Passover workshop participants share ways
to make their seders family- iendly.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

A

few Sundays ago, Robert Rubin left his Huntington
Woods home for a Passover workshop at Adat Shalom
Synagogue with specific instructions fr om his wife. "I
wanted him to come back with something new for our
seder," Judy Rubin says.
This was not an easy assignment for the family, whose seders are
already interactive, innovative and educational. But Rabbi Daniel
Nevins was up to the task with 50 participants in his March 25
workshop on "How to Make a Family-Friendly Seder."
Rabbi Nevins suggests beginning the seder with an inclusive
activity "I like to start with everyone at the table telling their
Hebrew name," he says. "This helps them to interact, but also to
think of themselves differently — to try to take themselves out of
the normal way of thinking about themselves — to have them feel
like we were slaves."
Judy Rubin liked that idea and plans to incorporate it into her
family's two seders.
Robert Rubin says he also will include a story told by Rabbi
Nevins about a court jester who was chosen as king of his country
in a process that awarded the title randomly "The king, normally
dressed in royal robes, would once a year put on his jester robe,
look in the mirror and remind himself that he came from humble
beginnings," Rabbi Nevins says. "This is a nice way to begin a dis-
cussion of ways we are still enslaved today"
Two years ago at the Rubin home, guests were asked to come to

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2001

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the seder with a visual indication of their personal freedom. "Two
people who were newly divorced each brought their divorce
decrees," Judy Rubin says. "Someone came with their grandfather's
visa allowing him to come into the country, and my son, Ari, who
was 16 at the time, brought his driver's license."
This year, the Rubins' seder guests may be asked, "Which one of
the four sons are you and why?" or "With which part of the seder
plate do you identify?"
Rubin has her answer already planned. "I'm the charoset (blend
of apples, nuts and wine, symbolizing mortar) — the glue that
seems to be able to keep everybody together."
In past years, the family has acted out parts of the Passover story
and presented the Four Questions in Russian, French, English,
Spanish, Yiddish and sign language.
Participants at Rabbi Nevin's workshop shared their own sugges-
tions with the group, like new songs and games. "One family told
of how they beat each other with scallions to feel the bitterness of
slavery," the rabbi says.

Endless Creativity

Rabbi Nevins sees the purpose of the seder as two-fold. "The mitz-
vah of Passover is nor only for adults to experience the exodus from
Egypt but to intrigue children and to excite their interest."
He suggests singing the songs in the Hagaddah to familiar mod-
ern-day runes and, at the workshop, he wowed guests by turning
water into blood. "You think only Moses can do it?" asked the

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Rabbi Daniel Nevins

Top: "The Four Sons," from
Words of the Torah
Haggadah, 1711 Sulzbach,
Bavaria.

