Pesach is the Holiday of Freedom, Redemption and Emancipation. It is the time when every Jew embarks on a personal journey from slavery to freedom, just as the Israelites began their journey from a nation of slaves to a nation of free people. Each year we have the opportunity to contemplate the question, “What is enslaving us? How do we begin on the road to emancipation? The symbols, stories and metaphors that comprise the Haggadah give us the guidance for our own annual journey. In our celebration, we will select from the Haggadah, and I will try to explain the ritual as we go along. There is a famous aphorism that reminds us, “Sometimes, because a person tries excessively hard to perform a mitzvah in the very best way possible, he ends up not performing the mitzvah at all.” So how should we perform the mitzvah of celebrating the seder? We are told to perform the mitzvot "with simple sincerity," noting that the Torah was given to imperfect mortals to embrace, not to "ministering angels."

So this raises a question: What is it that we are supposed to do, among all the rituals and variants that are available to us at the seder celebration?

There are four things we must do on the Seder:

  1. Eat matzah.
  2. Drink four cups of wine.
  3. Eat maror.
  4. Tell the story of Pesach so that all will understand.

haggadah Section: Introduction
Source: Mark Federman