If You Can Invite One More to Your Passover Seder, You Should

In late April 2023, I read a heartbreaking story a few weeks after Passover. It was on the website PostSecret, where people from around the world mail in anonymous secrets to be published weekly for the millions of readers. Some are humorous (“I give decaf to customers who are rude to me”), yet many have to do with secret depression and suicidal ideation (“My first rescue dog really did rescue me, saving his life and the lives of my other dogs has kept me from taking my own”).

Some are shameful, some are terrifying, and some are dark confessions.

But last year, there was a PostSecret that read, “I’m Jewish and I work at a Jewish organization in a big U.S. city. Many,many people around town know me from what I do for work. Still, nobody in town invited me to their Passover Seder. I’m too ashamed to ask anyone if I can come join theirs and I feel like a total reject going to the “community” Passover Seders. Passover is always the loneliest 2 nights of the year for me.”

I was absolutely gutted to read that. Whoever that person is must have felt so low and left out. No Jew who wants to be a part of a Passover Seder should ever go a year without being invited to one.

In the spirit of that, I implore anyone reading this a few things:

• Check in with your friends and family and ask if they need a place. Especially the people who you assume will certainly have a place to go to. Check in with the elderly, the divorcee, the single parent, the bachelor and bachelorette, and anyone whose family lives in a different time zone.

• If you can offer one more seat at your Seder table, do it.

• If you attend a community Seder where you don’t know anyone, remember, that does NOT make you a reject — it means you’re adventurous.

Since 2014, OneTable Shabbat has linked members with “accessible, inclusive, and meaningful” in-person Shabbat dinners. In fact, over the last decade, OneTable has facilitated over 125,000 Shabbat dinners in over 700 cities. Those have included over 250,000 individual people. This past Spring, OneTable filled its 1 millionth Shabbat seat. And yes, OneTable hosts Passover Seders too.

This year more than any other in recent memory has many community members seeing the need to fill as many seats at the Seder table as possible. It’s a perilous moment in history for the Jewish people, but also an extraordinary opportunity for the community to come together.

“It’s especially important to be as generous and as inclusive as possible,” Rabbi Sheri Manning of Ohr HaTorah told the Journal. “It may not be at the top of someone’s mind that there are some people out there that are really hoping and waiting for an invitation. It might make a difference in one or two people’s lives this year. Especially post-COVID, plus with what’s going on in Israel.”

Manning continued, “because holidays are so particularly challenging that even though we have the mitzvah that’s repeated, I think no less than 36 times in Torah, not to oppress the stranger and the widow and the orphan, it would not be an oppression to exclude somebody from your table,” Manning said. “But because it is such a sensitive issue when somebody doesn’t have a place to go, to the person who is not invited, it does feel like it’s an act of oppression. So I think with respect to that heightened sensitivity of how a person you feel who may not want to invite himself and then has to feel the sadness and loneliness of having no place to go, if we look at that as being an oppressed state, then we can see how it really makes sense for us to be as generous and open and welcoming as possible.”

Producer and writer Daniela Schimmel Polk offered insights on the emotional climate many are experiencing, highlighting the importance of community and inclusion during Passover.

“We are experiencing a collective sense of anxiety, alienation, and grief as a nation and should be sharing in the beauty of our past struggles and redemption together to feel a sense of hope,” Polk told the Journal.

Polk was originally planning to attend a friend’s Seder but pivoted to hosting one herself because she wants to have a place to go.

“I know I’m not alone, everyone is feeling the same sense of fear and hopelessness with the news and the historic rise in antisemitism. We have to stand strong together and celebrate being Jewish now more than ever when we are being villainized — once again — for upholding our right to defend ourselves,” Polk said.

Jewish traditions have immense power to heal both in the Jewish community and beyond, as evidenced in the experience of actress and foster care advocate Angela Featherstone. Though Featherstone herself was not born Jewish, for over 15 years she has regularly attended Shabbat services led by Rabbi Mordecai Finley of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue. She has studied Hebrew as well. During two separate troubling times in Featherstone’s life, she climbed out of the rut due in part to the support from the Jewish community who invited her to join them for Shabbat week after week. She credits Judaism for transforming her life for the better in a multitude of ways.

“When I first joined Ohr HaTorah, Dave Mamet explained to me about why we rush when we’re called to the Bima,” Featherstone said. “When you have an Aliyah at Shul, you go directly to the Torah fast, as you do to a lover. And when you leave the Bima, you go very slowly, you take the longest way.” For many years, Featherstone went to the Passover Seder of a Haredi family where she was the only non-Jew out of several dozen attendees.

“If you answer Hashem’s call enough, then maybe you get to experience what it’s like to be Jewish — maybe,” Featherstone said. “A million people are probably going to say I’m wrong, but that’s my experience of when I am at Seder and I have this profound experience of what it means to be Jewish. It’s very much about being called and answering the call.”

So if you have an additional spot to offer, offer it up. If you’re hosting a Passover Seder, it’s a golden opportunity to strengthen your attendees’ sense of community as the Jewish people. There’s a special power in extending invitations wherever possible. And for many, an invitation to an annual gathering can be a transformative moment for them, and perhaps even a call to be part of something greater.

But of course, you should always use discretion when handing out invitations to anything. This lesson was on full display in the seventh episode of season five of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” titled “The Seder.” Larry David invited Rick (played by Rob Corddry), a new friend he made at the country club, to his Passover Seder. It was the least David could do, after all, Rick helped him improve his golf swing. Still, David invited Rick knowing full well that he was a reviled sex offender who just moved to their neighborhood. It’s whimsically frightening and worth rewatching.

So whoever the Jewish professional is that anonymously told the PostSecret community last year that Passover is the “loneliest two nights of the year,” I hope this message finds you in a much better headspace and at a meaningful and fulfilling Passover Seder this year.

Dayenu.

There Is Hope And There Is Help.

The 988 Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States. https://988lifeline.org/

There are always several Jewish events going on every week in Los Angeles, and you can find out more about them on the Jewish Journal’s “What’s Happening” Events Calendar: https://jewishjournal.com/la-calendar/