Create a meaningful seder by forging connections

Preparing for Pesach is always daunting. It’s not the cleaning that is so difficult but rather the anxiety of planning the seder.

Families gathering together with sons and daughters, grandparents or grandchildren, friends and guests. How to make something meaningful, a seder that’s uplifting and inspiring?

With four different sons to address, the wise, wicked, simple and silent, how can one person relate to them all?

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Most of us are not entertainers, not public speakers, and we generally don’t lead public events. Yet here comes the seder and we have to do all the above. A father or mother is not necessarily a rabbi, chazzan or youth director!

So we start looking online and calling friends for all types of ideas to make our seders more exciting. Ten-plague kits, a stuffed animal lamb, dress-up clothing, game cards and all sorts of other devices.

But we tried that last year and the seder was no more inspiring than previous years. Passover is supposed to be about freedom and this task is just so burdensome!

So let’s reset and remember that the seder is not about entertaining or performing. The seder is about connecting — parents connecting with their children and children with their parents.

The seder is a time for our sons and daughters to connect — to connect with us as humans, as Jews and with our traditions.

That’s why they ask the four questions — and it’s our job to pay attention and listen! The answer to each question remains much the same and simple. God took us out of Egypt — meaning that we are Jews, we are a free people, a people free to serve God. And we will always be free and will always be Jews. Nations come and go and the Jewish people continue. We have gone into many exiles and each day has its constraints and challenges. But just as God took us out of Egypt, so does He do for us in every generation and each and every day.

Just be a Jew, be free, live as God wants you to and you will never need to perform again, for connections with people and God is the heart and soul of life.

God doesn’t need your performance. He is searching for your heart and soul. So are your children.

Be who you are — a free Jew! PJC

Rabbi Elchonon Friedman is the spiritual leader of Bnai Emunoh Chabad. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabonim of Greater Pittsburgh.