One of the key concepts of Confucianism is Ritual – Li.  The term has a somewhat negative connotation in contemporary English, suggesting something dryly formal, done without feeling or commitment, just going through the motions.  This is not, of course, how Confucius understood Ritual; he gets at the necessity of genuine feeling in Analects 3.26:

The Master said: "Governing without generosity, Ritual without reverence, mourning without grief – how could I bear to see such things?"

     He also understood that Ritual – which we might interpret most generally as consistent and thoughtful performance of Duty – should not be a rigid replication of past practice.  What matters most for Ritual is the thought and commitment behind the performance.  The specific actions can vary in time and location if there is good reason for such variation.  Analects 9.3 captures this sense of dynamism best:

The Master said: "Ritual calls for caps of linen, but now everyone uses black silk.  It’s more frugal, so I follow the common practice.
"Ritual calls for bowing before ascending the stairs, but now everyone bows only at the top of the stairs.  That’s too presumptuous, so even though it violates the common practice, I bow before ascending."   

      Sometimes he follows the "common practice" (i.e. the way that his contemporaries had adapted the ancient customs) and sometimes he follows the old ways, depending upon his thoughtful consideration of the circumstances.

      Imagine my surprise, then, when I found a perfect example of the Confucian sense of flexibility in Ritual in my local newspaper, The Berkshire Eagle, this morning.  The story is titled, Re-creating a Ritual, by Jessica Willis, and deals with the Passover Seder:

[Rabbi Jeffery W.] Goldwasser, who has led the
reformed Judaic Congregation Beth Israel since 2000, said Passover —
and in particular, the seder — is a "magnet for contemporary rituals,"
and always has been.
He also thought Passover, or Pesach, as it is known in Hebrew, with its
emphasis on freedom, is naturally attractive to "the American concerns
of independence and escape from oppression."

Moreover, the seder rituals are plentiful and as individualistic as Passover’s celebrants, he said.

"Three or four rituals have been invented in my lifetime," he said.
"When I was a kid, we put an extra chair at the table to represent the
Soviet Jews (in need of redemption). Well, they’ve since been redeemed.
Now, he said, the current seder rituals tend to focus on other persecuted groups.

"A big addition lately is to place a cup of water at the table, which
represents Miriam’s (the sister of Moses) Well, and the role of female
Jews in history," he said. "That’s become almost de rigeur."

      I thought that the empty seat for was Elijah – but, I guess, that is the point: Ritual meanings can vary.   

      And I especially liked this point:

"Every seder has a different personality," he [Rabbi Mark Wieder] noted.

Of his first seder at Temple Anshe Amunim, Wieder said he would be
remiss if, in his address, he didn’t "talk about how we’re treating
each other in the world."

He also noted that, by bringing contemporary issues into an ancient celebration, "we bring ourselves into it."

Without our personal experience, Wieder maintains, Passover lapses into "a historical event."

      It is all about the here and now.  We engage in Rituals not to mindlessly parrot the past, but to enliven the present, to challenge ourselves to pay attention to "how we’re treating each other in the world," in the present tense.

     That’s what Confucius meant.

      Happy Passover.