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Just about everybody experiences the sense of being foreign sometime in their lives. Most of the adults at this table have immigrated from a foreign country. But even if you have lived in the same city your entire life, as an adult you no longer live in the same neighborhood you lived in when you were growing up. Your home is defined not only by place but also by time. People have changed; circumstances have changed. As a foreigner in that...

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야핫츠 (yachatz) – 맛자 조각내기  Contributed by Jewish Boston 식탁위에 세 개의 맛자가 쌓여 있습니다. 우리는 이제 두 번째 맛자를 잡고 가운데를 반으로 나눕니다. 주인은 큰 쪽 조각들을 싸서, 저녁식사 하는 동안 그것을 숨깁니다. 이 조각은 아피코멘(afikomen), 그리스어로 후식이라는 의미입니다. 손님들이 저녁 식사를 마무리하기 위해 아피코멘을 찾을 예정이며, 상을 받게 될 것입니다. 우리는 이집트에서 탈출한 선조를 기념하며 맛자를 먹습니다. 노예였던 선조들은 해방되기 전에 많은 그릇된 출발에 직면했습니다. 그래서 자유라는 단어를 들을 때 가지고 있던 반죽이 어떤 것이든지 간에 그 반죽을 부풀기...

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Slaves eat quickly, stopping neither to wash nor to reflect. Tonight, we are free. We wash and we express our reverence for the blessings that are ours. Pass a bowl of water, a small cup and a towel around the table. Everyone pours three cupfuls over their fingers. There is no blessing over this washing.

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Have Yourself a Piece of Bitter Maror By Gary Teblum (sung to the tune of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”) Have yourself a piece of bitter maror On each seder night Then we’ll feel The toils and our people's plight. Have yourself a piece of bitter maror Hillel sandwich way, We'll recall, Our troubles weren’t so far away. Here we are as in a olden days, Such sad slavin' days of yore. Family, friends who are dear to us gather...

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All night long we have been reliving the story of the Exodus, striving to awaken our present consciousness to redemption. Moments ago the wave of the past finally broke over us, sweeping away the boundary between then and now as we burst into the praises of Hallel. Redemption was transformed from a story about our ancestors into the here and now and given life through our song. But in the midst of our excitement, a question arises. The past is gone...

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A Jewish community that has lived in Kochi, India for more than 2,000 years starts preparing for Passover right after Hanukkah. They believe that if a Jewish woman were to make even the slightest mistake in Passover preparation during the 100 days before the actual seder, then the lives of her husband and her children would be endangered. They keep special rooms that hold all of the Passover utensils. Houses would be scraped and immediately repainted after Purim. Wells would be...

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The Passover SymbolsWe have now told the story of Passover… but wait! We’re not quite done. There are still some symbols on our seder plate we haven’t talked about yet. Rabban Gamliel would say that whoever didn’t explain the shank bone, matzah, and marror (or bitter herbs) hasn’t done Passover justice.The shank bone represents the Pesach, the special lamb sacrifice made in the days of the Temple for the Passover holiday. It is called the pesach, from the Hebrew word meaning...

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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 Plagues happened at the same time as a massive volcano eruption. The volcano Santorini sent ash in to the air effecting the surrounding area. The ash is found in Cairo and the Nile River, proven by testing the composition of the ash. This volcanic eruption happened between 1500-1650BC while the Plagues happened between 1400-1550BC. So it fits there. 1st Plague. River ran red LIKE blood. But there is a common algae plume called the Red Tide. This makes the river,...

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by Joshua Ratner, Rabbis Without Borders One of my favorite parts of the Passover seder is the singing that takes place after we finish eating. There are so many great, fun songs, from “Ehad Mi Yodeah” to "Chad Gadya."Perhaps my favorite song is “Dayenu.” The words are fairly easy to sing in Hebrew, and the chorus is so catchy that even those who don’t know Hebrew can easily join in. But beyond its functionality, the content of Dayenu (literally “it would...

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Here is an alternative Seder plate of symbols: A chili pepper in place of maror. A symbol of generations of hot and spicy Jewish mothers and grandmothers who have taught us to approach life the way we eat a hot pepper: with humility. A pine cone in place of charoset. A symbol of the modern bondage of incarceration, as pine cones hide their nuts until we find a way to release them. An artichoke in place of karpas. A symbol of...

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Our story starts in ancient times, with Abraham, the first person to have the idea that maybe all those little statues his contemporaries worshiped as gods were just statues. The idea of one God, invisible and all-powerful, inspired him to leave his family and begin a new people in Canaan, the land that would one day bear his grandson Jacob’s adopted name, Israel. God had made a promise to Abraham that his family would become a great nation, but this promise...

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“Hagaddah” means “the telling.” Our friend Steve collects Haggadot, because each one tells the story a little differently. The story is the same each year, but our context, our perspective, our emphasis is different, and that is the whole point of retelling the story. This year, how are we feeling more free? More oppressed? More a stranger in a strange land? Each year we tell the story differently because we see ourselves differently.  This year's Haggadah was shaped by a chance...