What I wish I knew when I had to lead a seder (twice!)

When I was in the military rabbinate in hesder, I had to stay on the base for the first chag of Pesach, and again the year after because by then I was officially a non-combat hesder student and such students have to lead Pesach seders in bases around Israel. As a yeshiva student and as a member of the rabbinate corps, it was drilled into me that we had to come up with inspiring divrei torah that could potentially change the minds of the rest of the seder attendees (most of them non-religious Jews). It wasn't that we were supposed to convince them to do teshuva, it was more that the seder had a potential to be a memorable experience and it was up to us to make it so.

However, what I was not told - perhaps because no one in the largely dati/torani rabbinate corps was aware of this - was that many non-religious/traditional families in Israel conduct the seder in...well, I don't know how to really say this, but perhaps...an old-fashioned way? What I mean is that there aren't deep, convoluted divrei torah/speeches. What many families do is just read the haggadah, sing the songs together, and that's it. The seder is short, but sweet. A good old traditional seder. Sometimes they take turns reading different parts of the haggadah. And they get to the meal fast (!).

That was something I was sadly unaware of for two years in a row. I am a shy person, so naturally even the divrei torah I prepared weren't given over with much charisma (especially the second year, when I was put in a completely different unit just for the first chag). We didn't do much turn-taking during reading. So, sedarim at the army aren't particularly memorable occasions for me.* They were both pretty much flops.

What's the moral? If you're heading off to the rabbinate corps, do some background research on non-religious soldiers. Trust me, it'll be helpful, and not just for Pesach.

*However, I do have a somewhat fond memory of the on-duty base commander the second year, who was a Druze officer. IDF rules dictated that he had to attend the seder even though he wasn't Jewish. Poor guy was so bored he was skimming his phone most of the meal.