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Go around prompt:

Introduction, Who are you?

Where are you coming from?

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ACT 1: THE BEGINNING 

1. Kadeish / First cup of Wine 

Tonight we drink four cups of wine. Why four? Some say the cups represent our matriarchs— Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah—whose virtue caused God to liberate us from slavery. Another interpretation is that the cups represent the Four Worlds: physicality, emotions, thought, and essence. Still a third interpretation is that the cups represent the four promises of liberation God makes in the Torah: I will bring you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you to be my people (Exodus 6:6-7.) The four promises, in turn, have been interpreted as four stages on the path of liberation: becoming aware of oppression, opposing oppression, imagining alternatives, and accepting responsibility to act. This first cup of wine reminds us of God’s first declaration: “I will bring you out from the oppression...”

2. Urchatz / Washing Hands 

3. Karpas / Dipping an earth vegetable 

4. Yachatz / Splitting the middle matzah 

Pirkei Imahot 1:1 (Sayings of the Mothers 1:1) On this night of doorways, the bread of our ancestors waits on our table. It is easy to think of this round flat bread as a full moon, except the moon was once part of this planet and was ripped away and the seas keep longing for it and leaping upward. The whole is already broken. The ball of the earth has its shifting tectonic plates, the skin has its pores where the air bores in. Everything whole in the world has an edge where it broke off something or was cut away. The bread we are about to break is already broken. We want to think it and we are perfect, but the loaf is an illusion, a compromise with the shattering of light. Yet maybe it’s in slow breaking that wholeness happens. The bud of the apple tree fragments into beauty and the stem of the iris tears its way through the soil. The heart breaks as it grows. You could call that wholeness: the movement of life toward a fuller version of itself, the egg releasing its core into the world, the tree lurching its way toward branches. It’s the splitting of the sea that lets us out of Egypt: severed from the old self we thought invincible, we run toward a future that shatters the moment we enter it, becoming the multiple and unknown present. Bless the world that breaks to let you through it, Bless the gift of the grain that smashes its molecules to feed you over & over. This Passover night, time is cracking open. Wholeness is not the egg; it’s the tap tap tap of the wet-winged baby bird trying to get out. Break the bread at the feast of liberation. Go ahead. Do it. The whole is already broken, and so are you, and freedom has to have its jagged edges. But keep one half for later, because this story isn’t whole, and isn’t over. (Rabbi Jill Hammer)

2. Urchatz / Washing Hands 

3. Karpas / Dipping an earth vegetable 

4. Yachatz / Splitting the middle matzah 

Pirkei Imahot 1:1 (Sayings of the Mothers 1:1) On this night of doorways, the bread of our ancestors waits on our table. It is easy to think of this round flat bread as a full moon, except the moon was once part of this planet and was ripped away and the seas keep longing for it and leaping upward. The whole is already broken. The ball of the earth has its shifting tectonic plates, the skin has its pores where the air bores in. Everything whole in the world has an edge where it broke off something or was cut away. The bread we are about to break is already broken. We want to think it and we are perfect, but the loaf is an illusion, a compromise with the shattering of light. Yet maybe it’s in slow breaking that wholeness happens. The bud of the apple tree fragments into beauty and the stem of the iris tears its way through the soil. The heart breaks as it grows. You could call that wholeness: the movement of life toward a fuller version of itself, the egg releasing its core into the world, the tree lurching its way toward branches. It’s the splitting of the sea that lets us out of Egypt: severed from the old self we thought invincible, we run toward a future that shatters the moment we enter it, becoming the multiple and unknown present. Bless the world that breaks to let you through it, Bless the gift of the grain that smashes its molecules to feed you over & over. This Passover night, time is cracking open. Wholeness is not the egg; it’s the tap tap tap of the wet-winged baby bird trying to get out. Break the bread at the feast of liberation. Go ahead. Do it. The whole is already broken, and so are you, and freedom has to have its jagged edges. But keep one half for later, because this story isn’t whole, and isn’t over. (Rabbi Jill Hammer)

5. Magid / Telling the story Scene 

With maggid we tell the story, The exodus from degradation to dignity, M'g'nut l'shevach, From slavery to freedom. Each of us is to tell this story and we who do so at length are surely to be praised. But this collective story of the journey from slavery to freedom is not the entirety of the tale. Each of us bears our own stories which relate our journeys, our paths to freedom. If each of us must relate our people's story all the more so should we be praised for continuing the story adding the individual strands which make our identity, which explain our journeys. To journey is to prepare, to leave, to travel, to wander and wonder. To journey is to arrive, to accustom, to question, to change, to remain as we were, yet touched by the journey. What are our journeys from slavery to liberation from alienation to community from afar to within from foreign to familiar from anxiety to comfort from narrow spaces to expanse? As we answer, we continue maggid. We tell our stories. (Lisa S. Greene)

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Go around prompt:

Moment of silence for modern day plagues or whatever you might want to reflect on.

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1 Mah Nishtanah / How is this night different?… 

Ready "So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks upon their shoulders." —Exodus 12:34 You’ll need to travel light. Take what you can carry: a book, a poem, a battered tin cup, your child strapped to your chest, clutching your necklace in one hot possessive fist. So the dough isn’t ready. So your heart isn't ready. You haven’t said goodbye to the places where you hid as a child, to the friends who aren’t interested in the journey, to the graves you’ve tended. But if you wait until you feel fully ready you may never take the leap at all and Infinity is calling you forth out of this birth canal and into the future’s wide expanse. Learn to improvise flat cakes without yeast. Learn to read new alphabets. Wear God like a cloak and stride forth with confidence. You won’t know where you’re going but you have the words of our sages, the songs of our mothers, the inspiration wrapped in your kneading bowl. Trust that what you carry will sustain you and take the first step out the door. (Rabbi Rachel Barenblat)

Exodus

To take the first step -- To sing a new song -- Is to close one's eyes and dive into unknown waters. For a moment knowing nothing risking all But then to discover The waters are friendly The ground is firm And the song -- the song rises again. Out of my mouth come words lifting the wind. And I hear for the first the song that has been in my heart silent unknown even to me. (Rabbi Ruth H. Sohn)

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Go around prompt:

Mah Nishtana: What important, challenging or nourishing questions are arising for you 

this season?

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ACT 3: THE FEAST (Sensory 

6. Rachtzah / Washing Hands (with blessing) 

7. Motzi Matzah / Blessing over matzah 

8. Maror / Bitter herbs 

9. Korech / Sandwich of maror 

10. Shulchan Orech / Set the table for the feast 

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Go around prompt:

Take a movement/stretch/dance break  

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Taylor and Lee Ann’s Blessings:   

Lighting of the Candles. We open this Shabbat by lighting candles.  (light them) Blessed are these tiny fires, as they symbolize both light in times of darkness, and warmth in times of cold.   Our ancestors going back to the time of cave-dwelling lit fires—and we are blessed to continue this tradition.

Breaking of Bread.   Bless this bread, which symbolizes all nourishing food. (Eat a bite)  We are blessed with having food tonight, and wish sufficient food for everyone.

Blessing of the Earth.   We bless the earth which supports all life as we know it. (hold a lump of earth).   This earth connects us all, provides all that we need, was here before us and will be here after us.   May it heal itself and support bountiful life and diversity.

Blessing of the Air.   We bless the air we breathe.  (take a deep slow breath) This air is always here, and fills our lungs, carries our voices, and connects us with the trees.  May this air stay clean and keep us alive.

Blessing of People we Love.   We bestow our blessing on each of the people we love (take a moment to think about who we love).   We send beams of our love, and energy to each of them (picture sunbeams touching them).

Blessing of Four-legged companions.   We bless our cats and dogs…these four-legged companions who teach us about unconditional love, and make us laugh.

Blessing of Our Hearts, lungs and other Organs. We bless our hearts, lungs and other organs (place you hand on your chest) for working so elegantly to keep us alive.   We promise to do everything we can to support them and treat them with honor.

Blessing of Health Workers.  We bless those who are working to care for the sickest of us, who are toiling to give them the intensive care and other support they can—to help them recover and return to health.   We wish them continued health and strength.

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Go around prompt:

Blessings, Dayeinu

 “Since I have______,Dayeinu.”

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[Sing Dayenu! Rebekah leads Dayenu with guitar]

Ilu ho-tsi, ho-tsi-a-nu, 
Ho-tsi-a-nu mi-Mitz-ra-yim, 
Ho-tsi-a-nu mi-Mitz-ra-yim, Da-ye-nu!

.. CHORUS: 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Da-ye-nu, da-ye-nu, da-ye-nu! 
.. 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Dai, da-ye-nu, 
.. Da-ye-nu, da-ye-nu!

.. (CHORUS)

Ilu na-tan, na-tan la-nu, 
Na-tan la-nu et-ha-To-rah, 
Na-tan la-nu et-ha-To-rah, Da-ye-nu!

.. (CHORUS)

Ilu na-tan, na-tan la-nu, 
Na-tan la-nu et Yahushua

Na-tan la-nu et Yahushua, Da-ye-nu!

.. (CHORUS)

11. Tzafun / Afikoman 

Indi please find the Afikomen!

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Go around prompt:

What are we hiding from ourselves?

 What would be possible if we allowed ourselves to find the truth?

Why is it important to finish the meal with “being found”?

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i thank You God for most this amazing i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake

and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

(e.e. cummings)

ACT 5: REDEMPTION 

At this point in the seder, Jewish communities, beset by persecution during the Crusades, opened their doors and recited the angry plea Sh’foch Chamat’cha… “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations who do not know You.” In other communities during the same period, the hope for redemption was so intense that families sang to invoke the Prophet Elijah who, according to legend, would herald an era of Messianic peace, justice, and healing. We open our doors now with the need to act on both impulses. The crimes of humanity that we continue to see – mass rape and torture, ethnic cleansing, the destruction of entire cities and cultures – cry out for just retribution beyond our limited capacity. And our longings for peace, for healing of earth, body and spirit, still bring the hope-drenched melody of Eiliyahu Hanavi to our lips. With that melody we bridge our hopes for the future with our commitment to the present. We thus invite to our seders not just Elijah, harbinger of the Messiah, but Miriam, inspiration for the journey. (From The Journey Continues: The Ma'yan Passover Haggadah) 

Praises Fourth Cup of Wine 

Cup of Elijah The cup of Elijah holds wine; the cup of Miriam holds water. Wine is more precious until you have no water. Water that flows in our veins, water that is the stuff of life, for we are made of breath and water, vision and fact. Elijah is the extraordinary; Miriam brings the daily wonders: the joy of a fresh morning like a newly prepared table, a white linen cloth on which nothing has yet spilled. The descent into the heavy waters of sleep healing us. The scent of baking bread, roasting chicken, fresh herbs, the faces of friends across the table: what sustains us every morning, every evening, the common daily miracles like the  taste of cool water. (Marge Piercy)

“I have come to look forward to the opening of the door for an Elijah who is always a no-show, and I have come to believe that precisely by not appearing, that great prophet is showing us something we need to know. What does it mean that there is never anyone at the door?”Harvey Cox)

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Go around prompt:

What do you have freedom from?

What do you have freedom to…?

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14. Nirtzah / Parting L’shanah ha’ba’ah b’yerushalayim / Next Year in Jerusalem Sefirat Ha’Omer / Counting of Omer (Night 2) 

Zemirot / Songs

Indi Sings!

We All Sing!

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Go around prompt:

Eliyahu, redemption

What does redemption look like?

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Redemption 

Seemed As Close As The Kitchen Sink We have reached the end of the seder. We have traveled through sacred time, making the journey from slavery to freedom. We have pushed the limits of our imaginations, embracing the idea that we, too, were slaves in Egypt, and we, too, will celebrate next year’s seder in a Jerusalem filled with peace. We have savored the taste of a dry, humble cracker—at once the bread of poverty and the symbol of our redemption. Tonight, we have shared our table with prophets and let the voices of our ancestors mingle with our own songs of praise. And now, that intensity begins to fade away. We look around through tired eyes—there is wine spilled on the table, matzah crumbs cover the floor. It is time to do the dishes. We are poised, right now, somewhere between Jerusalem and our kitchen sinks. The demands of the ordinary pull us away from the seder’s extraordinary delights, and we are faced with the task of keeping the songs of freedom ringing in our ears. There is no easy way to do this; no simple formula can guide every one of us. But each of us needs to reflect: What does it mean to say that God brought our ancestors out of Egypt? What does it mean to say that we, too, were slaves in that place? What are the consequences of these words? What kinds of responsibilities do they place on us? How do we walk away from this table and still keep the teachings of this evening close to our hearts? Tonight, let’s turn away from platitudes and easy answers. Let’s acknowledge how hard it is to keep the seder with us, how difficult it is to stay in touch with wonder, gratitude, and the call to justice. Soon we will clear away the glasses and sweep up the crumbs. But sometime in the coming year, we may notice the smallest crumb of matzah stuck between the cracks in the floor. And if that happens, perhaps we will hold that crumb in our hands and be brought back to this moment, when redemption seemed as close as the kitchen sink. (Deborah Glanzberg-Krainin)

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Go around prompt:

To close,  Who are you?

Where are you going?

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