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On Passover, we read about the ten plagues God unleashed on the Egyptians. The plagues we see today, however, are not punishments from God, but ones of our own doing – the awful, unintended consequences of our own actions and inactions. As we read each of these plagues aloud, we dip a finger into the wine and touch a drop onto our plate. This reminds us that, even as we celebrate freedom, our freedom is not complete when others still suffer....

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The next item on our plate is the karpas: the vegetable representing spring. Many families use a green leafy vegetable because the green makes people think about freshness, coming alive, being healthy- all the wonderful things that go along with freedom. But when families do not have enough resources they can't always get fresh fruits and vegetables. When our family lived in Eastern Europe it was also difficult to get fresh green vegetables, so our tradition is to use what those...

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A Meditation on the Four Children by Rabbi Brant Rosen As Jews, how do we respond when we hear the tragic news regularly coming out of Israel/Palestine? How do we respond to reports of checkpoints and walls, of home demolitions and evictions, of blockades and military incursions? It might well be said that there are four very different children deep inside each of us, each reacting in his or her own characteristic way. The Fearful Child is marked by the trauma...

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Throughout our history, violence and persecution have driven the Jewish people to wander in search of a safe place to call home. We are a refugee people. At the Passover Seder, we gather to retell the story of our original wandering and the freedom we found. But we do not just retell the story. We are commanded to imagine ourselves as though we, personally, went forth from Egypt – to imagine the experience of being victimized because of who we are,...

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Let us all fill our cups with wine... Reader 1: Tonight we drink four cups of the fruit of the vine. There are many explanations for this custom. They represent, some have said, the four terms God to describe the redemption in Exodus: "I shall take you out...", "I shall rescue you...",  "I shall redeem you...", "I shall bring you..."  The four cups might also reprsent the four corners of the earth, for freedom must live everywhere; the four seasons of...

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Every year at the end of the Seder we say "Next Year in Jerusalem!"  But that can't mean physically. It would get overcrowded. Some of us do not have the means to get there. Some of us are too old or young or sick to travel.  No. Not physically. Mentally. We need to open our minds and hearts to a level where we can accept who we are as people on every level. These traditions we have were around for thousands...

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EVERY JEWISH FAMILY produces a unique version of the Passover seder—the big ritual meal of traditional foods, served after and amid liturgy, storytelling, and song. We’re all surprised at each other’s customs: You eat lamb? You don’t sing “Chad Gad Ya”? And yet, virtually every seder does share a few common elements. Matzoh crumbs all over the floor. Wine stains on the tablecloth. A seder plate containing the traditional symbols of the holiday: a roasted shank bone and hardboiled egg, recalling...

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“Remember you are water. Of course you leave salt trails. Of course you are crying. Flow. P.S. If there happens to be a multitude of griefs upon you, individual and collective, or fast and slow, or small and large, add equal parts of these considerations: that the broken heart can cover more territory. that perhaps love can only be as large as grief demands. that grief is the growing up of the heart that bursts boundaries like an old skin or...

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The Third Cup of Wine A cup to the freedom fighters this is a prayer for all freedom fighters, a prayer for the tired, the burnt out, the heartsick, the cynical this is a prayer for all freedom fighters brave enough to cry, for the reaching around of arms, the firm handclaps of comradeship, the sanctuary of bodies when we need to hide our faces. this is a prayer for wordless understanding, the flickering human eye flames of humor and warmth,...

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Quien, quien, quien, como Jehová? Que con su poder el mar abrió. Oirán las naciones lo que El hizo, Oirán dondé quiera sus prodigios, Su pueblo le cantara, con panderos danzarán, Y dirán quién, quién, como Jehová. _________________________ ּעֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ הָיִינו. עַתָּה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין Avadim hayinu hayinu. Ata b’nei chorin. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Now we are free.

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There are three pieces of matzo bread on the table in front of us. We will now break the middle matzo into two pieces—the larger of which should be wrapped up and hidden. This is the afikomen.  We eat matzo, as opposed to leavened bread, on Passover, to remember that our ancestors did not have enough time to wait for bread to rise while waiting on Pharoah’s word regarding their freedom. Lift the three pieces of matzo into the air, and...

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As Moses and the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, Pharaoh’s armies pursued them as they were encamped by the sea. Moses held out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove back the sea, allowing the Israelites to pass, but drowned the Egyptians. There is a Midrash that tells of God rebuking His angels for rejoicing as the Egyptians were drowning, saying, “Are these not my children also?” We now pour ten drops of wine to symbolize the ten plagues upon...

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On Passover, Hillel, the head of the Rabbinic academy in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, combined the pesach, matzoh and maror and ate them together, so he might observe the commandment exactly: “They shall eat the Pesach lamb offering with matzoh and maror together.” The destruction of the Temple by the Romans brought an end to animal sacrifices, so our sand- wich today is made only with matzoh and maror. We will now eat the bitter herbs sandwiched between two pieces...

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Later, we will read and explore the whole story of the Exodus from Egypt, but first we give a simple answer to each of these four questions. We eat matzoh because when our ancestors were told by Pharaoh that they could leave Egypt, they had no time to allow their bread to rise, so they baked hurriedly, without leavening. At the Seder, we eat bitter herbs to remind us of the bitterness our ances- tors experienced when they were oppressed as...