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The Wise Child (Enters and sits near the leader. He is eager and earnest.) "Tateh,   teach me everything about Pesach...all the laws, the customs, the rituals...everything! I want to learn it all!" The Wicked Child (Enters and Stands, glaring at the leader. He is angry and full of contempt.) "Dachau, Mumbai, terrorism, murder. What good have all your pious prayers done you?! To hell with your ritual, and to hell with you!" (He sits.) The Simple Child (Enters, walks over and...

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The seder officially begins with a physical act: lighting the candles.  In Jewish tradition, lighting candles and saying a blessing over them marks a time of transition, from the day that is ending to the one that is beginning, from ordinary time to sacred time.  Lighting the candles is an important part of our Passover celebration because their flickering light reminds us of the importance of keeping the fragile flame of freedom alive in the world. Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu melech...

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The first hand-washing of the seder is unusual. The rabbis point out that even a child would wonder at least two things: why do we wash without a blessing and why do we bother to wash when we will not be eating our meal for some time. They suggest that we wash our hands here in order to raise questions. Questions, both of wonder and of despair, are crucial to our time at the seder and, really, our growth as human...

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This piece was written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla, the first out transgender rabbi. He was ordained in 2006 at HUC-JIR’s Los Angeles campus, and now works as a chaplain at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. A few years ago at Kol Nidre I delivered a sermon on the power of diversity to my congregation in Toronto. Afterwards, in the swirling crowd I felt someone tug at my jacket. I turned around to find a nine-year-old by in lavender shiny “Powerpuffs”...

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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...

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We all know about Passover, that holiday when we Jews whip out our flat, cracker-like matzah, talk about the massive exodus from Egypt, and drink a whole lot of Manischewitz wine. As it happens, though, there are a few other things you might want to know about Passover! Here are some facts about the holiday that you probably never knew:Passover is an oldie. Judaism celebrates a lot of holidays. Some are fairly recent, such as Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, founded...

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The Well of Tradition and Miriam's Well One of our people's greatest strengths is using our tradition as a wellspring to renew our heritage as we pass it down from generation to generation. As Jews we have a living relationship with our past. Jewish history, Jewish traditions, and Jewish memories are not placed in museums and libraries for scholars to research. They are part of our people's daily lives. When we study our sacred texts, retell our stories, celebrate our successes...

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"For me, the recent meaning of Passover in my life has been a reclaiming of the seder ceremony away from the patriarchal tradition. My children may remember the seders of their early childhood, conducted by their grandfather entirely in Hebrew, incomprehensible to most in attendance, unvarying from year to year, except for how long it took until the children were sent away from the table for giggling. Before that, there were the Vietnam-era seders when we got into fights with relatives...

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The 1951 Refugee Convention clearly states that host countries must permit asylum seekers and refugees to engage in both wage-earning and self-employment. According to asylum experts, “the right [to work] has been recognized to be so essential to the realization of other rights that without the right to work, all other rights are meaningless.” Even with these legal protections, though, outside of the United States, “many of the world’s refugees, both recognized and unrecognized, are effectively barred from accessing safe and...

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We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt… The reason people are leaving Eritrea is not hunger; it’s a dictatorship that imprisons and tortures citizens at will. If he could live in Eritrea with freedom and safety, W told me there was no place he would rather live; it was home. As we drove out of Holot [Detention Facility in the Negev], W said, “it looks exactly like the military camp in Eritrea” (where men do constant, mandatory service until they’re 55,...

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At the end of the seder, we pour—but do not drink—a fifth cup for Elijah the prophet, who symbolizes the coming of salvation. Jointly we can bring salvation; change is coming, but it is not yet here. We come together at Passover to connect our separate stories into the story of new freedom. We must cross the wilderness of change before we can enter a promised land of greater justice, greater freedom, greater peace, and deeper healing. Next year in a...

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OPENING SONG: Hinay ma tov umah na’im shevet achim gam yachad. How good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity. (Psalm 133) KADESH: SANCTIFYING OUR GATHERING A central symbol of the Passover seder—literally an “order”— is four cups of wine or grape juice, representing different stages of the seder. We move from gathering to hearing other people’s stories, then to sharing our own exodus narratives, and finally to song. Let us fill the first...