There is a common custom of beginning the Pesach meal by eating a hard-boiled egg. Many see the egg that’s on the seder plate as a symbol of the festival sacrifice our ancestors made in the days of the Temple, and the custom of eating a hard-boiled egg as a way of mourning the Temple’s destruction. 

The Hebrew word for egg—ביצה, beitzah —has the same gematria as the phrase בני אדם, b’ney adam, meaning ‘children of Adam,’ or more generally, ‘mortals.’ The tractate of the Talmud “Beitzah” begins with a discussion as to whether or not one is allowed to eat an egg that was laid on a holiday, when work is prohibited. The Gemara clarifies that we are allowed to eat an egg that was laid by a chicken set aside to be killed and eaten (which is merely a part of the chicken that has become detached) but not an egg laid by a chicken kept for laying eggs. What’s the difference? Our intentions. If we treat the chicken as dead from the start, its eggs are mere objects. If instead we truly believe the chicken is alive, its eggs cannot be eaten as they contain the potential for life. The egg on our plate can be a symbol of mourning or a symbol of rebirth. The choice is up to us. 
 


haggadah Section: Shulchan Oreich
Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan