Four Types of Passover Seder

It is said that the Torah has seventy different faces – Shiv’im panim laTorah. The

rabbis intended us to understand by this that there are, in fact, limitless interpretations –

and no one is more right than another. The haggadah and the seder (order) of Passover

are also subject to numerous interpretations. The seder has endured many permutations,

keeping its essential character, because we can look it in so many ways. On the other

hand, it strikes me that we can categorize the types of seder into four. Four, of course, is

the perfect number for anything to do with Passover! We have four cups, four children,

four questions – so why not four types of seder?

Type one, I would say, is the original, commanded seder. The haggadah is the

haggadah of our forefathers – in Hebrew, without commentary. This is, by the way, also

the haggadah of Maxwell House (with added English). The text dates back to the 7th or

8th century CE (the earliest extant example dates to 860 CE) and was created by Rav

Amran Gaon, who was also the creator of the first siddur (prayer book).

The reason for performing this seder is simple: because God said so! In Exodus

12:14-17, we read, “This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it

as a festival to the LORD throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for

all time. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall

remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to

the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. You shall celebrate a sacred

occasion on the first day, and a sacred occasion on the seventh day; no work at all shall

be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that alone may be prepared for you. You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your

ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an

institution for all time. ” For a Jew who fallows halakhah, or Jewish law, no further

explanation is needed. We are commanded to observe Pesach and so we do.

The second type of seder is as much a matter of minhag -- custom – as it is of

halakhah. This is what we might call the family seder, or the “because we’ve always

done it this way and we like it” seder. The haggadah may be the traditional one – quite

often it is nusach Maxwell House! But it may equally well be any other haggadah the

family likes, or a random collections of different haggadot that have accumulated over

the decades. It can also be a home version, whether typed on a typewriter (remember

those?) and cut and pasted with actual scissors and glue, or compiled on a computer and

printed out. Frequently, this haggadah bows to the short attention spans of small children

or less-than-invested adults, cutting whole swaths of text and reducing the ritual actions

to their basic structure. Sometimes, this seder simply stops with the meal and lops off the

second half of the haggadah altogether.

Reasons for performing a sider like this have to do with tradition and family

connections: “We’ve always done it this way,” “We like to have a holiday together”,

“Bubbe makes the best gefilte fish, matzah ball soup, charoset, etc. etc.” There are

sometimes Jewish identity issues tied up in this seder as well. Those who perform it may

not care at all that the festival is commanded. Still they may argue, “We’re Jews, and

Jews do Passover.” It’s instructive to note that apart from circumcision, Pesach is the

most observed ritual among Jews of all kinds.

The third kind of seder looks for the spiritual meaning behind the actions.

Whatever haggadah it uses is sure to be full of commentaries and alternative texts. It may

draw on the writings of someone like Michael Strassfeld, who writes, “[Pesach] suggests

that while slavery can be found everywhere and in everything, perhaps most of all it is

found in the routine of the everyday. […It] calls us to reexamine our daily routine by

making us change our most basic element, bread, the staff of life. Nothing is to be

accepted as is; rather, all is to be held up for examination and reflection”. (Strassfeld, A

Book of Life)

Such a seder notes that the words for Egypt, Mitzrayim, is also the word for

“narrow places”. It comments on the puffed up nature of chametz (things that are

leavened) and draws an analogy between puffed foods and puffed egos. This type of

seder may run the longest, as participants (often young people or older adults without

small children) dig deep into the possible spiritual lesson of every step of the seder and

linger over the many songs that give the participants a sense of reliving the story “As if

they personally had come out of Egypt”.

The fourth type of seder is political. It might use the old Yiddish haggadah of the

Arbeiter Ring (Workmen’s Circle), Arthur Waskow’s original “Freedom Seder” (1969)

or the new “Freedom Seder for the Earth” (2009), or indeed any one of a vast number of

haggadot that are designed to impart a political or social message. They will reflect on

the lessons of the story of the Exodus, and think about ways to apply them in the present

day. Like the spiritual seder, the political seder hopes to change and inspire its

participants – in this case, toward acts of social justice. Participants may think about the

results of African American enslavement (yes, there is a Black Lives Matter Haggadah) or human trafficking (T’ruah, formerly Rabbis for Human Rights, produces a haggadah

focused on “fighting modern slavery”). Nowadays, sadly, there are even Anti-Zionist

Haggadot, which one exasperated commentator writes “convert the Passover seder from

an academy of Jewish peoplehood into a seminar in Jewish self-dissolution.” And on the

other hand, there are many haggadah supplements that came out after the October 7 th

massacre, as well as one alternative Post-October 7 haggadah that begins the maggid by

saying, “We want to tell the story, but do you want to listen? “

Of course, you may say that many sedarim are a mixture of these four types. And

why not? We all recognize a bit of each of the Four Children in ourselves, and it’s clear

that the Four Questions are related to each other. As with any of the other Passover fours,

these four types of seder are simply one way of framing at how we observe this richly

meaningful holiday. Here at CCI we’re having discussions with the Board and Ritual

Committee about how to observe Passover more fully next year – perhaps with a potluck

seder, and/or with a womens’ seder. These future seders will probably bring a bit of each

of the four types of seder – although definitely nothing overtly political! So, as we have

concluded our sederim for this year, I wish us “next year in Jerusalem” – or in Green

Bay!