SEDER PRACTICES AROUND THE GLOBE and THROUGH JEWISH HISTORY


When your Seder begins, consider the origins of your family and where the various generations originated – Europe, Asia, Israel and the Middle East, Africa, North and South America. Your customs may well represent the merging of various ethnic practices – and you may not yet know and appreciate how your family came to be. Think about those customs and laws your family observes and ask a 5th question Why?

SYMBOLISM AND SYMBOLS ON – or near – the SEDER PLATE

There are the very traditional symbols on or near or under the Seder Plate, according to different traditions and organization of the Passover symbols. Today, as across the years, we keep being creative and adding symbols to the Seder which interpret “freedom” for each of us and for the time in which we are living. See what you can add, or subtract, or interpret differently!

A Secular Seder: The Haggadah for Cultural Jews, their Families and Friends By Herbert J. Levine

More than the Jewish people have kept Passover, Passover has kept the Jewish people. More than any other Jewish ritual, the Seder continues to be observed. There is something profound about what we do when we participate in a Seder, which both expresses and shapes who we are. This applies both to Jews and to non-Jewish family members and friends who celebrate Passover. Most Jews who say ‘I am Jewish, but not religious’ mean that they identify with the values and customs of Judaism, the culture, but not the theology. If you define yourself in this way, this Haggadah is for you.