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As we sit down to this Seder it's impossible to ignore that this is our *second annual* Zoom Seder. In the time between last Seder and this Seder, our beloved planet has lost more than two and a half million people to a virus which has laid bare so many of the difficulties, discriminatory structures, and pressure points in our world and its economies and varied governments. Even with movements for justice around the world continuing and taking on even more...

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We will wash our hands twice during our seder: now, with no blessing, to get us ready for the rituals to come; and then again later, we’ll wash again with a blessing, preparing us for the meal. Too often during our daily lives we don’t stop and take the moment to prepare for whatever it is we’re about to do. Let's pause as we wash our hands to consider what we hope to get out of our time together. 

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We must acknowledge this pain and suffering and allow ourselves the space to grieve. Yet, as the karpas ritual beckons, we must also look toward the future with a sense of hope and possibility. Passover arrives on the precipice of spring, when new growth is just around the corner. All over the world, resilience, strength, compassion and innovation will grow from under this tragedy. We honor the tears, but we also bless the hope. Raise the karpas, dip it in saltwater...

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Break the middle matzah on the matzah plate. We break the matzah and hide one part (the Afikomen). We recognize that liberation is made by imperfect people, broken, fragmented — so don’t wait until you are totally pure, holy, spiritually centered, and psychologically healthy to get involved in tikkun (the healing and repair of the world). It will be imperfect people, wounded healers, who do the healing as we simultaneously work on ourselves.

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For Passover this year, Moving Traditions is sharing a new take on a traditional Syrian and Moroccan Passover ritual in which seder participants place a piece of matzah on their shoulder to recall the experience of bondage. After the middle of three sheets of matzah is broken, the larger piece—which later will be used for the afikomen —is passed around the room. Each guest places it on their shoulder (using the right hand and left shoulder) while reciting a line from...

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SHIFRA, THE MIDWIFE, SPEAKS TO THE PROTESTERS OUTSIDE PLANNED PARENTHOOD Exodus 1:17 “The midwives feared G‑d, so they the disobeyed king of Egypt, and allowed the boys to live.”  These days, my primary business is smuggling.  Any baby boys born must find safe hiding before dawn, the new mothers allowed little more than a glance, a soft kiss, before heading back to their huts.  In the morning, I will tell Pharaoh how the Israelite women breed like spiders, giving birth too...

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MAZON’s Fifth Question LEADER: Each year at the Seder, we ask the traditional Four Questions. And each year, MAZON asks a Fifth Question to raise awareness about hunger and spark important conversations around the seder table. ALL: How will we retell this story?  How will we retell the story of this past year, and all it has wrought? Though we are still in the throes of the pandemic, we know this will be a defining moment, just as is the story...

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Urchatz, the ritual washing of the hands, is traditionally performed to purify those who partake in the seder. We, as women / queer / gender non-conforming / trans people, have been told for far too long that we are impure, dirty, and inherently sinful. All who join us at our Seder tonight are perfect, pure, and created in the image of the Source. In past years I would encourage you to reconsider performing the practice of Urchatz (ritual washing of your...

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The wise child asks, "Why are we gathered for a queer Seder this night?" To them we say: "The whole Jewish people left Egypt together, all of them, queer, trans, straight, cis. But our queer and trans' voices have been absent from our history, and we would find them again. As it is written: 'Then Miriam the prophetess / took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance.' We know that our history and...