I learned this weekend that, despite having been at most of the same Seder tables I've been at for the past 30 or so years, not everyone in my family has the same understanding of Passover as I do. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm the Jewiest Jew in the family, which isn't saying much, but I do recall the story of Passover from year to year, and have hosted my own Seders.  After a heated discussion based on this recent NYT article in which a new father questioned his own knowledge of Judaism and decided to proactively learn more to teach his son (and decided to write a new Hagaddah in the process), we abandoned The Concise Family Seder, used another, almost too-basic, Hagaddah as an outline for our Seder the following night.

The result was a hodge-podge, somewhat crowd-sourced Seder where we bounced back and forth from our remedial Hagaddah to my friend Peter and I telling the story of Exodus with fill-ins from the group. It was somewhat unruly — not ideal for a ritual that literally translates as "order" — but fun nonetheless. I was told by some that they got more out of it than our usual Seder — but we'll see how much they remember next year. Maybe I'll draft a brief quiz.

The following came up over the course of the evening as good sources for basic and/or additional information about the Seder, the story of the Exodus, and Judaism in general:

The Brick Testament, particularly the story of Exodus.

The Prince of Egypt – Passover simplified.

Seder in a nutshell – there is a structure to a Seder. It includes the telling of the Exodus, but there are a few other things we're supposed to do as part of the evening.

And, my favorite, Google Exodus.

If you're interested in deeper knowledge of the history of the Jews from 1500 BC to shortly after the destruction of the 2nd temple, you can watch this PBS Documentary:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1354541084
http://video.pbs.org/video/1354542849
http://video.pbs.org/video/1354548543
http://video.pbs.org/video/1354559410

Next year, in Jerusalem!!