Come together as a community for Passover Seder

I would like to invite all of you to join me and the Tri-County Religious Leaders Association for an interfaith Passover Seder on Sunday, March 30. The Seder is from 3-5 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 8000 Main St., Voorhees Township.

This interfaith Passover Seder will be an opportunity to come together as a community to share and reflect on the power of the timeless themes of freedom, unity and renewal. A light meal and all the customary Seder symbols and foods will be served.

During this time of Lent, and the coming Easter season, some parishes attempt to replicate aspects of the Jewish Seder primarily to better understand the Last Supper of Jesus and the roots of the Christian Eucharist. As the late Cardinal Basil Hume of England once said, “We have become more profoundly conscious of the Jewish soil that nourished our Christian roots. We cannot hope to understand Jesus Christ and the significance of his life and teachings without knowledge of his people, their history and beliefs.”

However, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops advises that Christians should not alter the Jewish Seder ritual by adding Christian prayers or New Testament readings. Instead, Christians should learn about the Seder in the context of its original Jewish tradition.

I came across the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales guidelines on this subject and found them informative and easy to understand. “In recent years, the custom has grown in many parishes to arrange a demonstration Seder during Lent or Holy Week,” the bishops said. “This can have educational and spiritual values. It is wrong, however, to ‘baptize’ the Seder by interspersing it or concluding it with New Testament readings or Christian associations, or worse, turn it into a Eucharist or a prologue to a Eucharist. Such mergings show a lack of respect for Judaism and a distortion of both Christian and Jewish traditions.

“The primary reason why Christians may decide to hold a demonstration Seder should be to understand better the Jewish roots of our Eucharistic liturgy. Any sense of ‘restaging’ the Last Supper is inappropriate, historically inaccurate and should be avoided. Demonstration Seders arranged in cooperation with local synagogues are strongly encouraged. Whenever possible, a Jew should be invited to lead the Seder and assist the Christians present to understand its ritual and meaning to the Jewish community. In all events, Christians should take every care to ensure that the correct Jewish ritual is followed, and that the Seder be respected in its full integrity.”

The Hebrew term Seder means “order” and refers to the whole celebration. A Seder can last for several hours, during which the Jewish people commemorate and relive, as a family or a community, their liberation from Egypt. This account is called Haggadah, a term that means “the telling.” This is based on the biblical commandment, “You shall tell your son in that day saying: It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.” (Ex. 13:8) The story is not simply a reading from the Bible; it is interspersed with episodes from later Jewish tradition, and contemporary struggles for freedom are included. According to  scholars, the Haggadah was first drawn up around the ninth century, but the rites and prayers are much older, going back to the pre-Christian era.

I hope you will be able to join us for this interfaith Passover Seder. There is no charge to attend, but an R.S.V.P. is needed for planning purposes. R.S.V.P. at: jcrcsnj.org/seder. For any questions, contact miannuzzi@jfedsnj.org .

Father Joseph D. Wallace is diocesan director of Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs and pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish, Atco.