PARENTING

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Getting A Handle On The Haggadah

Creative options engage the family

Maayan Jaffe

Special to the Jewish Times

­It’s almost spring and the most well-known Jewish holiday this season is Passover. Families across Baltimore are preparing by cleaning their homes and shopping for matzoh, matzoh meal and matzoh farfel. However, there’s another aspect of the holiday that needs to be attended to, and that’s the Seder.

The main goal of the Passover Seder is to tell the story of the Jews’ slavery and then Exodus from Egypt. Different families can do that in diverse ways. Nancy Hudes, mother of four children ages 5, 7, 9 and 11, says about 10 years ago she and husband Rick began to feel their Seder wasn’t as exciting as it could be. As she had more children and they each began to take a greater role in the Seder experience, she determined to be more creative.

“We’ve gone from making our own tent and everyone sitting on the floor to people coming dressed up as Passover characters and acting out their part,” says Hudes, who has prepared plague panoramas, opened the Tanach to read the chapter pertaining to the Exodus, and made song sheets of tunes her children learned in preschool and Hebrew school.

Of course, the main device for telling the Passover story is the haggadah. Hudes says she pulls from many different versions of this book in order to make a Seder that is simplistic enough for her children, yet creative, and involves some preparation beforehand, but keeps everyone engaged during the actual ceremony.

For example, Hudes’ children read “Sammy Spider’s First Passover” by Sylvia A. Rouss as a bedtime story for weeks before Passover. She also has them peruse “Seder with Animals” by Howard A. Bogot and “Family Haggadah: A Seder for All Generations,” by Elie M. Gindi.

Last year, Hudes used many aspects of the “Haggadah Shelanu” written by Chizuk Amuno’s Rabbi Ron Shulman and Chizuk Amuno Director of Congregational Education Alex Weinberg.

“Haggadah Shelanu is an amazing resource for our community because it gives people a chance to interact with the Seder,” says Hudes. “There are pages for the kids to color and different discussion triggers for the adults.”

Jennie Beckman describes her and husband David’s Seder as “eclectic.” She says they provide the standard Maxwell House haggadah to all their guests, but draw on other sources to “keep things interesting.”

Beckman describes some funky family traditions, like slugging each other with the scallions before dipping in saltwater, but says they also bring some serious aspects into the evening, including reading from “The Family Seder” by Rabbi Alfred Kolatch. She says that haggadah is very “Americanized … and includes fascinating quotes by American presidents throughout.”

Beckman says in this day and age there are so many creative and amazing choices out there. The key, however, is to choose something you know — or prepare beforehand.

“If you try to parachute a new haggadah into your family without doing pre-reading, it can make things difficult,” she says.