For the sixth year in a row, welcome to the annual Avocado Live Seder, the service for the Jewish holiday of Passover! I and we invite any and all interested Avocados to join us on Discord!
Passover is a weeklong service commemorating and discussing the Hebrew people’s liberation from enslavement as presented in the Biblical story Exodus. Every night, you hold a Seder. While it’s a holiday and has celebratory features, it’s not exactly a celebration. I’d call it a transcendental philosophical discussion, where we use the story and various poems, dialogues, and anecdotes to engage in discourse. Primary topics include the realities of oppression in the modern world and what we can do to combat it, the roles of cultural traditions in preserving identity, and connecting to the past. We express these ideas through a series of distinct segments, various kinds of performances. It might be a speech or a song, and it’s up to whoever’s doing it. If you’d like to be more faithful or radical, we support it.
I am not a particularly religious person by any means, but when I am, it comes through the Seder. This is a powerful, communal, and, crucially, thoughtful experience, one that ideally should be treated as intellectual and contemplative. It presents an aspect of Jewish culture that’s often ignored in popular culture—and, frankly, by many other Jews. At a time of genocide, colonialism, rightwing assault on goodness and the marginalized, and cruelty openly lauded for its own sake by the most powerful people in the world, I think there is a value in using this to create a vision of and a road to something better. Something more humanitarian and equitable.
This makes Passover sound like a painful, slow, leaden sermon. Nothing could be further from the case! It’s sad at times, and demands that we turn our eye towards abuse, but it’s also lighthearted and fun. There’s music! There’s raucous debate! There’s food and wine, and if you play by the rules you’ll end the night slightly sloshed! In our virtual Seder, we treat these as paramount. And, and I do want to make this as important as I can, this is not an evangelical or proselytizing or religiously segregated experience. Passover is made better when it’s not only for Jews and made worse when it’s only about Jews. That may not be the conservative take on the holiday, but I can assure you all that ours is far from conservative. Our Haggadah, the prayer book, is a modern one built around social justice, as will our take on the themes of the night. And historically, far more gentiles and atheists have joined these than Jews.
Now, I would love for everyone to join. I’ll settle for anyone who’d like to. But for those of you who are in that second category, here’s how this works. Seder is organized by segments that are performed that collectively create this philosophical dialogue. If you feel comfortable performing, ask to do one. We’ll have material prepared if you’d like just to do it as-is, but if you want to do your own research, we more than encourage it. That also includes things like preparing food central to the holiday, drinking the customary four cups of wine (four cups???), or choosing to use your mic. If you don’t want to do that and just listen and type into the communal text chat, that’s good too.
Here’s the Order of the Night. I’ve shifted a few things to make it slightly more accurate to the holiday, but built around the realities of the virtual space. We’re not going to have a “hide an afikoman JPG in your most safe for work folder” game. I mean, if you’d like to do that on your own, feel free. And as previously said, we’ll defer to the host for how they choose to present each part:
- Recital of Kiddush and drinking of the first cup of wine—Lord Stoneheart
- Cleaning House: Preparing the house for Pesach—Josephus Brown
- The Seder Table, Plate, and Appetizers—Miss Rim
- The Order of the Night—Wolfman Jew
- Maggid: the story of Passover, the Four Questions, and the second cup
- Matzah: what the hell is it?—Orson Hyde
- The Four Children—forget_it_jake
- The Plagues—LumberGini
- Bareich, blessing and drinking the third cup
- Dayenu—LibraryLass
- Hallel: recital and drinking of the fourth cup
- Recap: Have We Explained Gamliel’s Three Things?
- Passover Themes in Modern Life: Modern Slavery, Refugees, Prisoners, and Our Responsibilities—Wolfman Jew. As the host, I’ll take the lead, but this one is predominately an open discussion.
If someone would like to add something in addition, we have historically also had spaces for Optional History. This can be ways to explore Passover in other historical contexts. A common one we’ve done in the past is the Exposition, in which we explain the origins of the events in Exodus through a more analytical and cultural interpretation (and if you’d like to do that, please do), but people have also opted to tell distinct stories. I would personally love if you put forth an idea, if you have one.
We do have rules, however.
- Like I said, although the service will be done over voice chat, it is entirely opt-in; you only have to use your mic if you’d like and are free to communicate just through the text chat. However, if you do decide to go on mic, please keep it off when someone is performing a segment. Text responses are fine, of course, but let them perform. We’ll have spaces between sessions for people to talk more free.
- Second, this community prides itself on its inclusiveness, and we expect those values to be maintained here. Many people on mic will be trans or nonbinary; don’t assume gender from a speaker if you don’t know them.
- Third… just read the room and don’t be a jerk. I don’t expect this to be an issue, but it’s fundamental to this experience.
Now, there is one more issue: the date. After some discourse in the thread, we’ve picked the day: Saturday, April 19, at 8 PM Eastern / 7 Central / 6 Mountain / 5 Pacific. See you there!
Anyway, if you’d like to come, tell us! If you have questions, ask ‘em! We’ll add the link to Discord before the event.