The Meal

Q: What do you call someone who derives pleasure from the bread of affliction?

A: A matzochist.

The bitter herbs serve to remind us of how the Egyptians embittered the lives of the Israelites in servitude. When we eat the bitter herbs, we share in that bitterness of oppression. We must remember that slavery still exists all across the globe. When you go to the grocery store, where does your food come from? Who picked the sugar cane for your cookie,

or the coffee bean for your morning coffee? We are...

Rumi, the Persian poet of the soul, understands the meaning of love in this way:

Your task is not to seek love

But merely to seek and find all the barriers

That you have built against it.

The same can be said of freedom; we build barriers against it, barriers born of fear-fear of death, fear of not having enough, fear of not being enough, fear...

Together as we wash our hands, they move into the bowl of water, and back out of the water. Why do we do this? Are our hands really getting clean without soap? We won’t be eating for some time, why do we do this so early?

The washing of our hands suggests that we are open to question. One question that is always asked is about hope.

Rick Recht answers in his song:

This is the hope that...

URCHATZ

The Leader of the Seder only, now washes his/her hands from an ewer into a bowl held

by another celebrant, wiping them dry on a hand towel. We have accepted the need for

leadership, we wash the leaders's hands. This small, formal act of service is a symbol of

our recognition of their leadership. This is an ancient Jewish...

The seder ritual seems to have it backward: One would think that we should eat the maror first, just as the bitter slavery preceded the liberation. But in truth, our chronology is not so simple. We need to have tasted freedom to really understand oppression. Maybe the lingering aftertaste of the matza can help see us through suffering and oppression. So it is, that the love we shared with our...