Hey NOrton, thanks for greetings and the link. I read it and totally in agreement on his choice between the "liberal washed version" and the organic ritual, that follows the natural steps of evolution.
although I stopped the habit altogether, so I am in no position to offer reviews of prefered haggada. I find it a bit macabre to celebrate exodus while in slavery under Jewish government in the promised land.
I am sort of following my inner drum in that. My last seder, a few years back, i was given an invitation to a big seder by some "new age/Jewish renewal" group (american jews mostly), in a nice restaurant in Jaffa, with the theme of interfaith (the restaurant was Arab and they participated in song and reading). I would not have gone there, coz its expensive but a friend who had tickets couldnt go, and gave them to us.
Well, the food was great, the atmosphere, and music and the smell of the sea (a beach restaurant) and so forth, exquisite, they even had a small seder for the kids in a separate room. Well, lo and behold, a few days after this fancy and intellectually sophisticated seder, the rabbi who ran it was ARRESTED for mollesting and raping his students. (You can probably read about it in google, its Marc Mordechai Gafni, now in the USA teaching at Ken Wilber's....).
I am interpreting this as "stop and think", and am not going to more sedders until and if I find "my people" to feast with. and until am free.
I read the link you gave, its nice, but its still that american-jewish apologetica, ignoring the massive slavery WITHIN the jewish structure, and specifically their responsbility for creating this slavery within their own people, for the benefit of their freedom to write apologetica.
Its a "resentful" stance, you might say, I will humbly agree. But not all is angry
Instead of doing ths sedder, we usually pick a nice restaurant, many are starting to serve food on that night for people like myself, and enjoy a treat, we cannot usually afford.
The last meaningful Seder I did, years back, was in my own house, I invited a group of unrelated friends, who didnt feel like joining their dysfunctional families, and I invited each participant, well ahead, to contribute a piece of writing, which I compiled and xeroxed for all. It was a remarkable experience, that lasted till morning, but had really little if any to do with the holiday per se. It was a "fall back" event, that turned out very successful, but could not be reconstructed
so does not qualify as ritual.
norton ash wrote:Shalom, hava. Here's a good Walrus article on Seder and the flexibility of the Haggadah... it was quite new and enlightening for me.
Passed Over
In modernizing the Seder, are we losing touch with Judaism?
By Richard PoplakIllustration by Rachelle Maynard
Religion From the May 2011 Walrus
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/ ... ssed-over/