The Passover Seder is a time when families get together. However, often because of the long readings from the Haggadah the Seder can become difficult – people become edgy, arguments can break out and the whole experience can become rather disheartening. In order to ensure that the Seder can be a positive and life enhancing experience I have developed the Life Transforming Contemplative Seder.
If you participate fully this should be both rewarding and enjoyable. The concept is as follows: instead of just reading the Haggadah and following its rituals you should contemplate your way through the Seder.
The theme should be “Discovering inner freedom to achieve our goals.” First, choose something in your life that you are unhappy with or something positive that you would like to do, but which – for one reason or another – you are not managing to fit into your life. Now keep those things in mind.
As you travel through the Haggadah try to motivate yourself either to eradicate the negative or to achieve the positive. Real freedom is about being what we really would like to be in life – and since Passover is all about freedom try to use its main event, the Seder, to achieve personal freedom.
According to the ancient Jewish mystics (Kabbalists) there are three contemplative stages: (1) Chochmah – wisdom. (2) Binah – understanding. (3) Daat – knowledge.
Our Contemplation will begin with the following thought from the Haggadah:
"We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children’s children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt."
Contemplate (think deeply about) these words in the context of modern-day freedom, realizing that freedom is a God given right for each of us and as such we must use it to achieve our true and full potential on both a personal and spiritual level.
Stage One of the contemplative process is Chochmah – wisdom. For this just think about the word freedom, not allowing any other thought to intrude. You may wish to say the word over and over again to help you think about it. This should take you to the next stage.
Binah – understanding. This is Stage Two. Start to think about all the details of freedom, including what it would be like not to be free. Do not allow any other thought to intrude when you are thinking about the details of freedom. Try to use all the thoughts that enter your mind to enhance your focus on freedom. Do this for at least a minute. Once the minute is up you will automatically have entered into Stage Three.
Daat – knowledge. This is the stage when you feel that you have connected with the idea of freedom and now you should be motivated to really free yourself from any boundaries (Egypt in Hebrew means boundaries) that are preventing you from expressing your God given freedom. Allow that feeling to marinate with you. Now that you are motivated to become truly free, please remind yourself of the positive thing you would like to achieve or the negative habit that you would like to kick. Now think about it, using Stage One – Chochmah – wisdom. Again to help you anchor the thought in your mind you may actually mouth it over and over again.
Now the reading of the Haggadah will act as Stage Two which is Binah – understanding. Just as you used the thoughts that entered your mind to help you think about freedom, please use the verses of the Haggadah to help contemplate on how you are going to change your life in a positive way. Use the words of the Haggadah as food for your contemplation. You will be amazed at how easily the words of the Haggadah can be adapted to almost any real-life moder-day situation or issue.
Once the Haggadah has been recited you should have reached the final Daat – knowledge stage where you feel empowered to make the changes you would like to implement in your life.
During the meal have a round table discussion about how this technique worked for you and the participants or your Seder. Appoint someone to moderate the discussion and allow each person to have a chance to speak.
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Life Transforming Contemplative Seders is a concept developed by Rabbi Levi Brackman (www.levibrackman.com) of Judaism in the Foothills, (www.judaisminthefoothills.com) a new outreach center serving the foothills of west Metro Denver.