Welcome to the Downtown Seder 2023

My opening remarks before an all-star line-up: Mayor Eric Adams, Peter Yarrow, David Broza, Dr. Ruth, Modi, Bettye LaVette, Terrence Floyd (George Floyd's Brother), Betty, and more....

Welcome to our Seder. This is kinda-sorta my 30^th year of hosting the “downtown Seder.”  It started at the Knitting Factory in 1993 in an effort to create a gathering for downtown alternative Jewish artists who were looking for a place to go for Passover.  Lou Reed came, brought his Long Island family (he hadn’t met Laurie Anderson yet),  Hal Willner & Allen Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, John Zorn, and a matzah dancer I can’t remember her name, and we gathered, ate, drank and performed.   We didn’t have a real kitchen in 1993 at the Knit, but we had an overabundance of talent that connected to this tradition, to this ancient dinner party where for thousands of years we try and remember what it was like to be slaves in Egypt and then freed.  This sitting at a table with family and friends where we reaffirm our continuity with generations of Jews who kept alive the vision of freedom by retelling the story of how the ancient Egyptians oppressed a small tribe of slaves who didn’t share their ideological beliefs.   

This is a very powerful reminder--to remember our past by connecting to our current days’ realities.  This concept was deeply infused in me by my parents growing up who read Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream as part of our Haggadah supplement.  Connecting what was present day issues of human rights and injustice to the mythical story of our biblical relatives’ liberation from slavery in Egypt was, and remains, a powerful metaphor for the struggle for freedom from oppressors and need for equality that continues to this day. The connection to the African American experience with civil rights is our shared history of oppression, universal struggle for liberation, and a deep-seated belief in the pursuit of justice for all.  It is why this Seder will reflect and talk about today’s issues-- whether about racial injustice, immigrant rights, wrongful convictions, tyrannical (“tai-ran-ikle”) totalitarian convicted leaders, or any number of other struggles for equality and freedom, the lessons of Passover can help guide us in our efforts to create a more just and equitable society. 

Finally, its important today to give a shout out to the thousands of marchers and protestors right now uptown in NY and in Israel who are expressing their concerns of modern Pharoah’s who are trying to eliminate checks and balances in governing in a free society.  They should be applauded for their efforts and in the words of the great sage Patti Smith, “To wrestle the world from fools, it’s decreed the people rule, we can turn the world around, we can turn the earth’s revolution, we have the power, People have the Power. “

Now, we do take several liberties with Passover traditions.  It says in the old Haggadah texts, that one should do this telling of leaving bondage in Egypt in a language that you understand.  That in “every generation, a person must regard himself as though he (Not really woke to proper pronouns back then!) personally had gone out of Mitzrayim/Egypt” And thus, the ancients would read the story in Aramaic and not in Hebrew, the language they understood at the time.  Most American Jews read the story in English.  We are going to use and incorporate the language of the arts—musicians, comedians, and political and activist thinkers, rather than just following the classic Hebrew or even the classic “Order” of the Seder.   Other liberties include our strong encouragement of noshing and eating throughout the Seder rather than wait the traditional 2 hours of being hungry before serving dinner.  (You just can’t do that with hundreds of NY Jews buying tickets anyway).  We also encourage drinking the traditional 4-glasses of wine early so that everything later in the program takes on a lot more spiritual meaning.  Let’s have fun and also hope that we are able to bring something home for your own Seders’ later this week.