Our first cup of wine today represents the North and our shank bone sits in this place on our Medicine Wheel plate. It asks us to pause and consider the North, the color White, and all they represent.
 
   This is the Cup of our Elders, both alive and those who have come before us. It is the cup of the deepest, coldest winter. That time when taking a breath can burn your lungs with cold and we struggle to cover every inch of flesh to hide it from being frozen. We huddle together for warmth and survival and cabin fever begins to set in. 

    This cup represents the eathquake that shakes our world, the avalanche that buries us, and the struggles we face in life that we feel we will never be able live through. This is the place where Death sits, where old things are broken down into compost to create food and space for the new that is surely on its way. 


    When we are in this place we must work hard to keep holding onto hope and staying close to those we love. We must offer  ourselves the grace of time and space to become a new being. For the North cup also holds the magic of the butterfly’s cocoon and is the key to transformation. 

     Today, as we spend time in the North, we will pause to share remember our Ancestors leaving slavery, to share our deepest struggles and the shadows we ourselves walk through. 

   The Shank on our Medicine Wheel Passover Seder Plate sits in the middle of the North. Once our Ancesors sacrificed a Pesach lamb to be passed over from the Plague of Death. Today, we say this Blessing as we ask the Medicine of the North to take our suffering and prepare us for freedom and renewal:

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the world, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are You, Our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has chosen us from among the peoples, exalting us by hallowing us with mitzvot. In Your love, Adonai our God, You have given us feasts of gladness, and seasons of joy; this Festival of Pesach, season of our freedom, a sacred occasion, a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. For You have chosen us from all peoples and consecrated us to Your service, and given us the Festivals, a time of gladness and joy.

Blessed are You, Adonai, who sanctifies Israel and the Festivals.


 


haggadah Section: Kadesh