---

In our Jewish Mexican family, we honor more than just the struggle of our ancestors journey from mitsrayim to liberdad but also the gifts they gave us and the tools to survive any conditions and to always make it delicious. We have a Chile on our seder plate to honor the abuelas, the bisabuelas, the chignonas, the curandras, and other femme Moshes, Miriams, Tziporahs and Aarons in our lives who taught us who we are, how to be, integridad (integrity) and...

---

English What makes this night different from all [other] nights? 1) On all nights we need not dip even once, on this night we do so twice? 2) On all nights we eat chametz or matzah, and on this night only matzah? 3) On all nights we eat any kind of vegetables, and on this night maror? 4) On all nights we eat sitting upright or reclining, and on this night we all recline? Hebrew Mah nishtanah halyla hazeh mikol halaylot...

---

We come together from our separate lives, each of us bringing our concerns, our preoccupations, our hopes, and our dreams. We are not yet fully present: The traffic, the last-minute cooking, the final details still cling to us. Our bodies hold the rush of the past few hours.It is now time to let go of these pressures and really arrive at this seder. We do this by meditating together. Make yourself comfortable, you can close your eyes if you wish. Now...

---

Kafka once wrote in his journal: "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world. That is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid." The "you" that Kafka is addressing might be himself, or it might be each of us. But it also could be -- and here's the stunner -- the God of Exodus Himself. It accords with His nature,...

---

Over the years, the Passover story has evolved from a story just about Moses and Aaron to include their female counterparts. We set aside a cup of water for Miriam, celebrate Shifrah and Puah for their act of bravery and comment on Pharaoh’s daughter’s defiant move. As we commemorate the leadership of matriarchs in the Exodus story, the questions about our contemporary relationship to women’s rights and liberation come to the fore. These questions contemplate how our future can be more...

---

Almighty God,I have known fear and I have known comfortAnd here, in this momentMy eyes are wide open My heart is wide openWith each step, my heart poundsAnd I can feel my lips stretching into a smileThe sounds of the sea are all aroundAnd the sounds of childrenLaughingPlayingRunningYou are hereAnd everywhereBetween me and this miracleIn my heartIn the winged ones above usAnd in the spray of the sea that cools my faceThis journey has been so longI have been so tiredAnd...

---

1) 64% felt unsafe at school due to sexual orientation 2) 44% felt unsafe at school due to gender identification 3) 42% of LGBT youth have experienced cyber bullying 4) 42% of LBGT youth say the community in which they live in is not accepting of LGBT people 5) Only 77% of LGBT youth say they know things will get better 6) 60% LGBT students report feeling unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation 7) LGBT youth are 4 times...

---

The seder plate holds the main symbols of a traditional Passover seder-- the shank bone, egg, karpas, charoset, and maror. The Kabbalists of the Middle Ages added hazeret, another kind of bitter lettuce. And in recent years feminists have added an orange on the seder plate to symbolize women's leadership roles and full empowerment in Jewish life. The artichoke however is a new development. What is an artichoke? Surely a work of God's imagination! Many petals, with thistle and a heart....

---

Together as we wash our hands, they move into the bowl of water, and back out of the water. Why do we do this? Are our hands really getting clean without soap? We won’t be eating for some time, why do we do this so early? The washing of our hands suggests that we are open to question. One question that is always asked is about hope. Rick Recht answers in his song: This is the hope that holds us together,...

---

As we celebrate the Jewish people’s biblical exodus from Egypt, we remember that there are 60 million displaced people around the world, people fleeing violence and persecution in search of a safe place to call home. We are currently in the midst of the worst refugee crisis since World War II. HIAS, the world’s oldest, and only Jewish, refugee resettlement organization, helps refugees find ways to live in safety and with dignity as we also mobilize the Jewish community’s response to...

---

Freedom. It isn’t once, to walk outunder the Milky Way, feeling the riversof light, the fields of dark—freedom is daily, prose-bound, routineremembering. Putting together, inch by inchthe starry worlds. From all the lost collections."For Memory,"  A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far

---

The Haggadah and the story of Passover is about God fulfilling his promise to Abraham and maintaining the Jewish people's status as the chosen people and delivering them forth from Egypt, even after the cruel genocidal practices of the Pharaoh. History has a way of repeating itself, even though many Jews have come to believe that the Holocaust has broken that promise irrevocably and justify atheism through the religious lens of the broken covenant. Either way, if you are not particularly...