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Egypt, no sleet or snow for sure, not even rain or the usually hail.Nourished only from an ancient wide stream,On which women secretly shared the boy of redemption.Our Seder recalls the signs and marvels, the plagues, the costly victory.We will honor our timeless bread and play with sweet mortar; taste bitterness and tears. We drink past our fill.God will split their sea.Egypt will give chase and drown.The tragedy and the victory mixed like a Hillel sandwich.Yet, we open with an even...

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By Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder  alternadox.netLater on we will do ' rachtzah '─the washing over the matzah . Now we are doing ' urchatz ', which amounts to washing before eating a vegetable.  This is not something we do every day.To explain, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, writes of dividing life into two categories: the goal, and everything else.  We set goals for ourselves and set out to reach them.  Everything we do that helps...

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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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Charoset is our symbol of mortar, recalling the brutal work conditions experienced by the Israelite slaves in Egypt. This year, we introduce a Charoset recipe that includes pine nuts. Makes approximately 5-6 cups Charoset: 4 medium sized granny smith apples, cored, peeled, and 1/4 inch diced 1 cup dates (about 15-20) 3/4 cup pine nuts 2 tbsp brown sugar 1/2 cup sweet red wine 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp finely grated orange zest 1. Heat brown sugar in large saucepan over...

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It’s been a crazy week. The world with all its worries and bothers is still clamoring for your attention. The first step is to forget all that. Leave it behind. Enter into a timeless space, where you, your great-grandparents and Moses   all coincide. The beginning of all journeys is separation. You’ve got to leave somewhere to go somewhere else. It is also the first step towards freedom: You ignore the voice of Pharaoh inside that mocks you, saying, “Who are you...

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1.      God, have You forgotten me? I have forgotten how to breathe. The air here is tight around me Each day presses in and tomorrow feels impossibly far away I long to feel Your wide, wide love To feel hard earth beneath my cracked feet, shade on my bent back, cool mist on my sun-scorched skin I long to hear sweet words For respite from the sting that forces me into this pit and keeps me here Day after day God,...

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Passover is a holiday about freedom. The Passover seder is a special ceremonial dinner in which we gather together to retell the story of the Israelite's freedom from bondage in Egypt. The Hebrew word for this Holiday, "Pesach" has two meanings. The first is "Passing over" and refers to the fact that the angel of death passed over the Israelite's homes. Pesach can also refer to the pascal lamb -- which was ritually sacrificed to protect the Israelites from the angel...

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Leader: Rabbi Benjamin Adler teaches us about Maror: What is a Bitter Herb?  When most of us think of bitter herbs, that  maror, we think of  khreyn  (Yiddish for horseradish). But when you think about it, horseradish is not really bitter. It is pungent or spicy. According to the Talmud, the correct vegetable to use is lettuce, probably a variety of Romaine lettuce. Indeed, this is what many Sephardi Jews use for  maror. Of course, Romaine lettuce is not really bitter...

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Judaism is a spiritual path, a set of practices intended to facilitate living an awakened life. Passover is the Jewish holiday celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, the holiday of freedom. During the Passover Seder, Jewish parents tell a story to their children about their ancestors journey from slavery and bondage to freedom, a tale that has been passed down from Jewish parent to child for over 2,500 years. In the Haggadah, the book used to guide the telling of the story,...

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The formal telling of the story of Passover is framed as a discussion with lots of questions and answers. The tradition that the youngest person asks the questions reflects the centrality of involving everyone in the seder. The rabbis who created the set format for the seder gave us the Four Questions to help break the ice in case no one had their own questions. Asking questions is a core tradition in Jewish life. If everyone at your seder is around...

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Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech haolam, shecheyanu, v'keymanu, v'higeeyanu, lazman hazeh. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has kept us alive and well so that we can celebrate this special time.  In the light in which we see each other, all of us are different. It is our task to kindle the sacred fire within the human spirit that illuminates every life with love. 

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Welcome to our Seder! Tonight we are gathered as friends and loved ones. Tonight we observe a most ancient and significant festival. In the telling of our tale, we are linked with countless generations, past and yet to come. The Seder takes us back to those events which occurred more than three thousand years ago. Our story is one of great power. Slaves leave Egypt and become a free people. History tells us that many other peoples were also enslaved by...

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A full cup of wine symbolizes complete happiness. Midrash tells us that when God heard the angels rejoicing over the Egyptian's losses, he was angry and said, "Are not the Egyptians my people too? When all people are brothers and sisters, we mourn loss and pain no matter who suffers." As we rejoice at our deliverance from slavery, we acknowledge that our freedom was hard-earned. We regret that our freedom came at the cost of the Egyptians’ suffering, for we are...