---

We raise our cups as we recall the second promise of liberation to the people of Israel. Let us glorify God who performed these miracles for our ancestors and for us. Let us rejoice at the wonder of our deliverance from bondage to freedom, from servitude to redemption. Hallelujah. We praise God who has delivered us and our ancestors from Egypt and brought us here this night to eat matzoh and maror. Our God and God of our ancestors, help us...

---

The tasks ahead? Once again we have recited the age-old epic of our liberation from slavery. We have tasted the new growth of a world released from winter We have celebrated advances our, and other peoples of the world, have made toward freedom from oppression. We have focused our attention on how each one of us can become strengthened to feel, think and act so as to take an active role in our own lives. Each year we repeat the same...

---

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 loved ones sustains us through the bitterness of their passing.

---

Prepare sandwich of matza, maror, and charoset. While we may understand that maturity means accepting that life is the integration of the bitter and the sweet, the sandwich also reminds us that we are live our lives "in-between". We hang in the balance, alive, but not immortal, sandwiched between a fragile, limited, animal self and our eternal Divine image.

---

Finding and Eating the Afikoman In hiding and seeking the afikoman, we reunite the two parts separated at the beginning of the seder. At this moment, we have the opportunity to discover lost parts of ourselves, to become reconciled with relatives who have become distant and to find wholeness in aspects of Judaism which may not have been part of our lives. Finding that which is hidden is a powerful message when we feel loss and lost. Within our loss, we...

---

As we now transition from the formal telling of the Passover story to the celebratory meal, we once again wash our hands to prepare ourselves. In Judaism, a good meal together with friends and family is itself a sacred act, so we prepare for it just as we prepared for our holiday ritual, recalling the way ancient priests once prepared for service in the Temple. Some people distinguish between washing to prepare for prayer and washing to prepare for food by...

---

English ONE LITTLE GOAT One little goat, one little goat: Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat: Then came the cat, and ate the goat, Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat: Then came the dog, and bit the cat, that ate the goat, Which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad gadya, chad gadya, One little goat, one little goat:...

---

 MY FAVORITE CLEAN SEDER JOKES By Rabbi Daniel Brenner In order to keep my kids and their cousins entertained during Pesach, I have a “Joke Bank” an envelope in which I keep the following jokes, all printed out on little slips of paper. If the kids get wild, I say, “pay attention for the next ten seconds and  you’ll get to pick a joke.” They love it. Of course many of these jokes are groaners, but, hey, they are the best...

---

By: Rabbi David Jaffe In Talmud Bavli Pesachim 115b, Rava teaches, "[One who] swallows the matzah [without chewing] has fulfilled the obligation [of eating matzah]. [However, one who] swallows the maror [without chewing] does not fulfill the obligation [of eating maror]." Rashbam explains that even though ideally one should taste the matzah, after the fact, even swallowing without tasting is a form of eating and thus one has fulfilled the mitzvah. Maror is different. Actually tasting the maror, and not just...

---

Who Knows One?1.  Who knows one?  I know one!One is Hashem, one is Hashem, one is Hashem!In the Heaven and the Earthאחד אלוהינו שבשמיים ובארץ.א2.  Who knows two?  I know two!Two are the tablets that Moses brought, and one is Hashem, etc...שני לוחות הברית.ב3.  Who knows three?  I know three!Three are the fathers,and two are the tablets that Moses brought,and one is Hashem, etc.שלושה אבות.ג4.  Who knows four?  I know four!Four are the Mothers, and three are the fathers,and two are...

---

The Passover SymbolsWe have now told the story of Passover… but wait! We’re not quite done. There are still some symbols on our seder plate we haven’t talked about yet. Rabban Gamliel would say that whoever didn’t explain the shank bone, matzah, and marror (or bitter herbs) hasn’t done Passover justice.The shank bone represents the Pesach, the special lamb sacrifice made in the days of the Temple for the Passover holiday. It is called the pesach, from the Hebrew word meaning...

---

It is traditional at this point in the seder, to sing songs of praise. This is one of my favorites for this event.Hinei ma tov umanaimShevet achim gam yachadHinei ma tov umanaimShevet achim gam yachadBehold how good andHow pleasant it isFor brothers to dwell together

---

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated). Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P.H....

---

God, have You forgotten me? I have forgotten how to breathe. The air here is tight around me Each day presses in and tomorrow feels impossibly far away I long to feel Your wide, wide love To feel hard earth beneath my cracked feet, shade on my bent back, cool mist on my sun-scorched skin I long to hear sweet words For respite from the sting that forces me into this pit and keeps me here Day after day God, though...

---

For the chief musician, on common instrument: a song of rebellion. Praise rising up. Praise unlawful assembly. Praise the road of excess and the palace of wisdom. Praise glass houses. Praise the hand that cradles the stone. Praise refusal of obedience. Praise the young on Raamses Street. Praise Galileo. Praise acceleration. Praise bombshells and en masse. Praise sit-down strikes. Praise outside agitators. Praise Red Emma. Praise her pistol and praise her restraint. Praise living your life. Praise Joan of Arc. Praise...

---

Freedom. It isn’t once, to walk outunder the Milky Way, feeling the riversof light, the fields of dark—freedom is daily, prose-bound, routineremembering. Putting together, inch by inchthe starry worlds. From all the lost collections."For Memory,"  A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far

---

In Talmud Pesachim, Rava teaches, "A person who swallows matzah without chewing fills the mitzvah, the commandment, to eat matzah. However, a person who swallows maror without chewing doesn't fulfill the mitzvah to eat maror." Matzah is Biblical fast food. Matzah is flat because the Hebrews were in such a hurry to get out of Egypt, they didn't wait for their bread to rise. They rushed out, eating crackers, because they had to eat something. Matzah is optimistic, portable, light and...