The five senses at the Seder

How does the expression go — you only truly appreciate something when you no longer have it. That is the way it is for me with my senses and it has led to a real appreciation which has given me an insight into the Seder.

I said in an earlier article that one element of the Seder is to empathize with those who 3,000 years ago went through what must have been one of the most exciting and frightening experiences of all time.

Inexplicably, 3,000 years later here we are. A people who number 15 million, which sits alongside the three other big religions — Christianity, Islam and Hinduism each with more than a billion worshippers.

Talking to a cousin in rural South England…he is hosting 40 for Seder. Whilst it is probably very different to the Seder we are hosting in a religious Zionist Yishuv in Israel, it is at the same time exactly the same. We are united in our connection to the same event all those years ago.

Something is different about the night of Seder. Something keeps us coming back. What is it? Perhaps it is the multisensory nature of the evening. Think about it…

Sounds – It is not just the prayers or the text. It is the richness of the Seder – the discussion, the debate, the laughing, the kids reading (or crying because they don’t want to), even the many individual discussions that take place while someone else is reading, not to mention the complaints of those who want to ‘eat already’….

Taste – The wine (the only night I have seen people mix white/red/grape juice), the salt water, the Matzah, the Maror, the Charoset (always the discussion depending on how good it is of whether it is dipped or heaped). It is unique as a meal and not for its gourmet status but for its variety of taste… and that is without thinking of the meal itself.

Sight – The Seder is simply awash with things we don’t see elsewhere. The table is different from any other night – strange foods, plastic frogs, mocked-up scenes from Egypt, the father may be wearing a white shroud (Kittel) or simply the number of people, the Seder plate…. it is a visual feast.

Touch – The feeling of holding strange things like the Matzah as we eat strange ‘sandwiches’ or the vegetable dipped in salt water – we touch food like at no other meal. Then there is the impact that we get from being ‘in touch’ with so much of our family and friends for often the only time of the year, or sadly we feel their non-presence.

Smell – A hard one for me as I don’t have it anymore but core nonetheless. It is different at each Seder but it is there – the sense that there is such a mix of different foods, people, and an atmosphere of warmth. It is, for me, the one that is like the last of the sons – a little unable to speak for itself.

And there is the effect of all of it combining. It is a tapestry that is unique. No one format could possibly work for all everywhere, yet somehow it does. It is tailored and tweaked but it remains remarkably intact. We keep coming back 3,000 years on.

As I look towards Seder night – I am conscious I am reduced in my senses – my smell is gone, my taste vastly reduced (and wine undrinkable and acrid) and my eyes are now the latest thing to start seriously suffering in my journey with PSP. Yet, the multi sensory Seder still lets me participate on a number of fronts. It is for all regardless of how many senses we have.

Five

There is something deeper as well about the number five.

The Seder is known for the number four – four cups, four sons, four questions representing the four expressions by which God chose to deliver us from Egypt. “I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their slavery; I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty judgment. I will take you to Me as a nation. (Ex. 6:6-7)”

However, the number five although subtly hidden from view is very much there. We see it most clearly in the fifth cup – much debated in the Talmud – which as a result of that debate (ever a feature of the Jewish people – as many people do on Seder night) we compromise by giving it to Elijah the Prophet.

This is perhaps the strangest experience of the Seder – when we open the door and let in the cold air (tonight will be very cold here in Israel) and experience all five senses (actually the absence of some like the silence that descends) as we wait for the cup to metaphorically or quite literally be drunk. It is usually a moment of surprising quiet and introspection as we wait (albeit for a few seconds)…

Five is the real objective…

There are in fact actually five expressions of the redemption, not four. The fifth is “And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you as a possession – I am the Lord.” (Ex. 6:8)

This was not achieved in the Exodus so it is not celebrated but it is there and we certainly feel elements of it in our days now… especially those privileged to live in Israel.

The Seder is therefore awash with signals that we are in between the numbers four and five. We achieved four through the Exodus but the fifth is in process and we await its final delivery. I can’t put it better than Rabbi Sacks in the following excerpt from his Haggadah, quoting the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. He says:

“Was there a fifth child? The late Lubavitcher Rebbe suggested that there is a fifth child on Pesach. The four children of the Haggadah are all present, sitting around the table. The fifth child is the one who is not there, the child lost through outmarriage and assimilation. Rabbinic tradition tells us that in Egypt, many Jews assimilated and did not want to leave…”

Certainly, the loss of Jews through assimilation has been an ongoing tragedy of Jewish history. How do we allude to it on Seder night? By silence: the fifth child – the one who is not there.

So beneath the surface of the Haggadah we find not four fours, but five fives. In each case there is a missing fifth – a cup, an expression of deliverance, a verse, a question, and a child. Each points to something incomplete in our present situation. In the half-century since the Holocaust, the Jewish people has emerged from darkness to light. A State of Israel has come into being. The Hebrew language has been reborn. Jews have been brought to safety from the countries where they faced persecution. In the liberal democracies of the West, Jews have gained freedom, and even prominence and affluence.

But Israel is not yet at peace. In the Diaspora, assimilation continues apace. Many Jews are estranged from their people and their faith. Something is missing from our celebration – the fifth cup, the fifth deliverance, the fifth verse, the fifth question, and the fifth child. That is a measure of what is still to be achieved.

We have not yet reached our destination. The missing fifths remind us of work still to be done, a journey not yet complete.”

We know this more than ever – all over the Jewish world. The mix of pride at our children who have defended our State since October 7, those who sadly perished, those still hostage, the fear of antisemitism in our host nation, and those who are sadly not at the Seder. We haven’t reached the final destination but we are on the journey and we are part of this chain from the time of the Exodus till now.l It is still happening.

The Seder is clearly a very well-crafted model, using all senses, in which we express the complexity of freedom from slavery but at the same time we hold a little back awaiting the work left to do.

Each of the senses has its place but it is the overall combination that creates the unique event of the Seder wherever it is.

This night is different from all others but let it be an inspiration to all others, however much of the text you read. It is the experience that counts (and of course to lean when you drink and eat and make sure you eat far too much Matzah in too short of a time).