For the past two years I have attended modern orthodox sederim, but before that for several years I attended mostly yeshivish black hat sederim – and in doing so I have witnessed some very keen differences in the way these sederim are conducted.
The differences between modern orthodox and yeshivish sederim:
Time: Until I attended a non-hotel run modern orthodox seder I always thought they would be longer, I figured since shul was longer and everything the modern orthodox did in terms of simchas and holidays always ran longer, the sederim would be the same thing. This is simply not the case, mostly due to the fact that the only people who give divrei torah at most modern orthodox sederim are the kids home from yeshiva in Israel and the father. Rarely does anyone give over any long diatribe about the 400 extra plagues or do the kids say the ma nishtana in 3 or 4 languages.
Where as black hat sederim are all about the relentless barrage of divrei torah which usually have nothing to do with the story of leaving Egypt. In fact my dad one year went crazy because they didn’t even tell the story and rather they focused on what the Riff or Mar Zutra had to say about matzo cooking times or something. Also yeshivish people tend to take forever with ma nishtana, and unlike the modern folks they never help the kids out – ever notice how every modern person at the table says ma nishtana really low and slowly along with the kids. Yeshivish kids must say it in Yiddish, Hebrew and English. Even though your supposed to end before 12, I feel like bragging how late you ended is part of out-frumming your neighbor.
Kezayis: My first time attending a yeshivish seder as an adult was met with fascination due mostly to the size of the portions eaten of maror and matzo. Unlike my modern experience of filling a lettuce leaf with two tablespoons of charoses these people would dip 3 lettuce leaves and dump horseradish on top and then an argument about whether they ate enough would ensue. Then eating matzo would take forever, because no matter how much you ate, it was never enough.
Flip to the modern orthodox sederim I have attended and its all about pre-sized korech sandwiches passed around – half a leaf of lettuce, sprinkled horseradish and maybe 2 inches of matzo. For hamotzi you can eat whatever you like and its enough, no one ever calls you out or brings a whole Talmudic discussion on sizes and portions. Yeshivish people also dip their marror into charoses and never pour it on. I always used to be yelled at for pouring it on. I am all about eating the right amount, so that the seder wasn’t for a waste, if I have to go through with thing, it might as well be counted – hence the same reason I always wait an extra few minutes after fasts to eat.
Women: Besides for little girls saying ma nishtana, I never really saw women participation at yeshivish sederim, maybe my cousins were way frummy – but it never occurred to me until I started writing this post. I thought that women are supposed to be included because they left Egypt too – or is it untznius? Well its not like the women are doing all that much at modern sederim either besides talking to their men or making eyes at the single men.
Reading of the Haggadah: Yeshivish people do it in yeshivish Hebrew, very fast at times and the more frum you are the less likely they are to sing your pesach favorites like Dayanu and Avadim Hayuni. Modern orthodox people tend to sing all your favorites and take a darned long time doing it, because they always say it in English before they sing it, when I got to modern orthodox seder I expect to be carried along by the songs and spacing out during the rest of the stuff. Modern sederim always have a mix of languages, you have most of the folks that read it in English – then theres always that BT fresh from seminary that thinks Hebrew is better even though it takes her 20 minutes to read one of the four sons paragraph.
Modern people always use the same haggadah around the table, besides for one or two people usually sons that became frummer than their parents who are using different haggadahs. Common haggadahs at modern sederim include the Maxwell House (usually older folks) and the artscroll, also that yellow and red one – not sure what it is. At yeshivish sederim its completely different, mostly because loshon hakodesh is the language of choice, and therefore everyone has their own haggadah and usually some sort of sefer that they have lying around to look fort divrei torah.
Wine: At yeshivish sederim there is almost always red wine and if there is white wine, someone will start another Talmudic discourse on why you shouldn’t drink white wine – and then someone will argue with them about the whole concept of being free and liking white wine better and then someone will say “its not so pashut” and so on. At the modern sederim I have a attended there has been a plethora of choice, I always pick moscato or white joyvin, no I am not a wine person and I don’t feel like being drunk at a seder.
Other miscellaneous items: Modern people rarely bring pillows or lean correctly at sederim while yeshivish people get their lean on – I never remember to lean and most of the time I end up leaning forward so my wine doesn’t spill on my clothing – it always does anyway.
At yeshivish sederim there isn’t as much flirting as at modern sederim, or any at all, for me the seder can be a great time to meet women, it’s a shame they always bring their boyfriends or future husbands though, a singles seder would probably be real interesting.
Frummies never put machine made matzo on the table, modern people have it as a choice, also have you ever noticed that yeshivish people take forever to inspect their matzos at the meal while modern people have it ready before.
Other related posts:
Differences between modern and frummie weddings
Things that modern orthodox people never say
Frum but with it vs. Modern machmir
Why do pesach seders suck so much (last years seder)
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I used the Modern Haggadah this year (wait for the gasps of horror.) It’s by a conservative rabbi (gasp again) and I thought that the English portions were interesting. It contained the whole Hebrew text (not that we read it all) and some interesting comments. I think a few choice quotes from Jefferson do more to express the point about freedom than never-ending discussions about how many plagues there were at the sea. Is it just me, or do so many divrei torah seem to be memorized from school or read out of a book, and if you ask the speaker “what’s the point?” they won’t have a clue?
If the point of the seder is to teach about the exodus, how do we teach that by droning on all night in a language that the children don’t understand? How will we encourage children to ask questions by making them memorize questions they don’t understand? How will we not scare them out of asking questions when we tell them that people who ask the wrong questions get humiliated? How does the debate about the plagues, or what “all the days” mean in terms of actually talking about the exodus?
To me, Passover is the best holiday. I’m a Jewish libertarian, and this is the only holiday that fits into both categories. That’s why I focus on freedom in my seders. I actually would like to write a libertarian commentary on the haggadah someday, but first I’ll need smicha and to be on the Mises Institute faculty so that people from both groups will think I have a clue.
Puzzled I definitely agree and the first seder I went this year was the only one I have been at in which a kid was aking questions, he got kind of annoying to the point in which we were having dreams of shoving his face into the charoses but it was a good thing to see.
at the Modern sedarim i’ve been at there were always a variety of haggadahs, so you can choose which one you like based on font, illustrations, or funny translation.
Although, I should say, I don’t like al natilyas yadiyim translated as “regarding the laws of cleanliness.”
the yeshivish/brisker shiur for matzah/slash maror, are fondly called by my family, the super sized kezayis!!
“I feel like bragging how late you ended is part of out-frumming your neighbor.” – Truer words have never been spoken. It’s such a dumb competition (2:30 AM! – yeah I know it’s early…)
I love freaking out people at modern sedarim when eating massive sizes of matzah etc.
Speaking of favourite songs, do you notice anything different about songs during Nirtzah? Like Echad Mi Yodeah, or Chad Gadya?
If your throat starts hurting from all that singing during hallel/nirtzah:
MO Seder: you take a drink or water or soda
Yeshivish Seder: you start to take a drink, then 4 people start a telling you that you shouldn’t really drink after afikomen
If you are very hungry and decide to take extra potatoes during karpas:
MO Seder: you take as many as you want
Yeshivish Seder: you must make sure you don’t eat more than a kezayis
Yeshivish seders also tend to be very strict about when to cover/uncover the matzah during maggid and will halt the seder until all the k’arahs are correct (and then argue because one hagaddah says one thing but another haggadah says a diffrent thing). If you step out to the bathroom, someone else will uncover/cover it for you.
MO seders if you remember to cover/uncover it then you do it, otherwise you don’t.
The Modern ones Use Manischewitz wine but in the Yeshivish world its traif to use Manischewitz or Mogan david!!
I Know what the size of an olive is!! Its a double standard!! If thats all it takes to be chayov karaise for eating on Yom kipper?? Why with Sader things is it so much more??
I haven’t celebrated a seder in years, but the modern orthodox (machmir) house I grew up in always had women participate as much as men- we would go around the table and each person would take turns reading the next part of the haggadah, men and women both. I also had my own seder plate (as did my brothers, but not my mother, who shared with my dad’s stuff). And we always brought our pillows down to lean on too.
The picture is hilarious! Great post too!
I am curious if anyone ever had a milchig seder – that would be wayyy modern.
Also I forgot to include the following link to 5 alternative sederim…http://www.jewcy.com/post/alternative_seders_next_big_thing
My great-great grandfather used to do a dairy seder so he would be able to drink coffee, (this was long before the days when they had KFP non-dairy creamer) though no one would have ever characterized him as modern.
From the little I’ve seen at a Chassidish seder nobody sings anything (like dayenu or something), they just mumble through the whole thing so much that I went back to check if they had a shorter version of the haggadah because I remembered it being longer.
At my parents’ house (Lubavitch) there are songs here and there and of course multilingual explanations and chiddushim.
Dairy seder? That’s just sick. What’s next, tofu lamb?
I’m eager to hear their explanation for the korban pesach.
We used a trilingual haggadah (H/E/Japanese) so everyone could get to read some. There was alot of talk about the exodus itself, I got to thinking about how between Pharoh sayin “alright, enough already, get outa here” and the actual leaving, it musta been like how Hollywood shows riots. Also I’m just not picturing the Egyptians lining up with all their nice stuff to give it all to the Hebrews who were their slaves just yesterday. I didnt want to say it at the time, but the word “looting” comes to mind.
Oh yeah, dayenu was really fun since theres a Japanese word “daijobu” which means about the same so that would get switched in during the chorus
In the Chabad tradition of leaving the best stuff out, their sedarim end before the singing. They sing other stuff at different points, but no Adir Hu, Chad Gadyo, etc. (My husband, though a Lubav, does sing them with me- shhh, don’t tell anybody!)Also, in Chabad the kids don’t steal the Afikoman, so as not to teach them to steal- they do sort of have a point there. One year our kids, who went to a non-Chabad school, took the Afikoman- and all heck broke loose.
I use the red-and-yellow haggadah myself- wouldn’t be Pesach without it!
Actually in our house afikoman was done b/c it was done in my grandfather’s house. Ditto for chad gadia and all the post-benching songs, we used non-chabad haggadahs for those. So you see, there are more dissidents than you think
12 am first night and 12:30 am second night- beat that!
We never did afikoman probably because we were poor and all my friends got fancy stuff and lots of money.
we sing chad gadya and echad mi yodeah in german….
we also pass out masks and assign ppl the various sounds of the animals in chad gadya so the can bark like a dog, meow like a cat, etc. makes the seder end on a fun note, especially after all that wine….
yellow and red one is an old artscroll haggadah.
“I am curious if anyone ever had a milchig seder – that would be wayyy modern.”
I did. During the seder, there was that symbolic remembrance of the korban thingamajig on the plate. When the meal came out it was sliced cheese and pesto lasagna.
When my great-uncle led the seder, it was just a speed-mumbling contest. When my father took over, the seder became a maggid-in-English, equal-participation experience, with everyone at the table–male and female–taking turns reading. Every seder that I’ve made or attended as an adult has been a maggid-in-English, equal-participation experiencel, except for one. When our son was quite young and couldn’t read yet, our hosts’ daughter the yeshivah bachurah started reading the maggid in Hebrew. I was so upset about my son being excluded that I started reading to him in English in an undertone. It took longer than I would have liked for the hosts to get the hint and ask their daughter to switch to English. What’s the point in telling the story of the Exodus in a language that not everyone at the table understands?
Dont briskers like burnt matzoh?