Mem Moment | Preparing for Pesach
Pesach
For me, the Pesach Seder used to feel like a thing that happened. With the craziness in the run up of the Pesach shopping, cleaning the house, changing over all our cupboards, and last-minute cooking, by the time we reached first night seder, I was ready to sit in a stupor at the bottom of the table and let other people lead. That is, until a few years ago, when I decided attended a session with Jordan B. Gorfinkel about his Graphic Novel Haggadah. It wasn’t until seeing this Haggadah, that I realised maybe there can be more to how we engage with seder, maybe we don’t need to be tied to the same dog-eared, worn-out copy of ‘A Different Night’ that my family have been using for 20+ years. This sparked something of an obsession for me of delving into the world of Haggadot (plural), Haggadah supplements, and taking a more active role in planning the seder bit of our family Pesach.
Each year, there are an amazing range of Haggadah supplements released by all sorts of different Jewish institutions tackling the pertinent issues of the day. At last year’s Seder, we used supplements to bring the hostages to our seder and discuss the parallels between their situation and the exodus story; and we talked about the power of being an upstander, with looking at the stories of Yocheved, Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter. We also had the opportunity to explore the Beijing Haggadah, created by former Moishe House Beijing resident Leon Fenster, with beautiful artwork and stories of the Beijing Jewish community. There are a wealth of free resources, and stunning Haggadot available, giving us more of an opportunity than ever before to really engage with the story of Pesach, and with the diversity of our tradition. I’m still arriving at seder fairly tired from the effort of preparing for Pesach, but now I have so much more reason to force myself awake and engage than ever before, and hopefully you all can too!