3 Counterintuitive Lessons From Passover Rabbi David Wolpe A man in a desert alone is not free 1. You are an Egyptian. The Passover story is of a people liberated from slavery. When we celebrate Passover, we naturally identify with the Israelites, the oppressed, and not Pharaoh, the oppressor. But the Egyptians of the Bible also had to make ethical decisions. In our lives, we are constantly surrounded by those who serve us — waiters, clerks, housekeepers, hotel maids, bag boys,...

Just as we search for the afikoman, we seek out the injustice in our societies, the hidden as well as the revealed, and organize to transform these dark places into ones filled with light. We seek within ourselves for the places where we are complicit in injustice and pledge to do better. And we search out the places where we are hurt or angry and wash these away, so we may proceed with calm and renewed determination. We say the blessing...

All night long we have been reliving the story of the Exodus, striving to awaken our present consciousness to redemption. Moments ago the wave of the past finally broke over us, sweeping away the boundary between then and now as we burst into the praises of Hallel. Redemption was transformed from a story about our ancestors into the here and now and given life through our song. But in the midst of our excitement, a question arises. The past is gone...

If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals...

Other thoughts about the orange on the Seder plate: Symbolically the orange represents the Jewish people as a community, whole but made up of many sections. The skin of the orange is our Jewish consciousness that surrounds us. In addition, the seeds inside represent the multiple seeds that can give birth to new ways of expressing our faith. The juiciness and seeds of all people, even those of the marginalized like those with disabilities or those who are gay or lesbian...

Holy One of Blessing, It is hard to leave Egypt, the narrow places that keep us from being free. We need courage. We need each other. Remind us what we learn in Talmud: we were redeemed because of the righteousness of the women. Bless us with the strength of Shifra and Puah… midwives who risked their lives to save the lives of innocent babies. Bless us with the confidence of Yocheved who put her infant son Moses in a basket on...

Three Symbols of Passover Rabban Gamliel would teach that all those who had not spoken of three things on Passover had not fulfilled their obligation to tell the story, and these three things are: Point to the shank bone. The Pesah which our ancestors ate when the Second Temple stood: what is the reason for it? They ate the Pesah because the holy one, Blessed be He “passed over” the houses of our ancestors in Egypt, as it is written in...

We comfort and mourn those whose blood has been spilled. We stop infestations of hatred and fear. We overcome the sickness of racism and bigotry. We fill the air with voices for change. We bring light to those who live in the shadows. We inspire the next generation to carry on the struggle for a better world. We appeal to all people to act with humanity. We protest the proliferation of violence. We tend to those who suffer from disease. We...