seder? I don't even know 'er!
We did two seders this Passover season. As I mentioned we capped the Patriots Day festivities with Passover observances at the Bernsteins, and this evening we held our own seder for our church small group. Neither one was entirely respectful of tradition.
Not that there's anything wrong with that! On Monday, we used the same haggadah we do every year but there was from time to time a little confusion about what page we were meant to be on. Since seder means "order", the confusion was potentially problematic, but we managed to keep it together and everyone made sure to get the crowd going of whichever parts of the celebration that they particularly wanted to have included.
Today we didn't even try to do things official. With adults who had never experienced a proper seder before, plus six kids under the age of six who were already past their regular dinner hour when they walked in the door (well, Harvey was already here) we figured we'd better not push it. Still, Leah did a very good job of presenting an abbreviated version from memory, and we had all the important parts in there. We blessed the bread and the wine (the latter present only in spirit and as grape juice), we made our Hillel sandwiches, and we dipped our vegetables in salt water. We even hid the afikomen; though, as we reflect on it now, we never sent anyone to go find it. Oh well, that can be breakfast tomorrow.
True, as a whole things were far from properly conducted. But we remembered the exodus; as for the little details, I expect that God will remember we're not actually Jewish and cut us some slack.