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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Redemption: In the Exodus story, the Jews were redeemed physically from slavery. While Pesach is "z'man heyruteinu," the season of our freedom, it is also a festival that speaks of spiritual redemption. Jews were freed from mental as well as physical slavery. It was as a physically and spiritually free people that the Jewish nation prepared to receive the Torah on Mt. Sinai. The seder also includes many allusions to a future messianic redemption. One of the clearest symbols is the Cup of Elijah placed on every seder table. Contained within the salvation from Egypt are the seeds of future redemption, as the Torah states, "This same night is a night of watching unto the Lord for all the children of Israel throughout their generations" (Exodus 12:42).
Creation: Passover is known by several names in Hebrew, including Chag HaAviv, holiday of the spring. Pesach celebrates spring, rebirth, and renewal, symbolized by the green “ karpas ” and the egg on the seder plate. It is also a time of “beginning,” as exemplified by the first grain harvest and the birth of Israel as a nation. Also, Nissan, this Hebrew month, was traditionally seen as the first month of the Jewish year.
Education: Four different times in the Torah, the Jews are commanded to repeat the story of the Passover (Exodus 12:26, 13:8, 14; Deuteronomy 6:20). The seder is centered around teaching the story of the exodus from Egypt. In fact, Haggadah means “the telling.” Two of the most important readings address education head on: the four questions and the four sons. The first encourages even the youngest children to begin asking questions, while the latter instructs us how to respond to different learning styles. Even at a seder without children present, the night takes on an educational feel. Thought provoking questions and supportive debate are encouraged.
Patterns of Four: Throughout the seder, you may notice the number four being repeated in many guises. This is based on the verse in Exodus that states, "I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments, and I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God…" (Exodus 6:6-7). Among many other patterns of four at the seder, we drink four cups of wine, ask four questions, and speak about four types of children.
Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
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.
When we left Egypt,
we bloomed and sprouted,
and songs dripped from our tongues
like shimmering threads of nectar.
All green with life we grew,
who had been buried,
under toil and sorrow,
dense as bricks.
All green in the desert we grew,
casting seeds at a promise.
All green we grew.
By Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder www.alternadox.net
We all know that we cannot rely on the holiness of our desires all the time. Tonight is special, different. Tonight it is safe to let go. But in a week or a month, who knows? By breaking the middle matzah , we acknowledge that we are still split. We still cannot ultimately trust that our desires and our necessities, our concerns and our impulses, our inner child and our responsible adult, have become one. There is brokenness here.
The two pieces of matzah represent two kinds of eating: because we have to and because we want to. One half we will eat soon, in hunger. The other half we will hide─the half that represents desire, enjoyment, fulfillment, luxury. It is supposed to be eaten on a full stomach, out of desire to eat rather than necessity.
We will hide it because our relationship to it is still uncharted - many of us haven't yet made peace with our desires as portals to the holy. But we are also giving ourselves a goal. The hidden matzah represents our future, the ultimate future, where we are free to do as we wish, knowing that this is Hashem's wish as well. Our ultimate goal is to bring these two halves together.
This is a moment of brokenness, but it is also a moment of faith. In allowing ourselves to break, to recognize the split, to admit unfamiliarity, to admit that we are not yet there, we are also expressing faith that the rift can be fixed. After all, only people who do not believe in healing try to 'keep it together'. Jews, however, believe in the 'healer of broken hearts'. We believe in the G-d who values nothing higher than a broken vessel. We believe that even when the broken matzah is two, it is one.
Passover is the celebration of life. The story of the Jewish people is truly a triumph of life. Against the odds of history, the Jewish people have done more than survive - we have adapted creatively to each new time, each new place, from the birth of our people to the present day.
Even though death has pursued us relentlessly, time and time again, we have chosen to live. During the many centuries of the Jewish experience, memories of destruction are tempered by the knowledge that the world can also be good.
We have endured slavery and humiliation. We have also enjoyed freedom and power. Darkness has been balanced by light.
Our forebears traveled the Earth in search of the safety and liberty they knew must exist. We have learned to endure. We have learned to progress.
We are proud survivors. We celebrate our good fortune and seek the advancement of all.
Leader:
One of the customs of the seder is the asking of questions - questions about what the ritual actions of the seder mean. The Passover tradition involves the youngest children asking - actually singing - about these matters in a song we call "The Four Questions."
The hallmark of a free people is the ability and the right to ask questions, especially questions that enable us to understand our human condition, our past, and our traditions. Although at Seder, it is tradition that the youngest among us ask the Four Questions, we all must ask questions that illuminate our themes of "freedom" and "liberation." By asking questions, and receiving answers to those questions, we may be better able to help create a society where, in the words of John F. Kenney,"the strong are just, the weak secure,and the peace preserved forever."
Why is tonight different than all other nights? We ask four questions, but tonight they are different from what you may have expected. Passover is about freedom. So these are the questions we ask tonight.
- Why is it only on this night that we celebrate our freedom?
- Why is it only on this night that we celebrate that we are alive?
- Why is it only on this night that we appreciate where we came from?
- Why is it only on this night that we think about why we are who we seem to be?
WHAT DOES THE ACTIVIST CHILD ASK?
“The Torah tells me, ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue,’ but how can I pursue justice?”Empower him always to seek pathways to advocate for the vulnerable. As Proverbs teaches, “Speak up for the mute, for the rights of the unfortunate. Speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.”
WHAT DOES THE SKEPTICAL CHILD ASK?
“How can I solve problems of such enormity?” Encourage her by explaining that she need not solve the problems, she must only do what she is capable of doing. As we read in Pirke Avot, “It is not your responsibility to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
WHAT DOES THE INDIFFERENT CHILD SAY?
“It’s not my responsibility.”Persuade him that responsibility cannot be shirked. As Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
AND THE UNINFORMED CHILD WHO DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO ASK...
Prompt her to see herself as an inheritor of our people’s legacy. As it says in Deuteronomy, “You must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”At this season of liberation, join us in working for the liberation of all people. Let us respond to our children’s questions with action and justice.
Remember the days of old:consider the years of many generations (Deut. 32:7)
Every year, hundreds of giant sea turtles swim hundreds of miles from their homes near Brazil to a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean in order to find their mates. For years, scientists tried to understand how the turtles could find their way every time, from so far away. It was a tiny island, and even airplanes sometimes had trouble finding it.
What do you think it was??
Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, when the dinosaurs lived, that little island was closer to Brazil, and it used to be a short swim from where the turtles lived. It is in their memory to know where to go, even though they themselves don't remember, they have a memory together of the way that it used to be, and they heard stories from their turtle parents about that special place.
Each year, they go there together to remind themselves of the trip that their ancestors used to take.
Tonight, we are just like those turtles.
Plagues are horrors, and tonight we will not simply say that and let it go. Tonight, we remember what we sacrificed for our freedom.
Remember the sick.
Remember the dying.
Remember the starving.
Remember those who drowned in the sea.
Remember the slaughtering of the first-borns.
Tonight we recognize that our freedom came with a price, and we do not push that out of our history. Finally, tonight we move forward, but we do not forget, in order to better ourselves in years to come.
Oh God
I am almost afraid to look over my shoulder
To see how far I’ve come
The expanse seems impossibly wide
And yet
Here I am
Dancing
Singing Your Name
Surrounded by love and family
Breathing hope in and out
I raise my eyes to the horizon and it feels so close
I am giddy with relief
Your sea is calm now at our backs
The line of the brown rocks
From which we leapt
Only hours ago
Seems a distant memory
This moment is all joy and wonder
We sing and we sing
Circles within circles of men and women and children
All filled up with Your name
With Your praises
Our hearts are full
Our lives are Yours
We lift our eyes to You
And know we have arrived at the beginning
Of greatness
We have set our feet firmly on Your path
The one that leads straight to Your door
To our true home
To our destiny
To You and to us
Inside each other
Together in each moment
At last
When governments end the escalating production of devastating weapons, secure in the knowledge that they will not be necessary, Dayenu.
When all women and men are allowed to make their own decisions on matters regarding their own bodies and personal relationships without discrimination or legal consequences, Dayenu.
When children grow up in freedom, without hunger, and with the love and support they need to realize their full potential, Dayenu.
When the air, water, fellow creatures and beautiful world are protected for the benefit and enjoyment of all and given priority over development for the sake of profit, Dayenu.
When people of all ages, sexes, races, religions, sexual orientations, cultures and nations respect and appreciate one another, Dayenu.
When each person can say, "This year, I worked as hard as I could toward improving the world so that all people can experience the joy and freedom I feel sitting here tonight at the seder table," Dayenu v'lo Dayenu - It will and will not be enough.
Together, our ancestors were strong enough to move past what others forced upon them.
Together, our ancestors made it through the harsh times.
Together, our ancestors fought for the lives they wanted to live.
Together, we will do the same.
D A A7 D
Hey Jude don t make it bad take a sad song and make it better
G D A D
Remember to let her into your heart and then you can start to make it better
D A A7 D
Hey Jude don t be afraid you were made to go out and get her
G D A D
The minute you let her under your skin then you begin to make it better
D7 G Em A7
And anytime you feel the pain hey Jude refrain don t carry the world upon your
D
Shoulders
D7 G Em A7
Well don t you know that its a fool who plays it cool by making his world a
D
little colder
D D7 A7
Da da da da Da da da da Da
Korech: Mixing the Bitter and the Sweet
One of my favorite moments of the seder comes just before dinner is served. It is called Korech. It is also known as the Hillel sandwich. It is the moment when we eat maror (the bitter herbs) and the charoset (the sweet apple and nut mixture) on a piece of matzah. What a strange custom to eat something so bitter and something so sweet all in one bite. I can taste it now, just thinking about it, and the anticipation is almost too much to bear. I dread it, and I long for it all at the same time. Why do we do such a thing? We do it to tell our story.
The Jewish people tells our story through our observance of Jewish holidays throughout the year. The holidays of Passover, Chanukah and Purim remind us just how close the Jewish people has come to utter destruction and how we now celebrate our strength and our survival with great joy, remembering God’s help and our persistence, and our own determination to survive.
We also tell the story throughout our lifetime of Jewish rituals. The breaking of a glass at a Jewish wedding reminds us that even in times of life’s greatest joys we remember the sadness of the destruction of the Temple. When we build a home, some Jews leave a part unfinished to remember that even when building something new, we sense the times of tragedy in the Jewish people. And on Passover we mix the sweet charoset with the bitter maror, mixing bitter and sweet of slavery and freedom all in one bite.
Throughout each year and throughout our lifetimes, we challenge ourselves to remember that even in times of strength, it is better to sense our vulnerability, rather than bask in our success. We all have memories of times in which bitter and sweet were mixed in our lives, all in the same bite. Judaism says, sometimes life is like that. We can celebrate and mourn all at the same time. And somehow, everything will be ok. What is your korech moment?
There is a word in Hebrew — Teshuvah — that means return. It is an acknowledgement that there is always a chance for forgiveness, redemption and change. Our traditions teach that Passover is open to all. Everyone is welcome at this table. There is always room. Because no one is ever turned away, there is always an opportunity for a rebirth of spirit.
As a sign of hospitality to all, we open the door to our homes and symbolically invite anyone who wants to join us to come inside.
At this point, the children open the door.
Okay we're done. Time to eat!!
