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Somewhere during the course of your Passover seder this year, ask one of these questions and see how your fellow attendees respond. You can also try typing the questions on small pieces of paper, folding them up, and asking everyone around the table to choose one, read it aloud, and respond. Depending on your audience, the responses may be either serious or playful. Either way, you’re guaranteed interesting discussion. What do Passover and Easter have in common? (Think spring festivals, eggs,...

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Do you have Ashkenazi roots? Do you trace your family back to the Mediterranean or Poland? If you do, you might have a Sephardic background. In either case, for most of us these terms have lost their significance in today's "melting pot" North American society. Nevertheless, there still seems to be some debate about what you may or may not eat on Passover. Let me see if I can clarify this for you (or complicate your menu for your seder). On ...

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Ask virtually anyone: “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover seder?” and the response is likely to be “Of course!” Yet, Jesus could not have known what a “seder” was, let alone have modeled his Last Supper after one. The elements of even the primitive seder originated decades after he died. The Gospels date Jesus’ ministry to the period of Pontius Pilate, Roman prefect of Judea from 26 C.E. to early 37 C.E. Jesus’ year of death is unknown; scholars settle on...

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I do believe, with all my heart, In the natural Goodness of Man. Despite the blood and destruction, Brought by one man, trying to be God, In the Goodness of Man, I do believe. I do believe, with all my heart, That God gave man the blessing and the curse. Man can select the curse of envy, hatred and prejudices, Or the blessing of love, harmony and beauty. Despite the painful curses of the past, In the blessing of the Creator,...

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On this holiday when we are commanded to relive the bitter experience of slavery, we place a fourth matzah with the traditional three and recite this prayer (recite while holding the Fourth Matzah): “We raise this fourth matzah to remind ourselves that slavery still exists, that people are still being bought and sold as property, that the Divine image within them is yet being denied. We make room at our seder table and in our hearts for those in southern Sudan...

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Welcoming Elijah We now fill the fourth and final cup of wine. At the same time, we fill an additional cup and set it aside for the prophet Eliyahu (Elijah). This practice came about because their was a difference of opinion among the sages, as to whether there should be four or five cups at the seder. The compromise was to drink four, and leave a fifth—tradition says that Eliyahu will return at the seder prior to the coming of Messiah,...

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Dipping the bitter herb in sweet charoset | maror |מָרוֹר In creating a holiday about the joy of freedom, we turn the story of our bitter history into a sweet celebration. We recognize this by dipping our bitter herbs into the sweet charoset. We don’t totally eradicate the taste of the bitter with the taste of the sweet… but doesn’t the sweet mean more when it’s layered over the bitterness? ברוּךְ אַתָּה יְיַָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל...

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Our hands were touched by this water earlier during tonight's seder, but this time is different. This is a deeper step than that. This act of washing our hands is accompanied by a blessing, for in this moment we feel our People's story more viscerally, having just retold it during Maggid. Now, having re-experienced the majesty of the Jewish journey from degradation to dignity, we raise our hands in holiness, remembering once again that our liberation is bound up in everyone...

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Since ancient times, Jews have ritually washed their hands to prepare for celebratory meals. The Seder includes two hand-washings. We perform the first without a blessing now, prior to dipping karpas, which does not constitute a meal. We will wash with a blessing before Mozi/Matzah, in preparation for eating the festival meal. The symbolic washing of the hands that we now perform recalls the story of Miriam's Well. Legend tells us that this well followed Miriam, sister of Moses, through the...

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All read the third line of each stanza in unison Unto God let praise be brought For the wonders He hath wrought—   At the solemn hour of midnight. All the earth was sunk in night When God said "Let there be light!"   Thus the day was formed from midnight. So was primal man redeemed When the light of reason gleamed   Through the darkness of the midnight. To the Patriarch, God revealed The true faith, so long concealed   By the darkness of...

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Each verse should be read my a Seder participant.   1. An only kid! An only kid, My father bought For two zuzim.  An only kid! An only kid! 2. Then came the cat And ate the kid My father bought For two zuzim. An only kid! An only kid! 3. Then came the dog And bit the cat That ate the kid My father bought For two zuzim. An only kid! An only kid!  4. Then came the stick And beat...