By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Attending a Passover Seder and hosting one are two very different things, one being significantly more daunting than the other. Fortunately, if you’re looking to host your first - or best - Seder, Dr. Yosef Rosen is here to help. 
Dr. Rosen, the Director of Jewish Life and Learning at the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, is hosting a “How to Host a Passover Seder” Webinar Thursday, Apr. 3 at 7 pm. 
A Seder is more than just a meal. It’s right there in the name - seder is Hebrew for “order” or “structure.” 
“A lot of Jews grow up witnessing their parents or their grandparents hosting a Seder, and it’s a little bit different than watching your parents host Thanksgiving,” Dr. Rosen said. 
Many Jews learn this process through osmosis; watching their families perform the ritual retelling of their people’s journey freedom. But that can be a hit-or-miss learning methodology. Even for those who have the family tradition down pat, finding ways to make the ritual meaningful for one’s unique circumstances can be daunting. If this sounds like you, this is your webinar.
“Maybe they’ve been hosting Seders, but it’s always overwhelming, and so they cut out half of it, or they’ve never hosted a Seder in their life, and it seems intimidating,” Dr. Rosen said of his target audience. “I want to offer people an orientation to what it takes to put on a Seder. What are the main things you want to be thinking about?”
Theoretically, one could pick up a Haggadah and follow along - but most Haggadot are written for small children - if you don’t have any, it can be stilted to follow. Even with kids, time can be a factor - Dr. Rosen recalled his family’s Seders taking five hours when he was young.
“There’s a lot of questions. Like, do you want to do the meal in the beginning and then get into the ritual part? Do you want to do a little ritual before, a little ritual after? What songs to sing? How do you choose a Haggadah? Can you create your own Haggadah?” Dr. Rosen explained “It’s about walking people through all of these questions, some of them intuitive, some of them not, and giving tips and opening up a conversation and giving people a little bit inspiration, a little bit of empowerment.”
The beauty of the Seder, Dr. Rosen points out, is that it’s an exemplar of a kind of small-scale, grassroots Judaism that had been absent from Jewish-American life in the second half of the 20th Century but has been making a resurgence in recent years, and was something that respondents to Portland’s 2023 Community Study were eager for more of. Indeed, Rabbi Mike Uram of the Jewish Federations of North America contrasts this at-home model with the large synagogue event model by referring to the two as the “Seder Model” and the “Yom Kippur Model,” the latter named for what is an average synagogue’s most attended service of the year.
“We’re trying to let people see their own homes as portals for Jewish organizing, Jewish community building, and meaning making,” Dr. Rosen said, “and the Seder is such a wonderful opportunity.”
The webinar is scheduled for 90 minutes and will be interactive, giving attendees a chance to ask questions as well as connecting with other would-be Seder hosts. 
Registration is free and available online at jewishportland.org/passoversederwebinar.