LA’s Persian Jewish Seder

Welcome to Passover! This is a long night of prayers and ritual. It is more fun when you know what’s going on. This Haggadah attempts to make the seder easier to follow. As our lawyers say, no guarantees. This is my first time making a Haggadah. I didn’t want us to lose the tradition of a personal injury firm’s promos on the Haggadah, so I found one of the oldest firms to sponsor :) I hope to add the prayers in Persian next year.

Passover holds a unique place in the Jewish holidays. It honors a storytelling tradition that invites us to time travel and to imagine alternative futures. Our people’s journey from enslavement to liberation unfolded over generations — from Egypt to the mahalehs in Iran to Tehran and then LA, the story still unfolds.

At the Seder, we are asked to not just tell the story, but to imagine that we are in the story. More than ever, we believe that Passover is a moment to not only reflect on the story that explains our Exodus out of Egypt, but also actively imagine and engage with stories yet to unfold. What could a truly flourishing future look like?

We begin the seven-day Passover festival with a Seder (סֵדֶר), where participants retell the Exodus story using the Haggadah (הַגָדָה), Hebrew for “telling” or “narrative.”

Tonight, we don’t pour wine for ourselves. We lift our cups, lean left as we say the blessing.

שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ — Shehecheyanu — recite the blessing of gratitude for reaching this moment.

We wash our hands ritually, without reciting the blessing. This act of purification prepares us to engage with the sacred items on the Seder table.

As we eat the greens of the earth, we give thanks to God for all His bounties. We recall that our forefathers were tillers of the soil, who were grateful for the earth’s produce. In tasting the salt water we remember the tears of our ancestors shed while suffering and remember the struggle of those still seeking freedom.

We dip parsley in saltwater and taste the contrasts between past, present, and future — hope and tears.

We break the middle matzah, place the larger portion — the Afikoman — in a napkin to be eaten at the end of the seder. The word “afikoman,” based on Greek epikomen, means “that which comes after.”

The seder plate and the matzot are now covered and the second cup of wine is poured. Traditionally, the youngest child chants these four questions at the Seder, embodying our commitment to listening, learning, and taking the younger generation’s questions of “why?” seriously.

“Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat whatever we’d like, yet tonight we taste the bread of freedom — matzah. On all other nights, we eat all kinds of vegetables, yet tonight we taste the bitterness that reminds us of oppression. On all other nights, we may eat without pausing, yet tonight we tell stories and dip our food twice, sharing and remembering together. On all other nights we may sit, yet tonight we recline, celebrating our liberation.”

Blessed is the Omnipresent — blessed are They. Blessed is the One who gave their people Israel, the Torah. The Torah relates to four types of children:

As we recite each plague, we spill a drop of wine from our cups — because even our liberation came at a cost to others. Our joy cannot be complete when others suffer.

The telling of the Plagues is not a comfortable part of the seder. The plagues are a reminder that liberation does not come bloodlessly. Moses’ demand of freedom meets a Pharaoh whose heart is repeatedly hardened, so that only through a show of God’s power that touches every Egyptian, including the innocent, are the Hebrews freed. Tonight, we ask: Are we doomed to such a dynamic? Can hearts be softened?

As shared by @the_dreamy_kalimi, the Torah says the Israelites became nostalgic about life in Egypt! We must remember that freedom is better than the “melons, leeks, onions and garlic” we had in Egypt. So we whip with onions as a reminder that slavery really freaking sucks!

Rabban Gamliel would say: Anyone who did not say these three matters on Passover has not fulfilled his obligation: The Paschal lamb, matzah, and bitter herbs. — Mishnah Pesachim 10:5

Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe, who has made us holy through His commandments, and has commanded us about washing hands.

We use the bottom third matzah to make a “Hillel Sandwich” of maror (bitter herbs) and charoset (apple nut mixture). These different elements represent the journey from slavery to freedom: the bitterness of persecution (maror), the experience of slavery and also the sweetness of redemption (charoset), and, ultimately, liberation (matzah).

It is time to eat! We gather around the table, sharing food and conversation, continuing the tradition of community and gratitude.

During Yachatz, we hid the larger half of the middle matzah — the Afikoman (from the Greek epikomen, “that which comes after”). The Seder cannot end without it.

Children: now is the time to ransom it back.

The tradition of hiding and ransoming the Afikoman is one of the oldest tricks in the Haggadah — it was designed to keep children awake and engaged all the way to the end of the Seder. But it also carries a deeper meaning: we cannot close the night, cannot reach completion, without the next generation bringing us there. The future holds us to our promise.