What is a Coronaggadah?
When New York went into lockdown in March of 2020, one of the first things I had to do was cancel our Passover seder. Which made me sad. But I thought, “Well, I’ll just have a dinner party this summer for all my usual seder guests.” But summer stretched to fall, to winter, to 2021. Another spring without a seder, another year of isolation and frustration.
Finally, In October of 2021, it was considered safe for a group of up to ten people to gather outdoors. And so, I held an Un-Seder. All the trappings of a traditional seder, but instead of sharing the biblical story of Exodus from Egypt, we recounted the story of the pandemic. We gathered; we ate; we drank; and we celebrated our coming forth from quarantine into freedom.
The Coronaggadah was born.
Based on the Haggadah my family has been using for over 80 years, it uses the structure of a traditional Haggadah to tell the story of covid, giving new symbolic meaning to the matzah, the parsley and the bitter herbs and different answers to the four questions. It mixes humor with gratitude toward those who helped us through the pandemic and a little snark at those who didn't (ahem, Trump).
The Coronagaddah follows the traditional Haggadah. While it doesn't have chapters, it does include all of the key elements of a Passover Seder:
o The Seder plate - mazzah, parsley, bitter herbs, all with new explanations
o The four questions - same questions, different answers
o The four kinds of children - same children, different answers
o The narrative - a brief history of the pandemic
o The story of the rabbis - now it's Rabbi Fauci, and Rabbi Cuomo (with a footnote)
and Rabbi Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of WHO (because one unpronounceable
name is part of the tradition), and Rabbi Birx and Rabbi Biden
o Dayenu - things we were grateful for throughout the pandemic
o The plagues - which are now the false and misleading or otherwise ridiculous
Trump statements and tweets
o Opening the door for Elijah - or in this case, Dr. Fauci
o The Riddle of Numbers - new list of answers
o Had Gadya - instead of “an only kid” the refrain is “a covid bug”
You don't have to be observant, or even Jewish, to join the celebration. Covid disrupted the lives of everyone around the globe and the feeling of relief at having survived the worst of it is universal.
What is a Coronaggadah?
