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A Rabbi who came to America in the 1920's relates the following story:  "When I first came into the city, I saw a big store. I walked inside and noticed people taking shopping carts and going aisle to aisle, piling as much food as they wanted into their carts. No one said anything to them, and no one stopped them. People filled up their wagons to their hearts' content. This seemed very strange to me. Indeed, this must be the land...

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When we bless the green parsley and dip it in the salty water, we remember the spring, and we remember the long, sad years of our slavery.When we left Egypt,we bloomed and sprouted,and songs dripped from our tongueslike shimmering threads of nectar.All green with life we grew,who had been buried,under toil and sorrow,dense as bricks.All green in the desert we grew,casting seeds at a promise.All green we grew. 

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In Talmud Pesachim, Rava teaches, "A person who swallows matzah without chewing fills the mitzvah, the commandment, to eat matzah. However, a person who swallows maror without chewing doesn't fulfill the mitzvah to eat maror." Matzah is Biblical fast food. Matzah is flat because the Hebrews were in such a hurry to get out of Egypt, they didn't wait for their bread to rise. They rushed out, eating crackers, because they had to eat something. Matzah is optimistic, portable, light and...

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True freedom requires sacrifice and pain. Most human beings only think they want freedom. The truth is they yearn for the bondage of social order, rigid laws, materialism. The only freedom man really wants is to be comfortable. - Emma Goldman

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Dom, Dom, This Plague is Red (sung to the sung of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead) (by Gary Teblum) Dom, Dom, this plague is red Which bad plague The bloody plague Dom, Dom, the plague of blood is red Pharoah – hear what I said Let them go, or you’ll be dead. Pharoah, the plague of blood is red. The Nile will turn to blood Oh no, that’s worse than flood Yo-ho, yo ho, yo ho Don’t cling, just let...

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ALL: Tonight we might have put an oyster on our Seder plate. While I didn’t particularly want to put something traif atop that most kosher of dishes, this Passover falls on the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. And since BP, the leaseholder of the failed well, seems intent with its new television ads on making us forget about the spill, I felt that something drastic was in order to help us remember. Combining the...

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“An Invitation to a Plant-Based Meal”  Adam Gorod, Jewish Veg. D.C.  Our food choices during the Exodus were so much simpler. We could subsist on manna alone. Free of animal products, manna was a bread from heaven with a taste like coriander seed. Today the options—even during Passover—are more varied. Any number of Kosher-for-Passover items sit in the curated displays of many supermarkets at the arrival of spring. These options, however, make one fact unavoidable: we are now, at all seasons,...

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Pesach is many things to many people. Its customs are familiar and can be viewed with many lenses. The symbols are universal and are subject to almost any reading: social justice, class, the Holocaust, Middle East politics, American politics, agriculture, the environment, the list is endless, and the proliferation of interpretations is evidence that this is fertile territory. A few things – maybe only two – about the holiday are unavoidable, as in, Pesach wouldn't be Pesach if not for these...

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The world was awakened and shattered by the images of a little boy whose body lay lifeless amidst the gentle surf of a Turkish beach this past summer. Another nameless victim amongst thousands in the Syrian Refugee Crisis, the greatest refugee crisis since WWII. But this little boy, like every little boy ,had a name. His name was Aylan Kurdi (age 3), he drowned along with his older brother, Galip (age 5), and their mother, Rihan, on their own exodus to...

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As we wash our hands for the first time this evening, we remember that we have the freedom to access resources that many do not. Ask yourself these questions: In what ways are we free today? What does freedom mean for Jews in America? For Jews around the world? What does freedom mean for people of all backgrounds around the world? Are there many who are not free?

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Four Cups Of Wine Many people wonder why we drink four cups of wine on Passover. Well there are many reasons. First of all wine is a royal drink that symbolises freedom. So it seems appropriate to drink it on Passover because they became free. Also g-d convinced the Jews that they should leave Egypt using four statements, 1 I shall take you out, 2 I shall rescue you, 3 I shall redeem you, and 4 I shall bring you. That...

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This is a modern interpretation of an ancient standard, which is part and parcel of the Seder: the Four Children. By reading and discussing the Four Children, and then responding to it through modern themes, we can come to an understanding of who we are and our relation to the our Children. The source of this section are four verses from the Tanakh which briefly mention children asking, or being told about, the Exodus from Egypt. Using these very general verses,...

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Let us all fill our cups with wine... Reader 1: Tonight we drink four cups of the fruit of the vine. There are many explanations for this custom. They represent, some have said, the four terms God to describe the redemption in Exodus: "I shall take you out...", "I shall rescue you...",  "I shall redeem you...", "I shall bring you..."  The four cups might also reprsent the four corners of the earth, for freedom must live everywhere; the four seasons of...

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[Insert mikveh blessing about healing]

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The charoset reminds us of the mortar and of the pain of slavery. However, as we eat it we taste it’s sweetness. This sweetness gives us hope that the future will bring redemption and justice to all people. We make sandwiches out of maror and charoset, to remind us of the mortar our ancestors used to construct huge monuments for Pharaoh in Egypt. As you we eat this sandwich, we consider the signs of hope for a more just future that...

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In the Seder three matzot are placed on a plate. During this step the middle matzah is broken and a piece taken and hidden for later. Why is the matzah broken now when it is not needed for later in the ceremony? Because a key to freedom is to anticipate the future and make it real. The challenge of adulthood is to train ourselves to look at the long-term consequences. Slavery is a life where only the immediate is important, there...