Translation:

Lit. “order.”

Definition:

The service and meal for Passover.

The Seder is the ceremony at home that takes place on the first night of Pesach (Passover), although it is possible to host a Seder service on other nights of Passover too. It is a fulfillment of the injunction in the Torah (Ex. 13:8) for parents to teach their children about the Exodus from Egypt. As a result, the Seder is strongly focused on children and on learning through text, taste, action and song.

The Seder service as we now know it originally took shape when Israel (or Palestine as it was then known) was being strongly influenced by 1st century Greco-Roman thought. Rabban Gamaliel, well-known for his association with other communities, was instrumental in formalising the liturgy which has remained surprisingly similar for nearly two thousand years. In Roman times, there would be wine and snacks, eggs at the beginning of the meal and food would be eaten in a reclining position. The origins of the Seder are visible even up to the end of the service when we eat the afikoman, a Greek word for “dessert.”

In the middle of the table is usually a Seder plate which contains the following items:

1. Maror (bitter herbs) – these remind us of the bitterness of slavery
2. Charoset – a mixture of apples, nuts, spices and wine that symbolizes the mortar used by the Israelites when they were forced into slavery by the Pharaoh
3. Shn’ei tavshilin (two dishes) – one to remind us of the paschal lamb offering, another to remind us of the festival offering made by pilgrims. The first usually has a roasted shankbone (zeroa) on it, although the Talmud allows a stick of celery or beetroot for those who cannot (or would not want to) have an animal bone on their table. The second usually has a hard-boiled egg (beitzah), which also reminds us of the Spring. Neither of these items are eaten, but they must both be edible.
4. Karpas – A green vegetable for dipping in the salt water, usually parsley, although celery, radishes and potatoes can be used.
5. Salt water – Symbolic of the Israelites’ tears

On the table there will also be a matzah cover which contains three pieces of matzah (unleavened bread). There is also a cup of wine for Elijah. Every individual at the seder must have a glass for their own wine, because everyone needs to drink four cups of wine. The cup of Elijah is on the table because of a Rabbinic debate as to whether or not there should be four or five cups of wine.

The book which is used for the Seder service is the Haggadah, a name coming from the Hebrew root of “telling,” as in a story. There are thousands of different editions of the Haggadah in print, all catered to the specific kind of Seder that is taking place at the family home. Some important points in the Haggadah include the following:

1. The Four Questions (including the primary question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”). These are usually recited by the youngest person present. Maimonides (12th century) said that they should be asked by the person leading the seder. These questions are answered through an extended narrative, the source of which can be found in the Haggadah. Depending on the age of the individuals present, though, some families will involve drama, finger puppets and other teaching methods. A particularly successful method of keeping children involved in the Seder uses Seder Bingo boards.
2. The Four Children, a text that covers most of us at some point – intelligent, difficult, simple, and not able to ask. We read this text to remind ourselves that learning needs to be tailored to the needs of the audience.
3. The Ten Plagues. As we recite each plague, many families dip their little finger into their glass of wine and spill a drop of wine on their plate. This symbolises the loss of life involved in the plagues – even though they set us free, we do not rejoice at the death involved. As a result, we do not lick our finger after dipping so that we do not enjoy the plagues at all.
4. The Hallel. This collection of psalms surrounds the meal, showing us that our meal itself is an act of praise to God.
5. Opening the door for Elijah. This custom shows that our doors are always open to those in need of food and also picks up on the strong Messianic themes of the Passover (Elijah is said to herald the Messiah). It is accompanied by some very challenging liturgy that was written during the times of the Crusades. Some Reform families are uncomfortable with this liturgy and change the prayer “Pour out Your wrath on the nations who have not known You…” to “Pour out Your love on the nations who do not yet know You,” an innovation alleged to have arisen in the late Middle Ages in Worms. Others, particularly those scarred by the Holocaust, keep this challenging prayer as an indication of the pain that we carry with us, particularly around the time of Passover, when Christian communities in the Middle ages would accuse Jewish communities of killing Christian babies and putting the blood in the matzah, an accusation known as The Blood Libel. This, then, became a time of danger for Jews – at one point the wine that was drunk was even changed to white wine (considered to be inferior) so that there were no spurious accusations of the consumption of blood.
6. Concluding songs. The youngest child finds the afikoman which has been hidden somewhere in the room while no-one was paying attention and ransoms it back to the person leading the seder. It is the last thing that people eat that evening. Educational songs are then sung to lively melodies.

Many Reform communities offer a communal Seder – if you are interested in attending a communal Seder please contact your local Rabbi.

While the text of the Haggadah seems to have been fairly static, the Seder itself was not impervious to innovations, particularly with regard to readings. There are a number of interesting customs that have arisen in the last 100 years that are worthy of note. In the 1980s, Susannah Heschel first suggested placing an orange on the Seder plate to symbolise a commitment to those who have traditionally been excluded, in particular gay and lesbian Jews. Folklore has seized on this to suggest (fictitiously) that she was challenged at a lecture that a woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on a Seder plate and a number of today’s Reform Jews place the orange on the Seder plate in support of this feminist stance. However, the original intention of the custom was the inclusion of gay and lesbian Jews.

Some communities mark the Holocaust in different ways – a fifth child who cannot ask any question, a fifth cup for those who died in the Holocaust being two of the more common customs. The ambiguity over the number of cups certainly has allowed for the possibility of more customs, the most prevalent is Miriam’s Cup. This cup, filled with water (or sometimes spring water) reminds us of healing, or nourishment, of the journey through the wilderness (when Miriam died the Israelites’ water sources dried up). One community (Bournemouth Reform) balances the cups of Elijah and Miriam with one more, that of Serach bat Asher, a woman who legend says lived throughout the Israelites’ sojourn in Egypt and who is the keeper of Jewish folk memory. Thus, Elijah looks forward, Miriam looks back, and Serach bat Asher holds the two together, her cup being filled with a mixture of water and wine. Since the focus of the Seder is liberation, many Jews also focus on themes of contemporary oppression, such as women’s rights, Soviet Jewry or other global human rights causes.

Sources:

• A Feast of History, Chaim Raphael, Widenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1972
• The Women’s Seder Sourcebook – Rituals & Readings for Use at the Passover Seder, ed. Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Jewish Lights, Vermont, 2003
• Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, 1972, Vol. 13, 163 – 169
• The Schocken Passover Haggadah, ed. Nahum Glatzer, Schocken Books, New York, 1996

More Information:

Find the latest dates for upcoming-festivals in the Reform Movement Calendar.

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