---

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...

---

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...

---

EVERY JEWISH FAMILY produces a unique version of the Passover seder—the big ritual meal of traditional foods, served after and amid liturgy, storytelling, and song. We’re all surprised at each other’s customs: You eat lamb? You don’t sing “Chad Gad Ya”? And yet, virtually every seder does share a few common elements. Matzoh crumbs all over the floor. Wine stains on the tablecloth. A seder plate containing the traditional symbols of the holiday: a roasted shank bone and hardboiled egg, recalling...

---

As we celebrate the Jewish people’s biblical exodus from Egypt, we remember that there are 60 million displaced people around the world, people fleeing violence and persecution in search of a safe place to call home. We are currently in the midst of the worst refugee crisis since World War II. HIAS, the world’s oldest, and only Jewish, refugee resettlement organization, helps refugees find ways to live in safety and with dignity as we also mobilize the Jewish community’s response to...

---

Here is a kid and adult friendly alternative to for the Maggid section (the Passover story section) of the Haggadah. This short play is in the style of "sedra scenes" -- a contemporary take which makes the story current but stays true to the Exodus narrative. I've written it for large crowds -- so there are 13 parts, but if you have a smaller gathering you can easily double up. LET MY PEOPLE GO!A short play for the seder CAST: NARRATOR,...

---

The Fifth Question: What can we do to help alleviate poverty? There are numerous charities which aim to get donations to end poverty. It is important to make food and money to these various charities to help others. We must remember that we were once "strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). This quote appears numerous times in the Torah and explains to us to have sympathy for others because we were once abused and manipulated so we should consider...

---

One element of the story of the exodus that the Roberts' version elides is God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Moses Maimonides (ca 1135 - 1204 CE) recognized this element of the story as a significant paradox since it seemed to suggest that God forced Pharaoh to make the wicked decisions that brought about the punishment of the plagues. As Maimonides recognizes, if this were so, then the notion that the plagues were a punishment as well as a means of the...

---

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...

---

From COEJL’s “Preparing for Passover: Readings for the Seder Table” Stewart Vile Tahl, COEJL One of Passover’s lessons is learned to distinguish between more and enough. Dayenu means “it would have been enough for us.” Often, enjoying more wealth and comfort stimulates our desire for more – more attention, more comforts, more money, more, and more, and more. Passover and the Haggadah teach us to be mindful of what our real needs are, of what constitutes “enough.” What constitutes enough for...

---

no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well. no one would leave home unless home chased you, fire under feet, hot blood in your belly. it's not something you ever thought about doing, and so when you did - you carried the anthem under your breath, waiting until the airport toilet to tear up the passport and swallow, each mouthful of paper...

---

("This Old Man” by Craig) Then God sent,Plague number one, Turned the Nile into blood. All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty low They told Pharaoh "Let them Go!" Then God sent, Plague number two, Jumping frogs all over you. All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty low They told Pharaoh "Let them Go!" Then God sent, Plague number three, Swarms of gnats from head to knee. All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty low They told Pharaoh...

---

By Rabbi Susan P. Fendrick http://www.ritualwell.org/holidays/passover In the words of longtime Jewish feminist Francine Klagsbrun, “Women's seders have become a phenomenon of our time...From New York to Nebraska, from Berlin to London, thousands of Jewish women throughout the world celebrate the Passover holiday every year with an evening of ceremony and remembrance led by women for women.” Why—and how—a seder primarily for women? What is a “women’s seder”? The timing of a women’s seder—most frequently just before Passover (obviating the need...

---

by Marc Silverman OPENING Anyone familiar with the main components of the festive ritual meal and celebration of the Pesach Leil HaSeder (the evening of the Passover feast) would readily agree that this occasion is a superb example of “embodied learning” at its highest level. Beautiful settings, dishes, wine glasses, and cutlery; the decorative Seder plate itself with its colorful display of foods, each symbolizing an aspect of the Passover story; textual readings, reciting, singing in unison or individually in turn,...