Recap: The CJM's Second Annual Out of Order Seder

On Saturday, April 23, the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) hosted its second annual Out of Order Seder. As a multi-arts, non-traditional Seder created by and for young adults, it's the only event of its kind in the Bay Area. The Seder demonstrated the Museum’s commitment to serving young adults as a lively and creative venue in which to convene and experience contemporary Jewish arts and culture.

According to one of the evening’s hosts, Dave Saxe, “The event attracted a diverse crowd of young Jews and non-Jews from throughout the Bay Area, many of whom will be the next generation of leaders in our community. The feedback from our peers has been extremely positive.”

And speaking about her role on the host committee Eve Myers added, “We were able to organize an event that continues to build the enthusiasm and camaraderie that is so important to our Jewish community.”

The social aspect was even stronger this year. Sold out again, but now in the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall, the event was larger than last year with over 160 guests. Before the meal, the Koret Taube Lobby was boom bangin’ to the sounds of DJ Matt “Haze” Kaftor of JDub Records.



Dinner by Savoy Catering was Sephardic-style, allowing for rice and legumes, which caught some guests by surprise. And the Israeli half of Savoy prepared the central Seder plate with a chicken wing, rather than the more traditional Ashkenazi lamb shank.

Based on feedback from last year’s Out of Order Seder, the program was lighter. Though shorter, the list of presenters was strong, including:

• Rabbi Noa Rachael Kushner, founder of The Kitchen; poet, essayist
• Sarah Lefton, G-dcast.com creator/producer
• Ken Goldberg and Gil Gershoni who together created Are We There Yet?, a new media art installation in the CJM's Stephen and Maribelle Leavitt Yud Gallery that’s been garnering tremendous press.

After the program and before dessert, guests were invited to do activities throughout the Museum, including the making of a Golden Calf out of outmoded handheld electronics — like cell phones and PDAs — and a large scale game of Jenga, evoking the building of pyramids that are a central part of the story of the Jews in Egypt before the exodus. There was also a photo booth, where guests were encouraged to bring in a question on a chalkboard.

Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats created a multiple that was a pillbox with empty, clear capsules called “Philosophical Manna for a Pharmaceutical Era.”

In the printed program for the evening Dan Schifrin, the CJM's Director of Public Programs and Writer in Residence, summed up the event as follows:

The holiday of Passover is upon us, a multidimensional feast of food, social justice and ritual reenactments. Tradition demands that we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, but how we tell it depends on us.

Despite the holiday's origins in one people's escape from bondage in Egypt, Passover is among the most universal of Jewish holidays, and its rituals and questions ask us to consider where we are stuck in our lives; how we can do a spiritual ‘spring cleaning’; and in what ways we can see more clearly the bondage of others—materially, politically, emotionally.

The new exhibition, Are We There Yet? Five Thousand Years of Answering Questions with Questions, brilliantly echoes many of Passover’s key themes:

• The interrogative impulse behind the story of liberation and the way questions force a deeper understanding of rituals
• The injunction to physically re-live the story of Exodus—art and ritual as physical movement
• The need for participation. Like Are We There Yet?, the Passover Seder—indeed all of Judaism—doesn’t happen without one's active engagement.
  

Tonight is not a formal Passover Seder (Hebrew for “order”), with the expectation of hitting every note of the ritual melody called the Haggadah. Instead, in this second Out of Order Seder, we dig down into the mud of the questions—religious, philosophical, personal—that are our guideposts through the complex desert of our lives.

The motto of the CJM is: Come with Answers, Leave with Questions. Did we succeed?

Bottom line, it was a great event. Stay tuned for more participatory programming at the Museum in the month ahead. And the next big event will be the Third Annual Family Gala on December 3.



For making the Out of Order Seder possible, the CJM graciously wants to thanks the following:

The Out of Order Host Committee: Adam Felson, Danielle Foreman, Charlie Kirschner, Rachel Masters, Eve Myers, David Saxe, Beth Sherman, Stacey Silver and Alessandra Wollner

Event Sponsors: The Koret Foundation and the David B. Gold Foundation

The Honorary Host Committee: Lisa and Douglas Goldman, John and Marcia Goldman and Ruth and Don Seiler

Table sponsors: Claudia and Rick Felson and Family, Susan and Russell Holdstein, Julie and David Levine, Jamie and Mark Myers, Eleanor Myers, John and Lisa Pritzker, Dorothy R. Saxe, Shelley and Loren Saxe, Roselyne Chroman Swig and The Wollner Family through the Kismet Fund

Wine was provided by Irony Wines.

Photos: © Kira Shemano