The 21 Jump Street

Haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story

I call this exerciseThe 21 Jump Street. It's a reference to the poker game that the characters play in the opening sequence of the show, but that's mostly me having fun with outdated cultural references. The title is less relevant than the exercise itself.

Materials:All you need are people, Post-It notes, pens/pencils and comfort with a writing exercise at your Seder.

The Context:At the Seder, we celebrate our ancestors' liberation from slavery in Egypt. Putting aside the debate about the historicity of that particular narrative, it is an essential part of the Jewish Story. One of the most important pieces of the Seder is that we are asked to step into the shoes and/or sandals of our ancestors and view ourselves as if we were also slaves in Egypt. The challenge in our modern lives is that most of us cannot truly relate to this type of experience. We do, however recognize that we have brothers and sisters in this world whose history sadly remains too close to this experience, and we must also recognize that there are those in this world who are in fact living as slaves. I strongly encourage you to incorporate a conversation aboutfair labor and human traffickinginto your Seder, and we should both pray and work towards a time when all people can only think of slavery as a memory as opposed to something that still exists in today’s world.

However, the purpose of this exercise is address the idea that we all have some version of personal bondage, something that holds us back from being the people that we would fully and truly like to become. Let me add that I do not intend to diminish actual slavery with this -the goal here is to create a different type of personal connection with the Passover experience.

The Exercise:Explain the notion of personal bondage, as I described it above. We all have something (or many things) in our lives from which we struggle to free ourselves. Perhaps it’s an addiction of some sort, or over-commitment to our work lives over our personal lives. Everyone’s got something. Pass a Post-It note to everyone at your Seder, and ask them to write that challenge in a word or two. Wait until everyone is ready,and ask them to stick their notes to their foreheads at the same time. Ask the group look around at what everyone has written.

Ask folks to raise their hands if they see at least one other note that they can relate to (hint: everyone will always raise their hands).

It’s a common experience. We all have those things that we wish we could change, that hold us back just a little bit. We want to be freed of them. All too often, we convince ourselves that we're alone in these struggles, but through making ourselves vulnerable with a bit of communal disclosure, we discover that nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s not always easy to do so, but at the Passover Seder, we can create a moment where we symbolically try to let those things go. And sometimes we can use that as an opportunity to start fresh.

Close the activity by placing a bowl in the center of the table, do any one of the following:

  • Ask each person to free themselves just for tonight by tearing up their Post-Its and placing them into the bowl.
  • As an alternative, you can have people tear up the notes of others instead.
  • A guest at a Seder of mine a couple years back pushed back against this framing and proposed a variation that I love: he said that we don't have to reject or ignore our struggles, but that instead we can embrace them as a part of our whole selves. He then lovingly moved his note over his heart and kept it there for the rest of the evening.

Leave the bowl at the table as a reminder of those little struggles in our lives and the intention to move past them.

Or you can pour wine on them or something like that. It's totally up to you.

Source:  
http://wolkin.com/2012/04/1632/its-passover-son/
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Table of contents
    Introduction
  • OurJewishCommunity.org Introduction
  • Seder Plate
  • Silent Meditation on Candelighting
  • A Seder plate for current events
  • Passover Themes Meaningful to Interfaith Families
  • The Cup of Deliverance- Second Cup of Wine
  • Matzah
    • Kadesh
  • Wine
  • Four Cups of Wine
  • Traditional - Kadesh
  • Kadesh
    • Urchatz
  • Handwashing - Urchatz
  • Urchatz
  • Hand Washing
  • Urchatz
    • Karpas
  • Karpas
  • Karpas
  • Karpas Kavannah
  • Dip Parsley in Saltwater
    • Yachatz
  • Breaking the matzah - hunger
  • The Middle Matzah Horcrux
  • Entering the Broken World
  • Yachatz - Break the Middle Matzah
    • Maggid - Beginning
  • Maggid
    • -- Four Questions
  • Traditional - Four Questions
  • Four Questions in Fictional Languages
    • -- Four Children
  • Four Daughters
  • Four Children
  • the four children
  • Four Children
  • The Four Adults
  • Golden Girls Wise Child
    • -- Exodus Story
  • Natalia Kadish
  • Exodus Story
  • Geulah
  • The Memory of Pesach: A Tale of Two Stories
  • Min Hametzar - Calling Out from the Narrow Place
  • The 21 Jump Street
  • Letter to My Old Master
  • DAYENU: An Exercise in Gratitude
    • -- Ten Plagues
  • Ten ancient and modern plagues
  • Circle of Plagues
  • The Journey Towards Liberation - The Hard Parts
  • Ten Plagues - Frog
  • 10 Plagues, Amsterdam Haggadah, 1738, NLI
    • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
  • dayeinu graph
  • Maggid Closing - Dayenu
  • Pesach Matzah Maror
  • The Passover Symbols, The Orange & Miriam's Cup
  • Dayenu with English Hebrew and Transliteration
  • love
  • Opening the door for Elijah
    • The Second Cup
    • Who Knows One?
      • Rachtzah
    • Rachtzah
      • Motzi-Matzah
    • Motzi-Matzah
    • DIY Matzoh Baking
    • What is the meaning of matzah?
    • Eating the Matza
    • Why Flatbread?
      • Maror
    • Horseradish
    • The Journey Towards Liberation - The complicated parts
    • Marror- Daniela Hojda
    • maror
    • Maror
    • Maror Cocktail
      • Koreich
    • Hillel Sandwich
    • Mixing the Bitter and the Sweet
    • The Future, the Past, and the Present
    • who invented the sandwhich
    • Hillel's Sandwich
      • Shulchan Oreich
    • A Fish Tale
    • The Meal
    • Shulchan Orech
    • Passover Around The World Trivia
    • Dinner is Served
      • Tzafun
    • Afikomen - bread of subjectivity
    • The Afikoman
      • Bareich
    • Opening the Door for Elijah
    • After Such A Fine Story: Blessing After Eating the Seder Meal
    • Blessing for the third cup of wine
    • Miriam's Cup
    • Miriam's Cup by Miriam Jerris
    • Ruth's Cup: A New Passover Ritual Celebrating Jewish Diversity
      • Hallel
    • Sharing Responsibility
    • To Say Nothing But Thank You
    • Zeroah
      • Commentary / Readings
    • Praise the Contrary and Its Defenders
      • Nirtzah
    • NEXT YEAR IN... : A Note to my Future Self
    • won't you celebrate with me, by Lucille Clifton
    • Nirtzah
    • Nirtzah
    • Neertzah
    • Echad Mi Yodea -- Who Knows One -- Hebrew / English / Transliteration
    • Counting the Omer
      • Songs
    • One Little Goat - חַד גַּדְיָא
    • Miriams Song
    • Adir Hu
    • Hatikva
    • Ki Lo Naeh
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