Noam Zion's lively new Passover guide uses contemporary idioms to transform tradition.

Ellen Harris City Editor

March 1, 1996

If Noam Sachs Zion has his way, the guests at his Seder table won't furtively count the remaining unread pages of their Haggadah while eagerly awaiting the first matzo ball of the evening.

After three years of constant revisions, Zion, who is a faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a frequent lecturer at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, has created a new breed of haggadah. A Different Night: The Family Participation Haggadah is brimming with techniques for drawing guests into the Seder rituals and enlivening traditional readings with contemporary references.

Along the way, participants gain a new slant on the holiday taken from unconventional sources, including letters to The New York Times; a cartoon version of Abraham breaking the idols; and 20 artistic renderings of the four sons (In this Haggadah, referred to as four children for gender-neutral purposes), which Include drawings of the Marx brothers.

Zion wrote it with David Dishon also on staff at the Shalom Hartman Institute. At its heart is the maggid (storytelling) part of the Exodus. Presented as a dialogue between parent and child, or leader and participant, this section offers provocative (and frequently, humorous) commentaries, activities and historical backgrounds. For example, in one section written by David Hartman, the concept of slavery is explained to young participants by telling the story of a child, whose father had been away from home for one year on business. Finally, the father announces, he is returning; and the family prepares for the homecoming. At the last minute, the father calls to announce that his boss won't release him from his job.

Abba explains to his son, "I can't make my own decisions. The boss decides my movements for me." At that moment, the child realizes love isn't enough to bring his parent home. The storyteller says to children at the Seder table, "That's what it means to be a slave: You can't control your life."..

The authors suggest that participants continue the dialogue by citing their own personal examples of bondage or symbolic imprisonment, or even act out a skit.

The Haggadah retains traditional halachic (Jewish legal) passages and transliterated Hebrew text, along with directions for performing the rituals. But even the Four Questions take on a new spin. They shouldn’t be an exercise in automatic recitation, claim Zion and Dishon, who emphasize that the Mishna requires that intelligent children ask their own questions.

For example, the authors advise that even before the Four Questions are asked, the Seder leader begin handing out dessert treats. Automatically, the children ask, "What's going on?" says Zion. "They want to know why this night Is so different." Not only is this a sure fire way to spark a lively discussion, it's a tradition which dates back to Maimonides, Zion chuckles.

Although the Haggadah is 180 pages long, it is organized in a user-friendly format, with each page accompanied by a graphic of a wine cup (or more) corresponding to the selection at hand. Bold-line drawings and illustrations drawn from medieval and modern artists serve as visual commentaries.

The authors are quick to point out that the erudite material and illustrative commentaries in their Haggadah can't be absorbed in one sitting. Seder leaders should familiarize themselves with various sections, then pick selected passages to use. Zion emphasizes that A Different Night offers resources and themes for many years of Passover Seders.

Responses have been "very positive," he says. He also "test marketed" it at the Hartman Institute during rabbinical seminars attended by Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist participants. It appears to be "trans-denominational," he observes.

A Different Night embodies knowledge Zion has acquired during his distinguished academic career and 20 years of taking part in his own family Seders. It also incorporates rituals celebrated by other families.

"Some sections are inspired by customs like that used by Max Ratner's family," explains Zion, who earlier lived In Cleveland for several years. "The Ratners would reward the kids with money as a prize for finding the afikomen then encourage them to give a percentage to charity and announce their choice (of charity)."

By Rabbi Jack Riemer

April 8, 1997

BY NOW THERE are who-knows-how-many different editions of the Haggadah. It is probably the most published book in all of Jewish life. There are haggadot for vegetarians, for peaceniks, for secularists, for art lovers and for almost every other category that you can think of. So what do we need another one for?

That was my thought until I opened this one, and then I understood which niche this book is intended to fill. It is for those who may not know much, but who want to learn and who want to have a Seder that is user-friendly and interactive and meaningful for both adults and children.

That is a pretty big segment of the market, and so this is a book that deserves to be considered for possible use for at least one, if not both, of the nights of the Seder.

The people who put it together are not only good pedagogues, they are master designers. And so they have worked out a number of formats and prompters on each page that make it clear and easy to use

For example, each section of the Haggadah is listed in faint blue on the right hand side of the page so that the user knows how much has been covered and the section that you are up to is listed in dark blue. For those who don't want to or are unable to stay up till midnight, there is a "bare bones Seder" that consists of both text and ideas for discussion and projects for the kids and that can be completed in an hour.

There are thought questions, such as "Was it right for Abraham to break his father's idols?" and "Are we not all Jews by choice today?" that are bound to raise debate and discussion at the Seder. And there are quotations from a whole range of people such as Frances Bacon, William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill as well as Maimonides and Rav and Chassidic masters. Shakespeare's thoughts about whether revenge is good or bad are a lovely sendoff to the discussion of why we spill ten drops of wine for the ten plagues.

My favorite parts are the cartoons. A teenager named Tanya Zion, who, I suspect, is the daughter of one of the editors, has some marvelous depictions of different parts of the Seder, and there is artwork that has been culled from the creations of Marc Chagall, Jakob Steinhart, David Sharir, Shraga Weill, Ben Shahn and others.

The whole idea of the Seder is that it should be an experiment in intergenerational communication. And so the editors do something very special with the section about the four children (or "the four sons," as they used to be called before our consciousness was raised by the feminists). They bring us about fifteen pages of different drawings of the four children, so that we can discuss together what constituted wiseness and what constituted badness, and what constituted simpleness and inability to ask in different periods of our people's history and in the imagination of different artists.

They show us one rendition from the Prague Haggadah of 1526 and, right next to it, one that comes from Budapest in 1924. They include Yariv Ben Aharon's warning about the pitfalls of labelling, and his suggestion that the four children are really four facets of each and every child. And they suggest that we might do some role playing or debate whether "the wicked child" may not be an unfair description.

They show us Don Isaac Abrabanel's opinion that "the wise child" may really be a smart ass, wise guy trying to show off his knowledge instead of the good guy that we have always thought hi to be.

Then comesan artistic rendition of the four children from a Haggadah done in Chicago in 1879 (that shows the wicked son smoking at the Seder) anone done by Lola in 1920 (which surely gets the prize for the world's worst Haggadah art!) showing the wicked son as a prize fighter.

Tanya Zion chimes in with two marvelous pictures: one of the four versions of the ideal Jewish girl and one of the four children in contemporary Israel. Look at it just to see if you can figure out why the haredi child is the one who does not know how to ask.

There are portraits of the four children by Arthur Szyk and David Moss, done in America, and by Zvi Livni and Shraga Weil, done in Israel. There is one, by Dick Codor, that uses the Marx brothers as models (Quick - do you remember which brother never spoke?) And there is a version, from Rony Oren's Animated Haggadah, in which the four children are made of clay.

I bet that you can't get through this section of the Seder without a good many laughs and a lively interchange on what constitutes goodness or wisdom or rebelliousness or apathy in our age. But try to save some time for the rest of the Haggadah, for there are a lot of innovations and surprises all through this book.

By the way, one of its most helpful suggestions is to expand the meaning of the karpas that we eat at the beginning of the Seder to include dipping and tasting various fresh vegetables and other appetizers so that “When do we eat already?" does not become the kvetch of the evening.

The Seder is not supposed to be an endurance contest or a speed race or a rushed-through prelude to the meal. It is supposed to be a holy moment, when parents teach children who we are and what our story is and manufacture the memories that will nourish them for years to come.

by Andrew Silow-Carroll

April, 1997

Did Maxwell House kill the American Passover Seder?

It seems like a heavy charge to pin on a coffee company. But who knows how many Jewish children, numbly and obediently flipping through the pages of the blue and white Maxwell House came to regard the Seder as a stultifying arcane ritual, a regimented recitation of thees and thous, an endurance test as lacking in levity as leaven? Is it only a coincidence that in the 70 years since Maxwell House began distributing tens of thousands of haggadot as promotional items, the intermarriage rate among Jews has soared?

The rabbis never intended that the Exodus From Egypt be recited rote out of a paperback book. In the Mishna they specified that families "expound the whole section, “My father was a wandering Aramean” (Pesachim 10:4), improvising, embellishing. and expanding upon the verse from Deuteronomy that introduces the central drama of the Passover Seder. Their role model was the teacher Rabbah, who shocked his pupil Abaye by having the dishes cleared off the Seder table before the meal. When Abaye asked why, Rabbah answered "Your question has served the same function as the usual four questions of Ma nishtana. Let's dispense with those set questions and proceed directly to the telling of the story" (Pesachim 115b).

Noam Zion and David Dishon have written a Passover haggadah for families eager to "dispense with those set questions and answers but intimidated by the prospect as well. Careful to retain the traditional core of the haggadah - the 15 steps beginning with the first cup of wine and kiddush and concluding with the hallel, nirtza prayer and folk songs they weave around the text a tapestry of ancient midrash, contemporary commentary, provocative questions, and unexpected answers. They involve the children, with skits games. and gentle horseplay. Some are silly like the Afghani Jewish custom of striking your neighbor with a stalk of green onion during the chanting of Dayenu. Others encourage introspection. like asking children to name the one object they would carry with them out of Egypt.

At the same time, adults are urged to consider the mature themes of what Zion and Dishon call a "leap of solidarity back into the founding event of Jewish nationhood. The heart of this effort is the section they call “maggid” or storytelling. The section takes the form of six suggested "symposia" on timeless themes: assimilation, anti-Semitism, ancient Egyptian oppression, resistance to tyranny, sexual oppression and the lessons of suffering. The sources brought to bear are as varied as Reb Nachman of Braslav, and Abraham Lincoln, Zora Neale Hurston and Victor Frankl.

Because the authors are superb Jewish educators and scholars on the staff of Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute founded by Orthodox philosopher Rabbi David Hartman to create a common language among the most and least traditional Jews their Haggadah avoids the easy "relevance" that has reduced recent haggadot to public service announcements on nuclear war or women's rights. When the authors urge a discussion, they offer appropriate texts on Jewish tradition, contradictory views, that invites the opinions of guests across the range of religious, ideological and generational perspectives.

A few warnings for those who undertake to host a post-Maxwell House Seder. As the authors point out, their haggadah contains enough material for a few years of Seders and some preparation is advised to select themes, pull out readings, and assign roles. The other risk is that a long session of discussion and storytelling, however stimulating, can't compete with the smells emanating from the kitchen. Zion and Dishon suggest you revive the original rabbinic custom (forbidden by some, although not all, spoil sport halachic authorities): Along with the vegetable that is dipped into saltwater near the beginning of the Seder, offer substantive appetizers with dips of the own.

And if intelligent conversation. imaginative role-playing, and probing questions aren't enough to keep some guests awake? There’s always coffee.

By Reuven Ben Dov

April 17, 1997

One would not expect the Shalom Hartman Institute to publish a standard Haggada based only on the traditional sources. So read on if you want to make your Seder dramatic, different, and challenging. Thanks to Noam Zion and David Dishon, it is going to be much easier to prepare my Seder this year, as they offer a wealth of stories, songs, ideas, and games.

Here are some examples from an ''experimental'' Haggada which is "designed to enable the contemporary Jew to lead an interactive and intellectually stimulating Seder."

The emphasis is on maximizing participation by family and guests. If you ask the person who cannot wait to eat to take an active role, he may forget that he is hungry. The dramatist among us should act out the Ten Plagues. Select someone with a good voice to lead the songs. Delegate responsibilities in advance. Invite guests to recall their own family stories of redemption from illness, danger or persecution.

The Four Questions remind us that we should be asking our own questions all evening. Isidor I. Rabi, Nobel laureate in physics, was not asked as a child growing up in Brooklyn, "Did you learn anything today?" His mother would ask, "Did you ask a good question today?" Pride of place is given to the Four Sons, or the Four Children, as it is translated. Eight beautiful color plates of different artists' interpretations are explained. (There are many color photographs and black and white illustrations scattered throughout the Haggada).

Many are the ways of understanding the Four Sons. Yaariv Ben Aharon, a kibbutz author, wants to show that all children have some characteristics of all the sons. The wise son may also be rebellious and inflict pain on his parents. "I do not view labels as static pigeon-holes," he says. "I believe in the power of the educational act to release locked up potential: For example, the one who does not know how to ask may be silenced by the rules of society. The silence may hide an exceptional, sensitive child whose questions are choked. A parent can 'open the child up,' remove the obstructions, enable personal growth and break stereotypes."

The authors suggest numerous topics for discussion. "In this age of liberaand democracy, of pluralistic tolerance for many different cultural expressions, should a person who expresses a seof alienation from our Jewish heritage be condemned as 'wicked'?"

Role-play the child and his parents. Ask your children why they think the "silent" child asks no questions How might he be coaxed into greater involvement? Compare and contrast the different pictures of the sons. Which portrayal is most surprising? Most disturbing? Most appropriate? What conceptions of Jewish values and society are implicit in the various depictions?

Many nuggets of information make the Seder more interesting. Did you know that in Tel Aviv the maternity hospital is located at the intersection of Shifra and Puah (the names of the Jewish midwives who outsmarted Pharaoh and saved the Hebrew infants from drowning)? Al Axelrod, Hillel rabbi at Brandeis University in the 1960's established the annual Shifra and Puah Award for nonviolent resistance to tyranny. Whom would you recommend this year? Pharaoh was fearful of the Jewish minority's power and size. In England, adults guessed that there were 250 million Jews in the world, instead of the actual figure of 13 million. High-school children thought that Israel was perhaps 10 times the size of England! During the American Civil War, Jewish Union soldiers could not make harosset, so they put a real brick in its place on the Seder tray. The concept of freedom is embellished with the African-American spiritual "Let My People Co," and such songs as "If I Had a Hammer."

Naturally, there are many references to the suffering of Holocaust victims and Russian refuseniks. A prayer said before eating bread in Bergen-Belsen is quoted. In a Soviet labor camp, the bitter herbs were represented by slices of onion, the zeroa (roasted bone symbolizing the Paschal sacrifice) was burnt soup cubes. For korech, the sandwich of matza and maror, there was nothing to put between the matzos. Yosef Mendelevich said, "We do not need a symbol of our suffering. We have real suffering and we shall put that between the matzot."

The word "sandwich" was invented by John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who ordered his servant to bring him pieces of meat between slices of bread so that he could continue gambling without losing time: the first "fast food." Linguists here wanted to call a sandwich a "hilleleet," after Hillel, who put bitter herbs and the Paschal lamb between matzos in Temple times. They then settled for "kareech" from the verb that describes the original sandwich -"korech" - but it did not catch on.

The Ten Plagues provide an opportunity for the children to play games. Act out a play so we can guess what the "yukkiest" plague is. The adults can also act. The Hassidic rebbe Naftali Zvi Horovitz used to invite all participants to pour from their personal cup into the Cup of Elijah. This symbolizes the need for everyone to make their own personal contribution to awaken the divine forces of redemption by beginning with human effort. At the same time we can make a wish for a better year.

Chad Gad-ya is the Jewish "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." So we can invite volunteers to make an appropriate sound or gesture for each subsequent aggressor…

The authors offer us a bare bones basic Seder which though short still offers opportunities for a few enriching activities and readings. However, they point out that these minimal extracts do not correspond "precisely to formal halachic requirements."…

This is a mind-boggling haggadah which will make us look forward to resuming year after year to experience and understand the message of the Pessah story.

For more detailed information on how to lead a Seder, the Leader's Guide should be very useful, the ideas are more suited to the havura-Jewish Catalog scene than the Orthodox world.

True to the pluralistic and eclectic Hartman vision, an excellent list of the required halachic minimal text that must be read is given the approval of Rabbi Yaacov Warhaftig, director of the Ariel Institute, an Orthodox rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem. But in the same guide is an article by Rabbi David Golinkin, an associate professor of Halacha at the Seminary of Judaic Studies in Jerusalem of the Masorti movement, comparing Theodor Herzl with Moses. The book includes the Ma Nishtana in nine languages including Amharic, Dutch and Ladino, as well as many games and suggested activities for children of different ages. A number of essays are contributed by Rabbi David Hartman and others, which together with the teaching of roleplaying and bibliodrama offer a lot to think about.

We are advised which kind of guests to invite, to sleep in the afternoon before the Seder, to prepare small personal gifts for the guests, and to make the Seder "look like a jam session, not a pre-scripted concert." Above all, we must be creative, innovative, exciting, use gimmicks to arouse curiosity, and do new and different things every year. These two books could help us to achieve these aims in an enjoyable and painless way.