When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

The Vegetable

[Pass around parsley so everyone can take a piece.]

Leader:

Passover, like many of our holidays, combines the celebration of an event from our Jewish memory with a recognition of the cycles of nature. As we remember our liberation from slavery, we also recognize the stirrings of spring and rebirth happening in the world around us. The symbols on our table bring together elements of both kinds of celebration.

Reader 6:

We take parsley, representing the dawning of spring after our long, cold winter. Spring emerges each year, green and growing with life.

Reader 1:

We dip the parsley into salt water once, as a symbol of the tears our ancestors shed as slaves. Even while enslaved, life continues.

[All dip, but do not eat, the parsley.]

Reader 2:

We dip the parsley into salt water a second time, to remind us of the plants and saltwater and earth, from where we get food and water and air to live.

[All dip, but do not eat, the parsley.]

Leader:

Before we eat it, we recite a short blessing.

Group:

Baruch Atah Adonai,

Eloheinu Melech ha-olam,

borei p’ree ha-adamah.

We praise God,

Ruler of Everything,

who creates the fruits of the earth.

[All eat the parsley.]


haggadah Section: Karpas