[HANASHIR:8692] 2 Passover ideas

[Ellen Allard <ellen...>]

Dear All,

I want to share a few Passover ideas that I've learned over the past few
years. One of them involves scallions. I actually emailed the list a few
months ago and not one person answered me. I don't know if this was because
you were all in complete disbelief or nobody had ever heard of it!

A friend of mine whose family has Sephardic roots shared this with me. You
give everyone a scallion and during the chorus of Dayenu, each person hits
their neighbor on each side with the scallion. Some people just use the
scallion to conduct the song (as in baton). The idea is that it represents
the Jewish slaves being beaten.  I just tried this at our annual National
Council of Jewish Women women's seder and had 80 women of all ages doing it.
We all wondered whether they'd go for it and they did! It was hysterical and
I wished we had videotaped it.

The second idea is a wonderful way to learn and reinforce the parts of the
seder. Now, if your first reaction is "This is really dumb", I would still
suggest that you consider giving it a try. On paper, it sounds really dumb!
But it works like a charm and is so much fun.

I've used the technique at our home seder as well as at our National Council
of Jewish Women annual women's seder. When I gave our planning committee the
option of leaving it out (in the interest of time) of our seder, they all
insisted that we continue doing it!

Each time you come to a new part of the seder, before proceeding, sing all
of the parts of the seder (Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas....etc.) using a new
melody. It is fun to think of a song that might in some way have something
to do with that part of the seder, although I still haven't come up with a
great song for each new part of the seder. When you've gotten to the end of
the order (Nirtzah), you stop, even if you're not finished with the melody
AND then you SAY the names of the parts of the seder UP TO the new part
you've just arrived at. You can use Jewish or secular melodies. For example,
for "Kadesh" we sang through the order of the seder to the melody of Shalom
Aleichem.

So, let's say you've gotten to "Karpas". You announce to all that you will
be singing the order of the seder to the melody "Take Me Out to the
Ballgame" (parsley reminds me of spring, spring reminds me of baseball!).
You begin with "Kadesh" and sing all the way through to "Nirtzvah" using the
named melody and then when you are finished singing it, you go back and SAY
"Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas".

Let's say you've gotten to "Maror". You announce to all that you will be
singing the order of the seder to the melody "Parsley Sage Rosemary and
Thyme". You begin with "Kadesh" and sing all the way through to "Nirtzvah"
using the named melody and then when you are finished singing it, you go
back and SAY "Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas, Yachatz, Magid, Rachtzah, Motzi
Matzah, Maror".

Here are the melodies I used:

Kadesh...Shalom Aleichem
Urchatz...Yellow Submarine (chorus)
Karpas (Take me out to the ballgame)
Yachatz...Go down, Moses
Magid...Mary Had a little lamb
Rachtzah...Irish Washerwoman
Motzi Matzah...Yankee Doodle
Maror...Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
Korech...Adon Olam (your choice)
Shulchan Orech...America the Beautiful
Tzafun...Eight Days a Week (Beatles)
Barech...On Top of Spaghetti
Hallel...Somewhere over the Rainbow (we actually sang through the order
several times so that we could sing more of it)
Nirtzah...Tis the Gift to be Simple

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I'd be happy to
help you do this as it was lots of fun. Good luck!

Ellen Allard
Worcester, MA
--
Specializing in Music for Young Children
Ellen (at) PeterandEllen(dot)com
***********************
For information on our award-winning recordings, children's concerts, and
teacher workshops, visit http://www.PeterandEllen.com or call tollfree
1-888-746-4481
***********************
The purpose of life is to find our gifts. The meaning of life is to give
them away. (Anon.)

--
Specializing in Music for Young Children
Ellen (at) PeterandEllen(dot)com
***********************
For information on our award-winning recordings, children's concerts, and
teacher workshops, visit http://www.PeterandEllen.com or call tollfree
1-888-746-4481
***********************
The purpose of life is to find our gifts. The meaning of life is to give
them away. (Anon.)

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