The Stage is Set
It is the first night of Pesach. The household is cleaned for the festival and everyone is gathered in their best holiday attire. As the last minute preparations are completed, those gathered are waiting in anticipation for the Seder to begin. Yes, Judaism has many festive meals - but the Seder is special!

"All who is hungry, let him come and eat"
It is a true Mitzvah to help those less fortunate during this time. Invite people to your home for the Seder meal, or google ways to help the less-fortunate in your area. Many Jewish organizations provide Pesach events and food for the needy. See how you can help!

Generally a family meal, the Seder is full of ancient ritual and contemporary hopes. The Haggadah serves as a script for the evening's drama, and it contains both a menu of scheduled activities, and serves as a starting point for improvisation. The key feature of the Seder is the accounting of the Exodus is recited among friends, young and old, to the accompaniment of a variety of activities designed to arouse everyone's curiosity.

An "Orderly" Affair
The Seder, as its name implies, is a structured, "ordered," affair which enables participants to enter into a personal encounter with history while fulfilling the Biblical command to "tell your child on that day" all about the Exodus. The laws and ritual of the Seder form the ultimate bridge of Jewish time. It is also a masterly crafted educational tool, inviting questions and commentary from all who partake in it.

An Ancient Custom
The Seder takes place on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nissan and recalls the momentous meal ate by the fleeing families of slaves just hours before the Exodus. So it was in the time of the prophet Isaiah "as on a night when the festival is hallowed" (Isaiah, 30:29). And likewise, Hillel the Elder of the Second Temple would "put matzah and bitter herbs together... in order to observe literally the words of the Torah: 'They shall eat it [the Pesach offering] with matzah and bitter herbs'."

Through Thick and Thin
The Seder has, in fact, accompanied Jews throughout the generations, in Judea and in Exile. The Haggadah records how R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua sat up all night in the shadow of the Roman soldiers to turn the Exodus story around and around. Through the darkest ages of Jewish Seder in the 1700spersecution in Europe and elsewhere, a Jewish child would stand head erect and ask the famous Four Questions, almost unchanged in 2000 years.

Highlights
The Seder is replete with unforgettable highlights that symbolize aspects of the Exodus story and its significance: The drinking of 4 cups of wine signifying 4 Biblical expressions of redemption; lifting the Seder plate with its variety of symbolic foods; eating the bitter herbs recalling the bitter slavery; singing Had Gadya - a song about the Jewish experience in history; and so on . . .

More than anything, the atmosphere of the Seder is what we take away with us. The questions and answers, the interpretations of texts, the explanations of the various symbols, the spilt wine and the re-enaction of the "free" life. We recall with poignance and mirth, the child's search for the missing afikoman, and with sentiment, the singing of Leshanah Haba'ah B'yerushalayim - "Next Year in Yerushalayim."

The Seder - A Unifying Experience
While there is a formal side and structure to the proceedings, the Seder - built up over the generations - is designed to help us internalize the magnitude of the miracles that befell our ancestors, in an informal way.
On the first night of Pesach, families and friends gather together - most with their individual memories of previous sedarim, and some for the first time in their lives. Each group will find its own, particular, style with which to celebrate the Seder. Each, in turn, will find a unique meaning to the experience, whether a soldier serving in Lebanon, an Ethiopian oleh or a Jewish schoolchild from Buenos Aires or Kazakhstan.

Through the re-enaction of the Exodus, through story-telling and symbol, Jewish families around the world unite in expressing hopes for similar 'redemptive' tidings in our day.