---

Time to eat matzah.  As each of you breaks off four pieces of matzah for your plate, ponder this: Matzah is literally free of all additives, externalities and superficial good looks -- it is bread without the hot air. It represents the bare essentials. Everything we pursue in life can be divided into necessities and luxuries. To the extent that a luxury becomes a necessity we lose an element of our freedom by being enslaved to a false need. On Passover...

---

English ONE LITTLE GOAT One little goat, one little goat: Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat: Then came the cat, and ate the goat, Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat: Then came the dog, and bit the cat, that ate the goat, Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat:...

---

אַדִּיר הוּא יִבְנֶה בֵּיתוֹ בְּקָרוֹב.  בִּמְהֵרָה,בִּמְהֵרָה, בְּיָמֵינוּ בְּקָרוֹב.  אֵל בְּנֵה, אֵל בְּנֵה, בְּנֵה בֵּיתְךָ בְּקָרוֹב.  בָּחוּר הוּא, גָּדוֹל הוּא, דָּגוּל הוּא יִבְנֶה בֵּיתוֹ בְּקָרוֹב. בִּמְהֵרָה,בִּמְהֵרָה, בְּיָמֵינוּ בְּקָרוֹב.  אֵל בְּנֵה, אֵל בְּנֵה, בְּנֵה בֵּיתְךָ בְּקָרוֹב.  הָדוּר הוּא, וָתִיק הוּא, זַכַּאי הוּא יִבְנֶה בֵּיתוֹ בְּקָרוֹב.  בִּמְהֵרָה,בִּמְהֵרָה, בְּיָמֵינוּ בְּקָרוֹב.  אֵל בְּנֵה, אֵל בְּנֵה, בְּנֵה בֵּיתְךָ בְּקָרוֹב.  חָסִיד הוּא, טָהוֹר הוּא, יָחִיד הוּא יִבְנֶה בֵּיתוֹ בְּקָרוֹב.  בִּמְהֵרָה,בִּמְהֵרָה, בְּיָמֵינוּ בְּקָרוֹב.  אֵל בְּנֵה, אֵל בְּנֵה, בְּנֵה בֵּיתְךָ בְּקָרוֹב.  כַּבִּיר הוּא, לָמוּד הוּא, מֶלֶךְ הוּא יִבְנֶה בֵּיתוֹ בְּקָרוֹב....

---

Finding and Eating the Afikoman In hiding and seeking the afikoman, we reunite the two parts separated at the beginning of the seder. At this moment, we have the opportunity to discover lost parts of ourselves, to become reconciled with relatives who have become distant and to find wholeness in aspects of Judaism which may not have been part of our lives. Finding that which is hidden is a powerful message when we feel loss and lost. Within our loss, we...

---

Prepare sandwich of matza, maror, and charoset. While we may understand that maturity means accepting that life is the integration of the bitter and the sweet, the sandwich also reminds us that we are live our lives "in-between". We hang in the balance, alive, but not immortal, sandwiched between a fragile, limited, animal self and our eternal Divine image.

---

The seder ritual seems to have it backward: One would think that we should eat the maror first, just as the bitter slavery preceded the liberation. But in truth, our chronology is not so simple. We need to have tasted freedom to really understand oppression. Maybe the lingering aftertaste of the matza can help see us through suffering and oppression. So it is, that the love we shared with our loved ones sustains us through the bitterness of their passing.

---

Karpas (parsley that is dipped in salt water during the seder) kavannah (spiritual focus)--time for spring awakening, new directions--renewal and bursting forth of new ideas. We take this time to honor others who travel with us from other faiths and cultural traditions. We acknowledge the fact that they bring a new perspective to our lives and a legacy of their own that enriches ours. We are grateful for the growth that we have experienced because they are in our lives. As...

---

אַדִיר בִּמְלוּכָה, בָּחוּר כַּהֲלָכָה, גְּדוּדָיו יֹאמְרוּ לוֹ  לְךָ וּלְךָ, לְךָ כִּי לְךָ, לְךָ אַף לְךָ, לְךָ יי הַמַּמְלָכָה, כִּי לוֹ נָאֵֶה, כִּי לוֹ יָאֶה.  דָּגוּל בִּמְלוּכָה, הָדוּר כַּהֲלָכָה, וָתִיקָיו יֹאמְרוּ לוֹ:  לְךָ וּלְךָ, לְךָ כִּי לְךָ, לְךָ אַף לְךָ, לְךָ יי הַמַּמְלָכָה, כִּי לוֹ נָאֵֶה, כִּי לוֹ יָאֶה.  זַכַּאי בִּמְלוּכָה, חָסִין כַּהֲלָכָה טַפְסְרָיו יֹאמְרוּ לוֹ:  לְךָ וּלְךָ, לְךָ כִּי לְךָ, לְךָ אַף לְךָ, לְךָ יי הַמַּמְלָכָה, כִּי לוֹ נָאֵֶה, כִּי לוֹ יָאֶה.  יָחִיד בִּמְלוּכָה, כַּבִּיר כַּהֲלָכָה לִמוּדָיו יֹאמְרוּ לוֹ:  לְךָ וּלְךָ,...

---

INTRODUCTIONThe long history of our people is one of contrasts — freedom and slavery, joy and pain, power and helplessness. Passover reflects these contrasts. Tonight as we celebrate our freedom, we remember the slavery of our ancestors and realize that many people are not yet free.Each generation changes — our ideas, our needs, our dreams, even our celebrations. So has Passover changed over many centuries into our presentholiday. Our nomadic ancestors gathered for a spring celebration when the sheep gave birth...

---

We break the middle matzah spiriting away a part of the tribes of Israel to be lost until found at the end of proceedings.  What does this feel like, to rip at a part of our Jewish souls to leave them in hiding? 

---

Food is associated with life. When the mourners return from the cemetery, they are served a meal with specific foods. By feeding the mourners and insisting that they make a commitment to life even in the face of loss, the community expresses its concern and caring for the mourners. Like the foods of the seder, the foods which make up the mourner's meal are deeply symbolic. For instance, the hard-boiled egg, common to both the seder and the meal of comfort...

---

by  JEANNE LOHMANN All day I try to say nothing but thank you,  breathe the syllables in and out with every step I take through the rooms of my house and outside into a profusion of shaggy-headed dandelions in the garden where the tulips’ black stamens shake in their crimson cups. I am saying thank you, yes, to this burgeoning spring and to the cold wind of its changes. Gratitude comes easy after a hot shower, when my loosened muscles work, ...

---

The Third Cup(Pour the third cup of wine)Reader 1: The swords have not yet been put aside, and the time of the plowshare and the pruning hooks is still to come. But the journey has begun. Towards that redemption, let us lift once again our glasses of wine andjoin in the blessing: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam boreh p’ri ha-gafen. We praise You, O God, Sovereign of the Universe, Who brings forth the fruit of the vine.(Leaning to the left,...

---

The plagues represent moments of hardship in our journey toward freedom, struggles with the power structures that constrict us. Tonight we will reflect on our personal plagues, ways in which we have tried to assert our own power by recreating strategies of control and domination that we have suffered from in an unjust world. Where have we tried to turn hierarchy upside down rather than co-creating a world of equality and liberation for all? Where have we been stuck in fear...

---

רַבּוֹתַי נְבָרֵךְ All who sit around these tables, Friends and strangers, In peaceful conversation And pleasant disagreement, Those who remember and those who are remembered, On this Pesakh, We have shared this fine meal And such a fine story, We take this moment to acknowledge That we are blessed And, in our turn, We bless. בָּרוּךְ הוּא וּבָרוּך שְׁמוֹ Blessed be the Creator and the created, Blessed be the sustainers and the sustained. Blessed be the eaters and the eaten, Blessed...

---

It is customary to begin the Passover meal with hard-boiled eggs flavored with salt water. The egg is symbolic of new life, and of hope; the salt water, a symbol of tears. Eggs, unlike other foods, harden when they are cooked, symbolic of our faith being tempered and hardened by the forces of our history. May we reflect on our lives this year and soften our hearts to those around us. Another year has passed since we gathered at the Seder...

---

A Medieval addition to the Haggadah, this hymn originally contained fifteen verses mirroring the fifteen steps in the Seder.   How many are the gifts God bestowed upon us! Had God: Brought us out of Egypt and not divided the sea for us Divided the sea and not permitted us to cross on dry land, Permitted us to cross on dry land and not sustained us for forty years in the desert, Sustained us for forty years in the desert and not...

---

Pesach, matzoh, and maror have symbolic meaning for us. They are so important and so meaningful that no Seder is really complete unless they are fully explained. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS PESACH? This roasted shank bone is the symbol of the Pesach lamb. Each year at Passover, the Israelites would gather at the Temple to commemorate the Exodus from slavery. Each family would bring a lamb as an offering, to remember the time when our ancestors were spared the...