Welcome to the Heytow Family Seder!

Tonight we gather together to celebrate Passover, the Jewish holiday of freedom. Tonight we will enjoy a good meal, we will drink for cups of wine, we will learn of the symbols of Passover, and we will tell the story of Exodus, the story of our people's journey from slavery to freedom.

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. We gather tonight, as two hundred generations of Jewish families have done before us, to retell this timeless tale.

Yet our tradition requires that on Seder night, we do more than just tell the story. We must live the story. Tonight, we will re-experience the liberation from Egypt. We will remember how our families suffered as slaves; we will feel the exhilaration of redemption. We must re-taste the bitterness of slavery and must rejoice over our new found freedom. We remember slavery in order to deepen our commitment to end all suffering; we recreate our liberation in order to reinforce our commitment to universal freedom.

Our Passover meal is called a Seder , which means “order” in Hebrew, because we go through 14 specific steps as we retell the story of our ancestors’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. As we eat tonight, we remember the suffering our ancestors endured, the journey they took to be free, and we rejoice in our freedom today.

Kiddush (the blessing over wine) | kadeish | קַדֵּשׁ

Ritual hand-washing in preparation for the seder | urchatz |וּרְחַץ

Dipping a green vegetable in salt water| karpas |כַּרְפַּס

Breaking the middle matzah | yachatz |יַחַץ

Telling the story of Passover | magid |מַגִּיד

Ritual hand-washing in preparation for the meal | rachtza |רָחְצָה

The blessing over the meal and matzah | motzi matzah |מוֹצִיא מַצָּה

Dipping the bitter herb in sweet charoset | maror |מָרוֹר

Eating a sandwich of matzah and bitter herb | koreich |כּוֹרֵךְ

Eating the meal! | shulchan oreich |שֻׁלְחָן עוֹרֵךְ

Finding and eating the Afikomen | tzafoon |צָפוּן

Saying grace after the meal and inviting Elijah the Prophet | bareich |בָּרֵךְ

Singing songs that praise God | hallel |הַלֵּל

Ending the seder and thinking about the future | nirtzah |נִרְצָה


haggadah Section: Introduction