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We 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 “to pass...

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Karpas represents spring and new growth, rebirth and the beginning of new life.  We taste in this fresh vegetable all the potential in nature and in ourselves.  We do not taste the vegetable alone.  We dip it into salt water, recalling the tears our ancestors shed during their long years in slavery.  We mix bitterness with sweetness, slavery with freedom, past with future.