On Passover

Our Seder now ends. Together we say, “Next year in Jerusalem. Next year may all men and women everywhere be free!”

“What does it mean to have your heart open to another person who might be going through a difficult time? We translate this sense of mitzrayim, of Egypt, of this crowded space, squeezing under whatever is weighing us down, confining us. The seder is really about: What does it mean to appropriate all the pain in the world? What role do I have to play in alleviating it?...What brokenness can motivate me?”  -- Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson

"When the children of Israel were redeemed from Egypt, the Torah describes a moment when they found themselves trapped between Pharoah's army, which was gaining on them from behind, and the Sea of Reeds, which was before them...A midrash says that the Israelites began to argue about who would lead the way into the sea, because no one wanted to go first. At that moment, we are told, Nachshon ben Amminadav leapt into the sea, and only when the water was up to his nostrils did the sea part...To know the Jewish story is to know that miracles do happen. There is simply no other reasonable explanation for the survival of the Jewish people. Yes, we Jews believe in miracles, but we believe especially in miracles of a certain kind -- the kind that involve a leap of action." -- Rabbi Arnie Gluck


haggadah Section: Nirtzah