As an adult I have mostly vacillated between paganism and well – being lazy.  But one piece of my Jewish heritage I cannot leave behind is Passover. For this holiday, I have a possibly unreasonable and not very explainable attachment and enjoyment.

Over the years I have co-written the haggadah that is now used by my family. My co-authors have been friends, family and published strangers that have written bits that felt like they fit in with what we were trying to express. One of the things that really pleases me is that family and friends who have used the haggdah have grabbed copies for themselves and now use it with their families. We have had a fair amount of folks from outside the family, Jewish and non-Jewish join us and so far even the non-Jews have come away feeling like they had a good experience and didn’t get lost.

Where this is all going (tl;dr) – Our haggdah as wonderful as it is, really needs an overhaul. It needs to be pulled into a cohesive whole, but also needs some refreshing so that the content doesn’t get old.

What I would like to hear about – from both Jews and non-Jews – is what parts of the seder really speak to you, or hold the most meaning? Is there an overall theme you like to address? If you were writing your own what would you consider critical, or just what would you want added in besides the traditional elements?

I am hoping to get some added inspiration from hearing about other families, other seders and other memories.  Please feel free to send folks over if you think you know someone who might have something good to share.

Note: Of course when I am done with this years edit I will make it available for anyone who thinks they might want a copy.

We discussed who was likely to be our fellow participants (mostly people who were not jewish and many who had never been to a seder). We did some research about what was traditionally included and some emerging practices.  I read a LOT of haggadahs, and a fair bit of writing about passover.  In the long run we put together a seder that we enjoyed and that our friends found interesting and instructive.

As it turned out my family liked quite a bit of what Colleen and I had put together and since then, my dad and I have spent a little time every year to update, re-write, and fill in pieces. My mom has shown it to some of her friends and now there about 3 or 4 other families that use our haggadah for their seder. There is still quite a bit in there that is flatly or partially plagiarized, although at this point I couldn’t tell you which pieces came from where.

Next year I hope to do a massive re-write job on it – I have a friend who is a writer who has said they will help me. There are parts that reads okay on the page, but don’t read so well out-loud,  and I am hoping that I can soon remove the disclaimer about plagiarism, and yet add acknowledgments to some of the sources that have unknowingly inspired us along the way.

In any case – some folks have asked for a copy or to see it, etc.  so here is a link to a pdf of this years Passover Haggadah. I know that there are errors, there are every year – I have gotten sort of resigned to it. Its always a work in progress, I am always sitting at the seder with a pen in hand making corrections for the following year – and to a certain extent I like it that way.

About 10 or so years ago, my friend Colleen and I decided to write our own Haggadah for passover. She had come from a very unique religious background, I was raised jewish and at the time was a pretty active practicing pagan. But each for our own reasons still felt a strong affinity for passover. We started talking about it, and over time and a lot of discussion decided that we could craft a seder that worked to satisfy our desire to observe passover and many of its rituals, but also aligned itself with our current beliefs.

We discussed who was likely to be our fellow participants (mostly people who were not jewish and many who had never been to a seder). We did some research about what was traditionally included and some emerging practices. I read a LOT of haggadahs, and a fair bit of writing about passover. In the long run we put together a seder that we enjoyed and that our friends found interesting and instructive.

As it turned out my family liked quite a bit of what Colleen and I had put together and since then, my dad and I have spent a little time every year to update, re-write, and fill in pieces. My mom has shown it to some of her friends and now there about 3 or 4 other families that use our haggadah for their seder. There is still quite a bit in there that is flatly or partially plagiarized, although at this point I couldn’t tell you which pieces came from where.

Next year I hope to do a massive re-write job on it – I have a friend who is a writer who has said they will help me. There are parts that reads okay on the page, but don’t read so well out-loud, and I am hoping that I can soon remove the disclaimer about plagiarism, and yet add acknowledgments to some of the sources that have unknowingly inspired us along the way.

In any case – some folks have asked for a copy or to see it, etc. so here is a link to a pdf of this years Passover Haggadah. I know that there are errors, there are every year – I have gotten sort of resigned to it. Its always a work in progress, I am always sitting at the seder with a pen in hand making corrections for the following year – and to a certain extent I like it that way.

If you are interested please let me know – if you are interested but have concerns please let me know. (I am going to screen responses)

This would not be just a social hang around night – this will involve a seder service, the contents of our seder has been put together over many years, starting with and I writing it and cribbing from other seders. It contains most of the traditional (and required) elements and adds many more “modern” elements. It is not too long or (imho) particularly boring and we encourage questions and discussion.

So are you interested?

BTW if you read this but don’t know me personally and are interested you would be welcome. We would be doing this in the northern suburbs of chicago.

meanwhile I haven’t posted much – too much coughing and other shit to want to pay attention – not that I haven’t composed and disposed of 3 or 4 posts in the meantime.

Somewhere in the back of my brain is a post about feminism, and possibly one about passover and a few other thing rolling around in there. Also I think a few whines about bras, cold medicine and whatever else was agravating me at the time I was thinking – hey I should post about that – but really too tired to form cohesive sentences.

So while I am sick and lack for energy, I sit at home in front of the computer/tv and work on small projects that I always mean to work on – but never do because they aren’t exactly near the top of the list. Frequently they are small organization projects – this time is was trying take *mumblesomething* on trying to do something about my web bookmark problem.

In more detail:
Problem: I regularly uses 3 separate computers, my home laptop, my home desktop and my work computer – On each of these computers I used at least 2 browsers regularly, Opera and Firefox at home, and Firefox and Safari at work. Each of these computers and browsers end up with some subset of my bookmarks, but none of the computers or browsers have all of them, and some of them have large sets of overlapping ones, others have huge sets of duplicates from various imports and other attempts to deal with this bookmark problem.

Attempted Solutions: There are a variety of applications that theoretically will sync up your bookmarks from across computers or across applications – but I haven’t really found one that does both – across computers and across applications, especially seeing as I use less common browsers (Opera in particular is my browser love, but it isn’t supported well by 3rd party applications). I have tried 3 or 4 options, including 3 online synching services, and 1 Firefox extension (which obviously has the detraction of not working with Opera). I have also setup a links section on my own website, but updating is a pain, so I don’t end up doing it. A static links page is geekishly traditional – but once again is a bit of a pain in the ass to update, especially from remote locations like work.

Current Solution: and note, I am so far really liking this one. I set up a del.icio.us account. It has a bonus that I can add a page and sort/organize it in about 10 seconds, and into more than one catagory for finding it. I can access it from anywhere, and add links from anywhere. And it even imho offers organization that I like better than the traditional folder options that are available on browsers. I haven’t yet cataloged all my links – I have been doing the smallest sections first. The “hobbies” and “fan-fiction” sections are coming last as they have the most links, and also probably the most bad links that will need to be cleaned out. At this point I have cataloged about 190 links. Also I think it has the nifty bonus that I can share the links with folks, and see how popular some of the places I go are. So if you are desperately curious (or I suppose even mildly interested) about web pages that I like: Alyse’s Del.icio.us