A Passover Story

Brother is an excellent writer.  He kept me amused all through college with his semi-monthly JA NEWS.  All sides and corners of the pages were covered with amusements and philosophy, as were the envelopes.  He has his own particular take on the world, and this description of his seders is a window for the rest of you.

Enjoy the weekend, whether you are celebrating anything or not!

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Our Wacky and Wild Seders

We have two dozen haggadot that are all the same. Sometimes we start reading around the table, each person reading one sentence. You have to pay attention – “Where are we?” is not acceptable with this crowd. Then we switch to each person reading one word. It goes slowly at first, then picks up speed until somebody says “REVERSE” and we go the other direction. It usually ends in laughter when two people next to each other keep saying “REVERSE!”

We also have a collection of different haggadot, from fancy collectible printings to crumbling ancient Maxwell House booklets. When we use these haggadot, everyone at the table gets a different version. We sometimes try the one sentence at a time thing with the various translations. You have to listen while reading ahead and thinking about your next line. This usually winds up in a discussion like, “That doesn't make sense” or “You missed this part” or “Mine translates that as (whatever).” We always compare artwork in the different versions. Some is astonishingly good, some is astonishingly bad, and some is just astonishing

But the company and the food are always good.