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O ur hands are the primary tools to interact with our environment. They generally obey our emotions: Love, fear, compassion, the urge to win, to be appreciated, to express ourselves, to dominate. Our emotions, in turn, reflect our mental state. But, too often, each faculty of our psyche sits in its cell, exiled from one another. The mind sees one way, the heart feels another and our interface with the world ends up one messy tzimmes. Water represents the healing power...

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Pass a pitcher, basin, and towl around the table. Rinse and dry your hands, saying: Let our telling pour forth like water, strengthening spirits, refreshing souls.

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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 be waiting 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. The Bread of Affliction Raise the middle...

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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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By Rabbi & Dina Brewer Dayeinu is a highly counter-intuitive hymn. Among its fourteen stanzas it proclaims that: Had God taken our ancestors out of Egypt, but not rescued them at the Red Sea, it would have been sufficient. And had God rescued them at the Red Sea, but not nourished them in the dessert, it would have been sufficient. And had God brought them to Sinai, but not given them the Torah, it would have been sufficient. These statements make...

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Use this piece before singing Hallel and think about what it means to transition from slavery to freedom. Exodus and Liberation translate many different ways for different communities, religious groups, and individuals. Chief Tom Dostou of the Wabanaki Nation of Massachusetts offers the following prayer in an excerpt from a larger piece describing his journey across his ancestral homeland of “Turtle Island.” "We will pray for the American peoples who send their sons and daughters out to foreign lands to be...

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Quien, quien, quien, como Jehová? Que con su poder el mar abrió. Oirán las naciones lo que El hizo, Oirán dondé quiera sus prodigios, Su pueblo le cantara, con panderos danzarán, Y dirán quién, quién, como Jehová. _________________________ ּעֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ הָיִינו. עַתָּה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין Avadim hayinu hayinu. Ata b’nei chorin. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Now we are free.

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In washing our hands, we also think of those who don't get to share in the basic human right of abundant, clean water of people deprived of water by the weather in Somalia, in India, in Texas and those deprived of water by human action in places like Flint, Michigan as well as those whose homes have been ravaged by wind and water in Colombia, in California, and here in New Jersey. We wash our hands and accept our responsibilities to...

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מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת Mah nishtanah halaylah hazeh mikol hleylot... What makes this night so different from all other nights... שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִי  חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה, כֻּלּוֹ מַצָּה She-b'khol ha-leylot anu okhlin khameytz umatzah Halaylah hazeh, kulo matzah... That on all other nights we might eat both leavened and unleavened bread But on this night, only unleavened bread... שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה, כֻּלּוֹ מָרוֹר She-b'khol ha-leylot anu okhlin sh'ar y'rakot, ha-laylah ha-zeh, kulo...

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מַה לְּךָ הַיָּם כִּי תָנוּס  הַיַּרְדֵּן תִּסֹּב לְאָחוֹר Mah l'kha hayam ki tanus,  hayardeyn tisov l'akhor.  What's up with you, mountains, that you flee, Or the Jordan, that you turn backwards? הֶהָרִים תִּרְקְדוּ כְאֵילִים  גְּבָעוֹת כִּבְנֵי צֹאן   Heharim tirk'du kh'eylim,  g'vaot kivney tzon. The mountains, that you dance like rams' Or the hills, like young sheep?  מִלִּפְנֵי אָדוֹן חוּלִי אָרֶץ  מִלִּפְנֵי אֱלוֹהַּ יַעֲקֹב Milifnei adon khuli aretz,  Milifnei eloah ya'akov. In the presence of God the land trembles, In the presence...

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This is the Matzah , the unleavened bread that we eat on Pesach. You probably already knew that. But why do we eat it now? Most significantly, this is what the Hebrew slaves had to eat when they fled from Egypt. (The Bible doesn't say why, if they were able to carry all that dough as well as the gold and silver that the Egyptians handed them, they didn't also take some yeast, but maybe they baked bread differently from how...