In 1984 I was the Jewish chaplain for the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, NY, a maximum security prison. Although the administration and inmates were not interested in any serious religious instruction, I was determined to offer some religious inspiration to my "congregation," all of whom were serving sentences of at least twenty-five years. I wanted my inmates to celebrate the "Holiday of Freedom," while incarcerated in a horrible place. The Catholic chaplain agreed to supervise the "Seder" if I could get ten inmates seriously interested, and if he could have the left over Matzah and grape juice for his services. I had to first have a Model Seder that would be so interesting that the inmates would want to have a real Seder on Pesach. How do you interest serious criminals in a Model Seder? Food and cigarettes. Twenty inmates joined our Model Seder. We celebrated our Seder as Story Collectors: Each participant was asked to tell a story about his most powerful experience of freedom.  The first to speak was Buddy Jacobson, who had been a celebrated racehorse trainer. I dreaded his describing his famous escape from jail, but he spoke instead of his feeling going out early in the morning to walk his horses; "The sun rising, the birds chirping, everything quiet except for the sounds of the horses, always made me feel that life was fresh." "Buddy," I said, "that's an important part of the Haggadah!" I read the paragraph of, "Yachol mei-Rosh Chodesh," how in middle of the Haggadah we stop and say, "We should do this when everything is new," and all of us were soon engaged in a debate of how we would do things if we would have an opportunity to start on Rosh Chodesh; when all is new.

Another inmate described the last time he had a meal with his entire family as his story of freedom. "The Four Children," I said, and we were soon discussing raising children as a form of freedom. One man described his first paycheck; "Dayeinu," I responded, "You gave us money for our work." One of the corrections officers in the room said, "Every time I leave work and you guys and go home to my family, I feel free! The worst part of this job is watching your faces when your family says goodbye at the end of a visit." "That's also in the Haggadah; 'And God saw our suffering,' that our family life was disrupted." I was soon displaced as the inmates and their guards began sharing their stories and finding them in the Haggadah. We had no problem getting all twenty inmates to commit to a real Seder. They didn't call it a Seder, but Story Collection Ceremony.

We spend a great deal of time trying to understand the text of the Haggadah, often forgetting that the purpose of the Seder is "Sippur," story telling and collecting; remembering our own stories, and seeing our lives as fascinating stories that directly relate to the Pesach story. I have met boring people, but never a person whose life was not an interesting story.

Perhaps this is why this week's portion, which describes the Yom Kippur Service, begins as a continuation of a story: "And God spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron's two sons, when they approached before God and died (Leviticus 16:1)," even the holiest service, in the holiest place, on the holiest day, must be lived as a continuation of a story that speaks to us as Story Collectors.

I wish you all a Shabbat that is a celebration of your story as part of the unfolding of the Creation story, and a Pesach in which the old stories spark new fascinating stories in your lives.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameiach,

Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
President 
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