Passover Haggadah Remix

The various editions of the traditional Passover Haggadah are worthy guides for any family seder ritual. Growing up, I was lucky enough to be in a family with a rich witness to history. My dad’s side of the family grew up in the neighborhood portrayed in Saul Bellow’s classic The Adventures of Augie March. Alongside the old standards, from the Four Questions to “Dayenu,” many of the seders I grew up with featured my dad, my uncle, my aunt, my cousins and some of their old friends discussing and arguing about which character in Bellow’s novel was who from the old neighborhood.

Once my wife and I bought our own house, we would host the occasional alternative seder on a convenient weekend evening somewhere from the third to the eighth and final night. Since we had settled a fair distance from my own old neighborhood, our seder dinners were more for our friends and anyone in the family who was willing to tolerate the hour and a half drive to our remote outpost. Navigating my idiomatic interpretations of rabbinic dietary restrictions, my wife has made some deliciously vegetarian kosher for Passover matzah-based lasagna, a blintz-inspired casserole and an array of dynamite Sephardic recipes for charoset.

The word “seder” translates literally as “order.” A seder is a ritual dinner designed to flow in a particular sequence, whereby each course in the meal serves as intimately…