Join me for the DIY Feminist Seder Webinar!!
We are in weird times, my friends. I hope you are keeping well in the thick of it all. A lot of us have been thinking of Passover and what it may look like coming up, given gatherings are cancelled and a lot of us and our relatives may need to stay home to stay safe.
A lot of us this year are going to have to DIY it.
While this sucks in some ways, it is good in others... we get to choose how we will run our seder. For years I’ve been part of a feminist seder with friends that fills me with joy and delight. I also really like the creativity that comes with creating or incorporating rituals that are new to us.
So I am very very excited about this webinar! I’ll show you how to do seder prep even if you are new to this (maybe you’ll be DIY-ing your very first seder ever, I got you!).
✅ No fancy Jewish education or Hebrew-proficiency required.
I’ll also show you how to bring in special traditions that honour the women of the Passover story and the women in our lives.
✅ There are opportunities for queer and genderqueer inclusions as well.
Let’s take the “Freedom” part of the seder literally. There’s no freedom without feminism (intersectional, mindful, heart-centered feminism).
As some of you know, I am a Jewish Doula. I wanted to become a doula when I was in the middle of trying to give birth, it wasn’t going well, and I started searching my phone for Jewish birth ritual. Not the moment for a deep dive into research, Denise! But I realized that even as a feminist and a rabbi, no one had ever taught me about the Jewish women’s histories and rituals around birth.
Let’s think about the Passover story for a second... it starts with midwives who are heroes and a birth. The words “deliver us” featured prominently. There is a watery passageway to deliverance, out of which a people is born.
The Passover story is a birth story! Or it could be read that way... depending on your lens. I, for one, am sick of the lens being the one handed down through the generations by the Maxwell House Haggadah. We have the tools to do better, even if we are new to Judaism, Jew-“ish”, Jewish adjacent (partnered with a Jewish person), etc.
Look, I know you’ll be home March 24th at 7:30 ET. Might as well webinar with me for free :)
Stay safe and healthy!
Rabbi Denise
PS: If you are really into someone else doing the DIY, you can always join Secular Synagogue’s online community. A membership before March 27th gets you access to our Digital community seder that last year was a real highlight of the year. Digital seders might just be the 2020 way forward... might as well join the smartest, kindest folks on the internet to see how they do it! Join the community here.