
Related to this: there are zillions of haggadot out there, some very traditional and some so creative as to be nearly unrecognizable. I certainly don't insist on Artscroll and I welcome supplementary on-topic material, and it's certainly ok to take a light approach, but if the creativity gets too far out of hand that can make me feel disoriented. As with a siddur (prayer book), I should always be able to tell how what we're doing relates to the standard outline of the service.
Spending adequate time. There is a joke that the four real questions at the seder are "when do we eat? when do we eat? when do we eat? when do we eat?". I don't want to rush. It's ok to take an hour or more to get to the meal, and to spend a couple hours on the part after the meal. This shouldn't be forced, of course; if everyone is tired or out of it or something, lengthening it is not going to lead to better discussions. But we should be willing to spend time on it, and if we get into a really good discussion, we should let it run its course, even if it's 2AM when we finish. Where did you have to be the next morning anyway?
Singing. It is, after all, a festival. I want to sing. (But not that Clementine song... :-) )
There are some things that I don't think matter to me. Who's there, for instance. While it's nice to be with friends, of course, I think I can be comfortable in a seder with strangers. (Was the one time I did it.) For some people the seder is all about the family reunion; that's not true for me. (This should surprise no one.) As for children, my only concerns are in the cases where the presence of young kids causes the adults to change the seder in ways that would violate the principles above. That doesn't mean don't bring kids; it means give them a place to go (away from the table) if they're bored or sleepy or misbehaved, and don't start skipping parts to speed it up for their sake.
So, if you've read this far, what makes a seder fulfilling for you?