---

At Passover each year, we read the story of our ancestors’ pursuit of liberation from oppression. When confronting this history, how do we answer our children when they ask us how to pursue justice in our time?WHAT DOES THE ACTIVIST CHILD ASK?“The Torah tells me, ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue,’ but how can I pursue justice?”Empower him always to seek pathways to advocate for the vulnerable. As Proverbs teaches, “Speak up for the mute, for the rights of the unfortunate. Speak...

---

Traditionally, The Four Sons/Daughters include a wise one, a wicked (or rebellious) one, a simple one and one who does not even know enough to ask. Each of the first three ask questions about the Seder, essentially "Explain all this to me - what are my responsibilities?" "What has all this nonsense you are babbling about got to do with me?" and "What IS all this anyway?" while the fourth is silent - requiring the adults to be proactive in providing...

---

Our hands were touched by this water earlier during tonight's seder, but this time is different. This is a deeper step than that. This act of washing our hands is accompanied by a blessing, for in this moment we feel our People's story more viscerally, having just retold it during Maggid. Now, having re-experienced the majesty of the Jewish journey from degradation to dignity, we raise our hands in holiness, remembering once again that our liberation is bound up in everyone...

---

I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free. -Rosa Parks Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -George Orwell Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. -JFK If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary. -Malcolm X

---

http://girlsintrouble.bandcamp.com/track/snow-scorpions-and-spidersA song about Miriam, but later in her life, from the book of Numbers Chapter 12, when she's exiled from the group for a while. 

---

We begin our Seder by calling to mind the efforts of those everywhere who celebrate the Passover by searching for its meaning in their lives. In our house, we're marrying multiple traditions, genetic lines, and ways of being. It's through rituals like this that we hope to form the strands of our life into a family that's woven together for all the time we can know. We're ecstatic you can join us for Octavio Moses's first Passover, and hope we can...

---

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...

---

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...

---

The Passover Seder is one of the most recognized and widely practiced of Jewish rituals, yet had our ancestors visited one of these modern-day celebrations, they would be baffled. Not only does our modern Seder wildly diverge from the Passover of old: during antiquity itself the holiday underwent radical changes. As the centralized Israelite state took shape about 3,000 years ago, the religion of the people varied from place to place and took variegated forms, hints of which we can see...

---

One at a time, pour water over each others’ hands. As water is poured over your hands, share with us what you would like to let go of right now, what you would like to have “washed away”. And after each person speaks, give them support by all saying “Kayn Yihee Ratzon”, or “So Be It.” 

---

We’ve been bound by a hardened heart And our inability to see ourselves in each other. We have been puffed up by ego and pride. Enslaved by how things have always been. And now it is time to go. But fear threatens to paralyze. How can we possibly exist any other way? Our imagination falters The attachment to what we know is so great It doesn’t matter that it causes us so much pain. We dig in. We will not be...

---

By Rabbi Melissa Klein, Rabbi Joanna Katz, Rabbi Julie Greenberg, Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, Susan Kaplow, Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell This year, we add a padlock and a key to our seder plate. Those of us who are blessed to live in our own homes tend to associate locks and keys with protection and access. Many of us have homes that keep us safe and that allow us to go in and out as we please. In contrast, for more than two...