Andrew's Opening
About three thousand years ago, ancient Israelites fused a shepherds’ spring celebration of the birthing of lambs and a farmers’ spring celebration of the sprouting of barley into a spring celebration of their liberation from slavery and the downfall of a tyrant.
About two thousand years ago, the Jewish people reshaped that celebration into a Seder, a story and meal that could be eaten and told at home. The Passover story and celebration entered the memory stream of Christianity through the teachings of Jesus in the Last Supper, which seems to have been a Passover Seder. Still later, Islam welcomed Moses as a prophet.
In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King was planning to take part in a Passover Seder with the family of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched and prayed and struggled alongside him against racism an militarism in America. But ten days before the Seder, Dr. King was murdered.
“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.” - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1970
Passover allows us a chance to connect with each other and with ourselves, and to help us remember all the ways we enslave ourselves when we lapse into automatic, familiar thought patterns.
We enslave ourselves when we remain in Mitzrayim, the narrow place of confusion and disconnection with our own and others' essential nature. As human beings we all want to be happy and avoid suffering. In the Jewish tradition, ritual is used to bring us to an awareness of the present, and to connect us with our past.
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Passover Guide
Hosting your first Passover Seder? Not sure what food to serve? Curious to
know more about the holiday? Explore our Passover 101 Guide for answers
to all of your questions.