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Passover, like many of our holidays, combines the celebration of an event from our Jewish memory with a recognition of the cycles of nature. As we remember the liberation from Egypt, we also recognize the stirrings of spring and rebirth happening in the world around us. The symbols on our table bring together elements of both kinds of celebration. We now take a vegetable, representing our joy at the dawning of spring after our long, cold winter. Most families use a...

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As we rejoice at our deliverance from slavery, we acknowledge that our freedom was hard-earned. We regret that our freedom came at the cost of the Egyptians’ suffering, for we are all human beings made in the image of God. We pour out a drop of wine for each of the plagues as we recite them. Dip a finger or a spoon into your wine glass for a drop for each plague. These are the ten plagues which God brought down...

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Octavia Butler quote: "All that you touch you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change."

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Many refugees find themselves in multiple countries before they find a permanent place to begin rebuilding their lives. If they do not speak the language in those countries, refugees face even greater challenges finding employment, and everyday tasks like filling out forms or trying to purchase food can feel nearly impossible. Children confront language barriers in school. The language of instruction may be the language of the child’s host country – the country to which s/he flees – or it may...

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Games: Repeats from previous years but let's stay sharp! Would you Rather? Eat only maror the rest of your life OR drink only saltwater? Be covered from head to toe in boils OR covered from head to toe in lice? Recline whenever you eat OR dip everything you eat? Die from extreme Marror Heart Burn or from Matzah Choking? Hit the Dog OR Bite the Cat? Still be in Eygpt OR still be in school 100 hours a week? Drink 4...

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As we remember this struggle, we honor the midwives who were the first Jews to resist the Pharaoh.  our legends tell us that Pharaoh, behaving in a way common to oppressors, tried to get Jews to collaborate in murdering their own people.  He summoned the two chief midwives, Shifra and Pu'ah, and commanded them to kill newborn Jewish males at birth.  He threatened the midwives with death by fire if they failed to follow his commands. But the midwives did not...

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Long ago, Pharaoh ruled the land of Egypt. He enslaved the Jewish people and made them work very hard building his cities.   song: Bang bang bang Phaoraoh was especially cruel to Jewish children. One mother hid her baby, Moses, in a basket in the river. Pharoah's daughter found him and took him home to live in the palace. Moses grew up. He saw the slaves working so hard. He had a fight about it and ran away to be a shepherd....

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[Begin taking turns reading. Each person is invited to read a grouped set of lines - or to pass.] It is said, there is nothing new under the sun, yet nothing remains the same. Against the backdrop of eternity the earth displays an ever-changing countenance. The sun rises and the sun sets, yet each day and each season is fresh and new. Slowly, one season emerges from another. The harshness of ice and snow yields to gentle, nourishing showers. Inevitably, the...

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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...

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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