In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, I came across a Haggadah that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians, a statement of defiance against a rebbetzin’s pronouncement that, “There’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for...

The fourth cup of wine is poured We now draw our attention to the two empty cups on the table--one of which is for Elijah the Prophet, and the other for Miriam the Prophetess. Tradition teaches us that each of these biblical characters plays an important task of bringing redemption.It is said that that Elijah the Prophet visits the homes of Jewish families on Passover, to check to see if we are all truly ready to welcome the stranger, and are...

On Passover we Opened the door for Elijah Now our cat is gone.

It is a tradition at the Seder to include a section entitled “the Four Children.” We have turned it upside down, to remind us that as adults we have a lot to learn from youth. From the U.S. to South Africa to Palestine, young people have been, and are, at the forefront of most of the social justice movements on this planet. If there is a mix of ages of people at your seder, perhaps some of the older people would...

Emphasizing the Symbols of Passover [Lift up the Seder plate and point out each item. Explain the purpose behind each item:] Maror (bitter herbs) Bitter Herbs (usually horseradish) symbolize the bitterness of Egyptian slavery. Maror is used in the Seder because of the commandment to eat the paschal lamb "with unleavened bread and bitter herbs." Karpas (vegetable) Vegetable (usually parsley) is dipped into salt water during the Seder. The salt water represents the tears shed during Egyptian slavery. The dipping of...

In every generation, we must see ourselves as if we personally were liberated from Egypt. We gather tonight to tell the ancient story of a people's liberation from Egyptian slavery. This is the story of our origins as a people. It is from these events that we gain our ethics, our vision of history, our dreams for the future. We gather tonight, as two hundred generations of Jewish families have before us, to retell the timeless tale. Yet our tradition requires...

Empty Eliyahu's cup.  Pass it around and have everyone pour in a drop of wine from their own cups to fill it.  This represents everyone being a part of contributing to perfecting the world.   You can also do this with wine already in the cup and/or using extra wine to fill the cup to the top.

A GUIDED VISUALIZATION © Rabbi Susan Freeman, 2003 This is a journey from slavery to freedom. Close your eyes and take several slow deep breaths. Feel your body as being very heavy. Take a few minutes to go through each body part, feet to head, and feel the heaviness, the weight of every limb, every bone . . . You were a slave once in the land of Egypt. Remember when you were a slave among slaves. Go back. You were...

As all good term papers do, we start with the main idea: ּעֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ הָיִינו. עַתָּה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין   Avadim hayinu hayinu. Ata b’nei chorin. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Now we are free. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God took us from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm. Had God not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, then even today we and our children and our grandchildren would still be slaves. Even if we...

On this night, we remember a fifth child. This is a child of the Shoah (Holocaust), who did not survive to ask. Therefore, we ask for that child -- Why? We are like the simple child.  We have no answer. We can only follow the footsteps of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who could not bring himself to mention the Exodus at night until Ben Zoma explained it to him through the verse: In order that you REMEMBER the day of your...