Introduction to the Seder

Thank you for joining us tonight.

I want to begin by wishing everyone welcome, Baruch Haba. I look around at the table and I see so many of us from 
different backgrounds, all choosing to be here together. It's a blessing and I am grateful. Before we begin the Seder, I want to pause to encourage everyone to ask any questions that you may have, for we all are learning and growing. Our obligation at this Seder involves traveling from slavery to freedom, prodding ourselves from apathy to action, encouraging the transformation of silence into speech, and providing a space where all different levels of belief, practice and tradition can co-exist safely. Leaving Mitzrayim (Egypt)--those narrow places, the places that oppress us--is a personal as well as a communal passage, your participation and thoughts are welcome and wanted We will each take turns reading a section of the Haggadah. If your section contains Hebrew and you are uncomfortable reading it aloud, please feel free to simply read the transliteration. If you are uncomfortable with the transliteration, please feel free to read the English. If it is vital to read that section in Hebrew, one of us will be happy to help.

Our Jewishness as many things--a spiritual practice, a history, a culture, an ethnicity, or even a connection to our loved one or family. May this Seder reflect our beautiful diversity. I hope this holiday provides each of us with some cultural, spiritual and personal healing. As we work together to build loving, justice-seeking communities, working for everyone's liberation, we want to remember our own history.

This Haggadah attempts to reclaim the Seder ceremony away from the patriarchal traditions and reflect our awareness of the past and present while remaining connected to the positive aspects of our tradition. May we transcend our modernity and transport back to a past that we must acknowledge in some meaningful way. May we then move forward, beyond the present, into a better world that we must create. The story of Passover centralizes the story of oppression. Through the story, we are able to move away from a source of oppression but we never quite reach Eretz Yisrael--our destination. This forces us to focus on the journey, the struggle. While it may feel discouraging at times to realize that we will not reach our destination, it does require us to concentrate on that journey, and the vision of love and justice that sustains all of us in our lives.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוהינו, מלך היקום, שמראה לנו שבילים לקדושה, ומצווה עלינו לקיים צדק

Baruch atah Adonai, edloheinu Melehk ha-olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav vitzivanu lirdof tzedek

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, that shows us paths to holiness, and commands us to pursue justice.


haggadah Section: Introduction