Jewish holidays begin at sunset with candle lighting.  As darkness fills the evening sky, burning candles spark brightness inside.  The candles’ warm light stands for hope and freedom.  On the first night of Passover, an extra blessing is added to remember how special it is to celebrate a seder for the first time in a year—or even for the first time ever. Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu lehadlik ner shel (Shabbat veshel) yom tov. Dear God,...

I breathe in and take in this light and its warmth and comfort. I breathe out and release the tension that has collected in my body and spirit. I acknowledge this transition into sacred time and the peace and rest it brings. I pray for that peace and rest to linger, past this moment, and to integrate itself into our daily lives. I am thankful for the presence of my loved ones, both those who are here physically and those who...

Our own twist on the Seder plate: A tangerine slice: LGBTQ+ equality  Miriam's cup: in honor of women, and the power Miriam holds in the story of Passover  Banana: refugees around the world  Cashews: for our troops Acorn: for indegenous land  Olive: to symbolize peace in the Ukraine and Israel sunflower: for our brother and sisters in Ukraine 

There is a Sefardic Jewish (Iraqi or Afghani) custom of turning to the person beside you, asking these three questions, and offering the three brief answers.  Who are you? (I am a Jew.) Where are you coming from? (I am coming from Egypt.) Where are you going? (I am going to Jerusalem.) However, we know that this is not everyone's head-space tonight, and so we welcome everyone to ask these three questions and reply with their own answers. Your answers can...

This year, in addition to kindling the holiday lights, we light a yahrzeit candle to remember all that was lost this past year. “A Light in the Darkness” by Rabbi Danny Burkeman.  In the beginning, when there was just darkness, God declared, “Let there be light,” and there was light. In an instant the darkness disappeared, and that radiance spread throughout the world. God’s first act of creation was to bring light into the darkness, to illuminate the world. With this...

The Peach story begins in a broken world, amidst slavery and oppression. The sound of the breaking of the matza sends us into that fractured existence, only to become whole again when we find the broken half, the afikoman, at the end of the Seder. This brokenness is not just a physical or political situation. In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim, reminding us of the word tzar, narrow. Thus, in Hassidic thought, Mitzrayim symbolizes the inner straits that trap our souls....

The Seder's Order by Marge Piercy  The songs we join in are beeswax candles burning with no smoke a clean fire licking at the evening   our voices small flames quivering. The songs string us like beads on the hour. The ritual is its own melody that leads us where we have gone before and hope to go again, the comfort of year after year. Order: we must touch each base of the haggadah as we pass, blessing, handwashing, dipping this and...

In every generation, Pharaoh. In every generation, Freedom. 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 at the hands of YHWH, the Breath of Life. They celebrated the overthrow of tyrants by gathering a million strong, bringing barley-bread and newborn lambs to the Temple in Jerusalem. About...

" 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 "If we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the...