Quick Pesach report

[rhu]

Seders were good. Kids were really into it; they asked some good hard questions and also stepped up their Hebrew reading this year. Timing worked out well; both nights we started around 8:15, were eating by 9:30, done by 11:30, and in bed around midnight. It was a disappointment not to have my parents join us, as we had originally planned, but c'est la vie.

I davened Tal and it went well. It's an honor to be asked regularly to do this, and I got lots of nice feedback afterwards. Since we still don't have our own room, the early service is still trying to fit everything in to 105 minutes (so we can be out of there in time for the late service). That's tight but doable; what I'm particularly proud of this year was that I was able to keep pretty much on schedule without compromising on either the use of the ancient melodies or the use of contemporary congregational sing-along tunes.

T's birthday went well. One of his best friends (and the friend's family) was spending Pesach with his grandparents a few blocks from our house, so we were able to have them over for lunch yesterday. H made a wonderful flourless chocolate mousse birthday cake; it was in two layers with raspberry jam between them so I called it a Pesacher Torte. :-)

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Remind me to ask you a question about seder prep.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I'm in favor of it.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Kids were really into it; they asked some good hard questions

Isn't there a list of particular questions the kids ask? How does that work?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

There are the "Four Questions" near the start of the seder, and they are traditionally recited by the children. But when they're presented in the Talmud (Tosefta to Pesachim 10), they're actually presented as fallback questions:

And here, the children ask. And if they are too young to ask, the parents point out: "What is different [Mah Nishtanah] between this night and all other nights? On all other nights we eat bread or matzah, but on this night only matzah! On all other nights we eat all sorts of vegetables, but on this night we make sure that includes bitter herbs...."

(And so on.) The talmud goes on to tell the story that Abaye was at Rabba's seder, and they cleared the seder plate away just as the seder was getting started. Abaye asked "Why are they removing the plates?" and Rabba replied "You have exempted us from asking 'Mah Nishtanah'?" (TB Pesachim 115b)

But the ideal is for everyone at the seder to say "Hey, wait a second. I never noticed this before. Why does it say ____?"

For example, at our first seder, Tani asked "Why do we call matzah the 'Bread of Affliction?' The Torah says we ate matzah because we left Egypt in a hurry, that implies that while we were slaves, we ate bread. So the matzah isn't associated with the affliction, but with the liberation." (I'm still researching the answer. It's a good question.)

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

That's really cool, that the ritual encourages questioning the traditions.