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“Who gets this Hagaddah?”
“Who's leading?”
“WHAT PAGE? Oh, I have a different book”
The past few years, we have just embraced the chaos. We have abandoned hope of an orderly process where everyone's page numbers match. Now, there is no 'Official Haggadah'.
The Seder knows that people's questions reflect their individuality. We have the 4 Questions that a child asks, and we tell the story of the 4 Children who ask their questions differently. One of my favorite Rabbis once shared with me, “Do you know why the Seder plate is arranged like it is? So the children will ask about what interests them.”
As the night progresses many questions are raised. Some are scripted and some spontaneous.
So, who answers the questions? All of you. The different haggadot spread new information around your table so that you don't have to rely on any one person. Everyone is an authority with their own source and when a question arises, instead of looking to a Leader, one person offers one idea, and her neighbor another.
When you share your learning with each other, it quickly becomes a lively discussion. People scramble through their own book to see what it says. Everyone feels empowered to share in their own voice.
What I suggest won't be a smooth process, but we realized that Seders in my family were never going to get any smoother, and the Seder isn't a ritual, like reading Torah, whose value is in reciting just the right thing.
