Reed Sea Seder

My daughter, Rachel, conceived this idea. We held the seder in our basement, which is the children's playroom during the rest of the year. After clearing out the toys and cleaning the room, we turned it into the Parted Reed Sea: The two long walls are decked with blue, wall-to-wall, to turn the room into the parted Reed Sea (we purchased eight inexpensive blue shower curtain liners and strung them up along the walls). The seder took place in the middle of the Reed Sea, on dry ground, with walls of "water" on both sides. At one end is a large mural of a pyramid (Mitzrayim), and at the other end is an even larger mural of Mt. Sinai, with a silver cloud hovering over the top, and bolts of gold and silver lightning. Hence the room reflects where we came from at one end, and where we are going, at the other. In the middle is the experience of redemption. The blue walls of water are decorated with reeds (green crepe paper) and fish swimming to and fro. As people arrived for the seder, before sundown, they colored in fish we had cut out of paper and stuck them up onto the water walls accompanied to a CD of ocean sounds. There is a pole in the middle of the room (structurally necessary) and the kids wound yellow, orange, and red crepe paper around it to create the Pillar of Fire that guided our ancestors by night. On the tables we put blue glass platters with white sand and decorative seashells to emphasize that we are holding seder on the dry sea bottom. We added Shirat HaYam to the seder service as well as Debbie Friedman's "Miriam's Song."

You can see a larger version of the photos below by clicking on them.