Preparing for a Seder: Two Womens' Perspectives

I recently read a small book, newly published, called Pesach for the Rest of Us by the novelist and poet Marge Piercy. I took it out of the library not because I was really that interested but because I knew I would be hosting a seder soon, and I thought, “Who knows, maybe she’s got some ideas we’d like to use.” Not likely, but you never know.
I can’t say as I’ve ever read Marge Piercy before, but my general impression of her work is that it wouldn’t appeal to me. I base this on my impression of her fans – with whom I do have some experience, after almost twenty years as a bookseller – who tend to be very, very earnest women. I don’t want to say they’re humorless, but I will say that they don’t tend to be the kind of people I’d want to drink Manhattans with. They’re more “just a glass of white wine, thanks” type people. Nice, but… that’s kind of the problem.
Still, I felt I had to read this book. I flipped through it and wasn’t too thrilled to see it had a lot of poetry in it (Edith does not enjoy poetry unless it’s the shorter work of Dorothy Parker or maybe, maybe… Philip Larkin; though, of course, I should have expected it); I was cheered to see that it had a lot of recipes. That kind of flippy-floppy reaction to the book is basically how I feel about the whole thing, in the end. It annoyed me, and it bored me, and then something struck me as charming or funny or smart. And then it annoyed me again.
Piercy has apparently hosted a seder every year for decades (in our household, this will be the 4th or 5th seder we’ve hosted, so we’re relative neophytes) and over the years has composed a Haggadah, which I gather is sort of a work-in-progress. She adds to it and takes things away as she’s moved; it’s a flexible text. (How PoMo.) Her book opens with a wide-eyed, pleading chapter on how contemporary Jews need to be reintroduced to the seder in such a way that they feel they can make it their own; she feels that too many people remember the seder as a sort of boring lecture that is endured simply to get to the food. Well, I can’t really argue with that. I don’t know that I’d call it a lecture, but I do think seders are fairly dull, and I do think it’s mostly about the food. It’s Thanksgiving dinner for Jews. Without the turkey, and, thank god, without the fucking cranberries. I think even my family’s sloppy seder is religiously moving, though – I mean, I think it has its moments – and I know I would not relish the thought of attending a seder that took itself much more seriously than we take ours. Bad Jew? Probably. So be it.
So Piercy wants us to rewrite our Haggadot to reflect our lives; she particularly wants us to rework the texts to reflect political views, preferably ones like hers. Piercy’s book dwells deeply in this area, with limited range. Has she never met a Jew who was a Republican? This was a large part of the annoyance factor in this book: over and over again, her added texts harp on subjects that, while important, I cannot be comfortable with at a seder. And she assumes that all her readers will agree with her, not allowing for debate in her lists of blessings. Her reworking of Dayenu made me want to scream. I should read about abortion rights at the seder table? I should read about the Iraq war at the seder table? No; I won’t forbid other people from doing it (not that it’d be possible to shut up some of my relatives anyhow without throwing the Cuisinart at them), but I’m not the kind of gal who’s going to encourage this kind of conversation at my table. Sorry.
So Piercy gets on my nerves… but then she writes these nice bits about her family, for example; she’s particularly affectionate when remembering her mother and grandmother. One story that amused me perhaps more than it should have was about her grandmother’s cat. “My grandmother’s gentleman cat, Blackie, always attended the seder, having a chair of his own. He did not, however, read the haggadah.” I can imagine our own gentleman cat sitting on a chair of his own at our seder; he often sits on a chair at our kitchen table anyway, looking at us and seeming to follow the conversation, wishing someone would offer him a drink, too.
In many ways, Piercy’s book is encouraging and comforting; it would be, I think, a wonderful book for someone who was preparing to do their first seder without having grown up attending seders regularly. Or, maybe, even if you had attended a seder every year, but suddenly are hosting and feel you are going to freeze up and not know what to do. The book is well-organized, and explains how to arrange everything, and talks about dietary restrictions (Ashkenazi and Sephardic, and offering many vegetarian recipes, of course); there’s nothing missing from this book, and so it is valuable. I imagine that fans of Piercy’s previous work will find this book a very welcome addition to their shelves. But you have to be willing to accept a lot of grandstanding along with the sane, reasonable, and good humored vision Piercy offers us.