I would like to have an Avocado Seder, and I’d like you to be a part of it.
For those who don’t know, the first night of the Jewish holiday Passover is called “Seder”. The word “seder” literally means “order” (as in “the order in which to do things”, not “I vas just following orders”). It involves a dinner, usually with lots of insufferable relatives, during which we say a few prayers, tell a few stories, hold up some burnt bones, and eat foods that cause minor intestinal distress. This will be the first time in my 31 years of life without a seder, and I’m pretty sad about that, so my antidote to that sadness is to share a virtual seder with my Avocado family.
Usually Seder in my house takes about four or five hours; this one will take about one hour or an hour and a half. We’ll do this over a voice chat platform (TBD), you are invited to participate as much as you want, or just to listen. We won’t be doing the serious serious prayers, and we obviously won’t be able to do the food bits. So it’ll mostly be storytelling, a few simple prayers (for the fun of it, I am not believer), and we can talk about the various traditions of seder we each have in our families, or have heard of if you have never been to one.
What I need is for people to let me know if they’d like to attend or participate, and help with the logistics of the chat platform etc. I would also like some volunteers to “lead” parts of the seder – you don’t need to know anything about it; I can give you some information, you can then interpret it however you like to share on the night. It’d be a really fun addition and I would love anyone who is interested to volunteer, but if not I can lead it myself.
This Wednesday, 8/4, is first night Passover. I think the best time for this would be this 7pm central US time on Wednesday night. (For me, 10am Thursday.) But if you’d like to participate and that time doesn’t work for you, we can see if we can find a better time.
Here are the individual segments of the seder. If you’d like to lead a segment, feel free to nominate one or I can assign you one randomly. Once again – don’t worry if you don’t know what it’s all about – I’ll give you everything you need, and it’s MEANT to be an exercise in sharing and learning!
1 Exposition: how did the Jews come to be slaves in Egypt? – Lyssie
2 Cleaning house: Preparing the house for Pesach – tikkun olam
3 The Seder table & plate – Wasp
4 The order of the night: Kadesh Urhatz etc – Waffles
5 Matzah – what the hell is it?
6 The Appetisers: Maror, Haroset, Greens etc – Cohen
7 Mah Nishtanah – Q&A – LibraryLass
Optional History: Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto / Pesach & the Holocaust – tikkun olam
8 The Four Children – Beasterly
9 The Plagues –
10 The Action Sequence: the Exodus, Moses at the Red Sea – Lovely Bones
11 Dayenu, as if we hadn’t had enough already – Wolfman Jew
12 Recap: Have We Explained Gamlielβs 3 things? – Monty
13 Passover Themes in Modern Life: Modern Slavery, Refugees, Prisoners, and our responsibilities