As leaders, we can learn a few things from running a Passover Seder. Seder means order or procedure. In order to get all of the required elements integrated, most of what we do to celebrate the holiday is prepare. The guest list needs to be set, the cupboards need to be cleaned, the Seder plate needs to be pulled down off the high and dusty shelf. While we physically do this process, we mentally assess our lives over the past year. If you’re like me and haven’t hosted a Seder for a few years, you’re scrutinizing a much longer period of time. I think back to the last Seder we hosted with family who are now far away.
Since there are many complicated parts involved in orchestrating the event, your preparation each year gets a little easier. Over time you gather more of the items needed, each of them adding flavor and rhythm to the event. A month ahead you start buying the special food when you see it in the store while avoiding chumatz. As these items pile up on your cupboard, you’re reminded to clean a spot for them. You dig out your dishes to clean and make a spot for, bring out the props, the decorations, and the haggadot. Do you have enough of everything? How will you present the many items you’ve accumulated this year?
For the actual Seder dinner, you need to formulate a game plan. Who’s going to be the head coach and call all the plays? Who’s going to be the cheerleader and lead the music? Who’s going to gather all the required items and make the meal? Are you going to have a theme or request audience preparation? All these need to be determined ahead of time – realizing that no Seder is ever exactly what you plan. Just like a basketball game during March Madness, you can never foresee the outcome… that’s part of a Seder’s charm.
Then you have the commanded requirements… putting the symbolic items on the Seder plate and fulfilling the order of the readings. Reading over the Hagaddah ahead of time as you prepare makes this seem like a laborious task. How will you possibly accomplish everything that needs to be done? Luckily during the lengthy, extensive, all-embracing, story you are given plenty of wine to drink and pillows to lounge on. Then the tiniest seemingly insignificant item, the Matzah, takes a leading role – starting the meal and ending it.
Running a Sisterhood takes a procedure. It involves tradition, but builds in new and innovative ways to gather together. We evaluate our roles and plan a year of activities using new and fresh ideas. How do we pull everything together? Who will step up to make it brilliant? Reading our mission statement and the by-laws can seem laborious, but together we make it work… the leading roles and the small seemingly insignificant ones are all essential. The most significant part of Passover and of Sisterhood is the fact that we are sharing the experience with others; because of this, the story never gets old.
