Seder Reflections 2b: from a snowy ace meetup to how I got to hosting my own seder
This piece is the 2nd part of a two-part story continuing from: “Reflections on how I got to hosting my own seder” [ text ]
The 1st part is “Exploring ‘The Women’s Haggadah’” [ text ]
For me, the story of learning my connection to the history of feminist women's seders begins in an unexpected place--events often have consequences far beyond what anyone could anticipate or predict while they are taking place.
About ten and a half years ago, I embarked on what is typically a 2.5 hr highway journey, in a snow storm, to attend an “asexual”[1] meetup. I was living in the prairies at the time, and had only managed to meet 1 other asexual person locally ( via AVEN ). [ Before I moved out there, I had been to a few meetups and had met a few local asexual friends... but the social landscapes differ wildly with the geography. ]
It was a Big Deal meetup-- one where people were coming from various distances because it was “the” meetup-- and there wasn't another one in the time I lived out there. About 25 people showed up. I'm glad I went, but I didn't really click with anyone there on a personal level. Not to mention that I don't do well in groups. But the meetup itself isn't really the point. On the other hand, one of the other people who showed up was actually living in the same city as I was.
She was involved in an LGBTQ+ youth group at the time and she invited me to attend. I did. As it happens, we didn't really end up being friends, partly I imagine because she took off overseas shortly after that. But I did get quite involved in the youth group ( and I certainly wouldn’t have otherwise ), and that has had some long-reaching consequences. Among other things, that was the first space where it was accepted for me to be not a woman and not a man. I didn't really have the “non-binary” language for that yet ( and neither did they ), but the space and the people in it were accepting.
Living in the prairies generally was also interesting for me in the sense of navigating my atheistic, liminal Jewishness. Unlike what I had known up to that point, being ( even a little bit ) Jewish in that context was a major point of difference. I was used to being “less Jewish” than many of the people around me, and suddenly I was a whole lot more Jewish ( even if I wasn't “Jewish enough” to belong with the Hebrew-speaking Jewish student group largely populated by international students from Israel who met regularly to eat bagels ).
One of the people from the LGBTQ+ youth group was a trans guy who knew I was missing some Jewish stuff in my life. His transness is quite relevant because, for whatever reasons, in that city at the time, a large portion of the trans guys were Jewish ( so being trans put him in contact with Jewish folks in ways he wouldn't have been otherwise ). A friend of his ( also trans ) was hosting a feminist queer-and-trans seder. It was a mix of non-Jewish LGBTQ+ folks withe emphasis on the T ( most of whom had never been to a seder ) and a few feminist LGBTQ+ Jewish folks who were used to missing out on seders because family spaces weren't so accepting. And me.
Owing to dietary restrictions of the host and attendees, all the food was vegan with gluten-free options ( including the mazah ball soup! ). That was the first time I had experienced that.
And while it certainly wasn't an all-women seder, it was one of the first spaces I ever occupied which was explicitly for women and trans ( & non-binary ) people ( i.e., for people other than cis men, centred around people other than cis men, inclusive of non-binary people even though we didn't really have the language of “non-binary” the way we use it today ). That was also the first time I had experienced that. This seder was explicitly and self-consciously continuing in the tradition of the women's seders, continuing by opening up space for trans people who weren't there. [ “The Women’s Haggadah” for instance has parts that are pretty ciscentric. It reads like the women writing it just weren’t thinking of trans women at all. ]
The seder was very welcoming. I still remember my place-card name tag with purple puffy-paint that said “friend #2”. Attending was a positive experience for me. But more than that, it was the first time I saw how a seder could be suited to the people who were actually involved and participating in it. And it was also the first time that eventually holding a seder myself seemed like a possibility.
Several years later, in yet another city, I was talking with someone who had been raised in a traditional Orthodox Jewish family, which was quite alienating for her ( as an atheistic queer, feminist woman ). It happened to be around the time of Passover. She was intrigued by the idea of a feminist seder-- especially the parts that explicitly welcome LGBTQ+ folks. She was also interested in the idea of Humanistic Judaism.
Shortly after Passover, we co-hosted a humanistic, feminist ( vegan ) seder with some of our peers ( who weren't Jewish ), including some of the additional readings with which I was familiar—e.g., one version of Four Daughters [ text ], a version of Miriam's Bowl [ example ], the Orange on the seder plate [ example ]. The only humanist Haggadah I could find at the time was a Unitarian Universalist one, so we used that as the skeleton of our seder. ( I’m not actually all that into Unitarian Univeralism but at least it was a starting point. )
Our seder wasn't kosher for Passover ( especially since that was before the Conservative movement made the decision to allow lentils and soy for Passover for Askenazi [ explanation ] ) and that was okay.
Also, our seder had no men. ( It was mostly women-- cis and trans-- and me. ) That wasn’t entirely by design, but I think that also was central to how the space felt.
Going into that evening, I was a little hesitant because, as the only person who was familiar with even the idea of a feminist seder, I was the “expert” ( even though I didn't feel like one ). Ultimately, it was another positive experience-- and a learning experience with creating cooking. It did, however, feel like a very rough work in progress. But I left with the sense that I wanted to continue the work-in-progress, and more importantly, that I could. Eventually I would host my own seders.
Last year was the first time I hosted a seder at home, observing the Passover in my own space. It was a very small seder with just someone(s) else for me to share it with ( as it was again this year ). As a reference guide, we used the Haggadah that I had grown up with-- a pretty standard Reform Haggadah, and some additional readings. Much like what I was used to with my family.
This year, I explored other, very different Haggadahs and ended up using a particular ( relatively new ) feminist Haggadah as the skeleton of my seder. Eventually, I will assemble a Haggadah entirely of my own ( which will probably be a living compilation ). But this is where I am on my journey now.
It is not lost on my that my induction to the world of feminist seders was by the invitation of a man ( never mind a non-ace man whom I'd only met in the first place because I braved a snow storm to meet a bunch of aces ).
It's not lost on me that that I had to discover of my own connection to the women's seders of the 70s and 80s by myself, instead of this knowledge being passed down to me in the spirit of the seder itself.
And it is not lost on me that I navigate my own seder as an atheistic Jew ( of liminal Jewishness ), sharing the space with someone whose connection to Judaism is very much about relationship with the divine.
This is how I got here. I don’t usually think of my Jewishness as being related to my aceness or non-binary transness, but they are connected. And my journey continues, exploring these connections.
Footnote:
[1] This was long before we were using the term “ace” and when “asexual” was functioning as an umbrella term even more than it is today ( as I've written about before: [ text ] ). It feels misleading to just say “asexual” in a context where I would now say “ace” but the anachronistic retrospective application of “ace” also feels weird.