Hine ma tov 
uma nayim 
shevet achim gam yachad. 
Hine ma tov 
uma nayim 
shevet achim gam yachad.

How good and pleasant it is when people live together in harmony

Welcome to Our Seder

Today is the Jewish people's birthday
and the rebirth of personal freedom for each individual.
Tonight is a journey of rediscovery: to relive slavery and poverty,
and then to experience liberation and taste abundance.
Eating together = we become a community of caring for each other's needs.
Reading, discussing and arguing = we become a community of learners.
Asking questions and telling stories = we become a community of memory.
Playing and acting = we become a community of imagination.
Praying together = we become a community of hope, willing to take a stand.
Singing together = we become a community of joy and appreciation.
Join in, take part, feel free to ask, to add (and to skip)...
No matter your background, no matter your age, no matter your knowledge.
Feel free to make this Seder your own.

Feel Free!

All Jewish celebrations, from holidays to weddings, include wine as a symbol of our joy – not to mention a practical way to increase that joy. The seder starts with wine and then gives us three more opportunities to refill our cup and drink.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree hagafen.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who creates the fruit of the vine.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who chose us from all peoples and languages, and sanctified us with commandments, and lovingly gave to us special times for happiness, holidays and this time of celebrating the Holiday of Matzah, the time of liberation, reading our sacred stories, and remembering the Exodus from Egypt. For you chose us and sanctified us among all peoples. And you have given us joyful holidays. We praise God, who sanctifies the people of Israel and the holidays.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם
 שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam,
she-hechiyanu v’key’manu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything,
who has kept us alive, raised us up, and brought us to this happy moment.

Drink the first glass of wine!

The Four Cups of the Seder are structurally connected to the four verbal performances this evening:

(1) Kiddush, sanctifying the holiday (2) Maggid, the storytelling (3) Birkat HaMazon, completing the Pesach meal; and (4) Hallel, completing the festival Psalms.

The Talmud connects the Four Cups to God's Four Promises to Israel: "Tell the children of Israel: I am Adonai! I will take them out... I will rescue them… I will redeem them… and I will marry them taking them as my people and I will be their God" (Exodus 6:6-7, Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 10:1).

However, two 16th C. mystic rabbis identify the Four Cups with the Four Matriarchs of Israel. The Maharal of Prague (famous for the legend of Golem) and Rav Isaiah Horowitz of Tsfat explain:

(1) The Cup of Kiddush stands for Sarah who was the mother of a community of converts, believers by choice.

(2) The Cup of Maggid is for Rebecca who knew how to mother both Esav and Jacob, two opposed natures.

(3) The Cup of the Blessing after Eating represents Rachel whose son Joseph provided the whole family of Jacob with bread in a time of great famine.

(4) The Cup of Hallel (Praise) is for Leah who came to realize that the pursuit of the impossible, Jacob's love, must give way to appreciation of what one has. When her fourth child was born, Judah, she praised God: " This time I will thank God " (Genesis 29:35).

Water is refreshing, cleansing, and clear, so it’s easy to understand why so many cultures and religions use water for symbolic purification. We will wash our hands twice during our seder: now, with no blessing, to get us ready for the rituals to come; and then again later, we’ll wash again with a blessing, preparing us for the meal, which Judaism thinks of as a ritual in itself. (The Jewish obsession with food is older than you thought!)

To wash your hands, you don’t need soap, but you do need a cup to pour water over your hands. Pour water on each of your hands three times, alternating between your hands. If the people around your table don’t want to get up to walk all the way over to the sink, you could pass a pitcher and a bowl around so everyone can wash at their seats… just be careful not to spill!

Too often during our daily lives we don’t stop and take the moment to prepare for whatever it is we’re about to do.

Let's pause to consider what we hope to get out of our evening together tonight. Go around the table and share one hope or expectation you have for tonight's seder.

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 the liberation from Egypt, 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.

We now take a vegetable, representing our joy at the dawning of spring after our long, cold winter. Most families use a green vegetable, such as parsley or celery, but some families from Eastern Europe have a tradition of using a boiled potato since greens were hard to come by at Passover time. Whatever symbol of spring and sustenance we’re using, we now dip it into salt water, a symbol of the tears our ancestors shed as slaves. Before we eat it, we recite a short blessing:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree ha-adama.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who creates the fruits of the earth.

We look forward to spring and the reawakening of flowers and greenery. They haven’t been lost, just buried beneath the snow, getting ready for reappearance just when we most needed them.

-

We all have aspects of ourselves that sometimes get buried under the stresses of our busy lives. What has this winter taught us? What elements of our own lives do we hope to revive this spring?

From a Sacrifice to a Symposium

The term "Seder Pesach" once meant the Order of the Passover Sacrifice in the Temple. But after the Temple's destruction in 70 CE, the Rabbis remodeled the Seder after the Greco-Roman symposium ( sym - together, posium - drinking wine). At these Hellenistic banquets guests would recline on divans while servants poured them wine, washed their hands and served appetizers and dips before the meal. In the meantime the symposium host functioned as a talk show moderator. An ancient how-to manual for conducting such a symposium says:

"A symposium is a communion of serious and mirthful entertainment, discourse and actions. It leads to deeper insight into those points that were debated at table, for the remembrance of those pleasures which arise from meat and drink is short-lived, but the subjects of philosophical queries and discussions remain always fresh after they have been imparted." (Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned , 2^nd C)

Thus the Rabbis' prescribed such a banquet for the telling of the Exodus: much wine (four cups); appetizers (celery dipped in salt water); reclining on pillows; having our hands ceremonially washed by others; a royal feast; and most importantly – a philosophical discussion on the story of the Exodus and the issues of freedom versus slavery. The Rabbis wanted Pesach to be an experience of freedom, aristocracy and affluence – thus they chose to mimick the eating habits of their affluent contemporaries.

However, there is a fundamental difference: The Greco-Roman feast was for the rich only, it exploited slaves, it restricted asking questions and exchanging opinions to the ruling class, men only. But at the Pesach Seder all people are invited to eat like royalty, to ask questions and to express opinions, even the spouses and the youngest children. Alongside the wine of the rich, there is the bread of poverty.  The needy must be invited to share our meal. Stylish banquets may easily turn corrupt, but the Seder encourages us to savor our liberty, without exploiting or excluding others. 

There are three pieces of matzah stacked on the table. We now break the middle matzah into two pieces. The host should wrap up the larger of the pieces and, at some point between now and the end of dinner, hide it. This piece is called the afikomen, literally “dessert” in Greek. After dinner, the guests will have to hunt for the afikomen in order to wrap up the meal… and win a prize.

We eat matzah in memory of the quick flight of our ancestors from Egypt. As slaves, they had faced many false starts before finally being let go. So when the word of their freedom came, they took whatever dough they had and ran with it before it had the chance to rise, leaving it looking something like matzah.

Uncover and hold up the three pieces of matzah and say:

This is the bread of poverty which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, come and eat; all who are needy, come and celebrate Passover with us. This year we are here; next year we will be in Israel. This year we are slaves; next year we will be free.

These days, matzah is a special food and we look forward to eating it on Passover. Imagine eating only matzah, or being one of the countless people around the world who don’t have enough to eat.

What does the symbol of matzah say to us about oppression in the world, both people literally enslaved and the many ways in which each of us is held down by forces beyond our control? How does this resonate with events happening now?

A WAY IN Jewish Mindfulness Program

Haggadah Supplement

MATZAH

Bread of Affliction, Bread of Hope and Possibility

Ha lachma anya— This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

As we go through the seder, the matzah will be transformed. It will cease to be the bread of affliction and it will become the bread of hope, courage, faith and possibility.

And it begins with a breaking.

YACHATZ: Breaking the Matzah

Reader:

Each person is invited to hold a piece of matzah, to mindfully feel its weight, notice its color, its shape and texture.

Resting the matzah on our open palms, we remember that the Passover story teaches that oppression and suffering result from fear and the unwillingness to open one’s heart to the pain and the experiences of others.

It was fear that brought about the enslavement of the Israelites and it was the hardening of the heart that kept the Israelites, the Egyptians and the Pharaoh in bondage. From fear and a hardened heart came violence, anguish and grief.

One person lifts the plate of three matzot. We all take a moment of silence and then call out the beginning of the prayer:

Ha lachma anya – This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

We return to silence and each raise up a piece of matzah.

We maintain silence while all, at the same time, break our matzot in half.

We listen to the sound of the bread of affliction cracking open.

As we hold the two pieces in our hands we set an intention to break open and soften our hearts:

All:

May our eyes be open to each other’s pain.

May our ears be open to each other’s cries.

May we live with greater awareness.

May we practice greater forgiveness.

And may we go forward as free people—able to respond to ourselves and each other with compassion, wonderment, appreciation and love.

We place the matzah back on the plate and continue the prayer:

Let all who are hungry come and eat.

Let all who are in need join us in this Festival of Liberation.

May each of us, may all of us, find our homes.

May each of us, may all of us, be free.

II. Later in the seder, after we have told the story, we say the blessing over the matzah and prepare to eat it for the first time. We take a moment and acknowledge our capacity for healing and love:

Reader:

Every time we make a decision not to harden our hearts to our own pain or to the pain of others, we step toward freedom.

Every time we are able to act with compassion rather than anger, we stop the flow of violence.

And each moment we find the strength and courage to see ourselves in each other, we open possibilities for healing and peace.

This is the bread that we bless and share.

All:

May all who are hungry come and eat.

May all who are in need join together in this Festival of Freedom.

A WAY IN Jewish Mindfulness Program weaves together Jewish tradition and Mindfulness practice. A 501c(3) charitable organization, A Way In is guided by Rabbi Yael Levy, whose approach to mindfulness grows out of her deep personal commitment to spiritual practice and a passionate believe in its potential to change not only individuals but the world.

For more information on A Way In: www.mishkan.org/a-way-in; www.Facebook.com/jmindfulness. Follow us on Twitter: @awayinms

The Pesach story begins in a broken world, amidst slavery and oppression. The sound of the breaking of the matza sends us into that fractured existence, only to become whole again when we find the broken half, the afikoman, at the end of the Seder.

This brokenness is not just a physical or political situation: It reminds us of all those hard, damaged places within ourselves. All those narrow places from which we want to break to free. In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim, reminding us of the word tzar, narrow. Thus, in Hassidic thought, Mitzrayim symbolizes the inner straits that trap our souls. Yet even here we can find a unique value, as the Hassidic saying teaches us: "There is nothing more whole – than a broken heart."

SHARE: Pass out a whole matza to every Seder participant, inviting them to take a moment to ponder this entrance into a broken world, before they each break the matza themselves.

Pour the second glass of wine for everyone.

The Haggadah doesn’t tell the story of Passover in a linear fashion. We don’t hear of Moses being found by the daughter of Pharaoh – actually, we don’t hear much of Moses at all. Instead, we get an impressionistic collection of songs, images, and stories of both the Exodus from Egypt and from Passover celebrations through the centuries. Some say that minimizing the role of Moses keeps us focused on the miracles God performed for us. Others insist that we keep the focus on the role that every member of the community has in bringing about positive change.

Yom Kippur is a deeply personal holiday in many respects. It is the day when we each, individually, account for our actions and renew our relationship with God. It has a national aspect as well, but this is in large measure subordinated to the personal—this despite the fact that the holiday is generally observed in large communal settings, most notably synagogue. Passover, by contrast, is our national holiday. While there is an important individual aspect to it, the thrust of the holiday is national renewal and remembrance of the national narrative. In contrast to Yom Kippur, Passover is observed primarily in the home, not in the synagogue.

Whereas the Yom Kippur ritual is fixed and essentially unchanging from year to year, the Seder invites and encourages play and change within its structure. The Kohen Gadol performed the same ritual year after year in the ancient Temple, and we read the same words about his activities year after year. But the Haggadah of the Seder is reprinted with new commentaries, new midrash, new ideas every year, and no two seders ever look the same.

The Mishnah draws a further comparison between the two holidays in analyzing the preparation undertaken for each:

We do not worry that a mouse may have dragged hametz from house to house or from place to place, for if we did, we would have to worry that hametz had been dragged from courtyard to courtyard or from city to city, and there would be no end to the matter. (Mishnah Pesachim 1:2)

Seven days before Yom Kippur they would take the High Priest from his house to the Palhedrin Chamber. They would appoint another priest to act in his stead in case he became unfit to perform the service. Rabbi Yehudah says: They would even appoint another wife for him, in case his wife died, since the Torah says, “And he will atone for himself and his household” (Lev. 16). His wife is his household. The Sages replied, “If so, there would be no end to the matter.”

The discussion of the Rabbis in both these cases elaborates on one of the challenges common to both Pesach and Yom Kippur: the yearning for finality and the insecurity of uncertainty. Despite all our cleaning, despite all our preparations, nothing is static—hametz could land on our doorstep as we begin the seder, something could happen to the High Priest’s wife as he enters the Holy of Holies. These things are beyond our control, and yet we worry lest they happen. The position of Rabbi Yehudah, and the unspoken position rebutted by the Mishnah in Pesachim, give voice to these doubts and uncertainties: batten down the hatches, take every possible precaution, you can never be too prepared. But then the voice of reality sets in, and the Sages rule: If so, there would be no end to the matter.

We are likely not worried about mice, and we are not concerned today that something might happen to the High Priests. Yet our insecurities remain: Did we clean enough? Did we ask for forgiveness from everyone whom we wronged? We can always do more. Yet the Torah responds to human needs on human scale: At a certain point, we have to say enough is enough. At Yom Kippur, that exercise is known as accepting forgiveness, truly believing that God has granted selicha and mechila. At Pesach, it comes in the form of bitul: on the morning before Passover, we relinquish ownership of all our hametz, such that, as Maimonides says, we could see a loaf of bread on our dining room table and have no thought that it belongs to us.

Yom Kippur and Pesach are two moments of our most intense encounters with the Jewish calendar, when we are challenged to find the point of integration between ourselves and the larger covenantal community of the Jewish people throughout space and time—a community that includes Jews throughout the ages and the God who took us out of Egypt and forgives us year after year. Each holiday emphasizes a different dimension of this process, but the endpoint in both is renewal and temimut, integrity.

How long should the ideal Seder last. Everyone is hungry; the kids are squirmy, guests are growing impatient. You're on step 5 of 15 and dinner isn't even in sight.

It might interest you to know that originally, the meal PRECEDED the recitation of the Passover story (Maggid - step 5 of 15) and now it's at step number 11!Why? Because the rabbis were wise enough to know that few would hang around for the rest of the Seder once their appetites were satisfied. Of, course, they were correct. So, they shuffled the order of the Seder to make sure that the spiritual mitzvah of telling the sacred story was completed in its entirety before the main course, so to speak, the actual meal, was eaten.How long should the ideal Seder last? Well, that depends on the ages of the children and the tolerance of the guests, but here's a good rule of thumb:The Seder should be short enough and interesting enough to capture everyone's attention, but not so long as to hold them hostage!And therein lies the art.Happy Passover.

The breakup here is debatable, and involves interpretation at the end. However, it should be a useful resource to maintain context as one goes through Magid.

Magid

1.      Intro

a.       הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא – invite guests

b.      מַה נִּשְּׁתַּנָה

c.       The mitzvah of סיפור יציאת מצרים

                                                              i.      עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ

                                                            ii.      Rabbis in בני ברק

                                                          iii.      רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה– mitzvah to do סיפור  at night

                                                           iv.      Teaching the 4 sons

                                                             v.      יָכוֹל מֵרֹאשׁ חֹדֶשׁ– mitzvah to do סיפור  at seder (not all of Nisan)

2.      Genut to Shevach

a.       The forefathers

                                                              i.      מִתְּחִלָּה עוֹבְדֵי עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה הָיוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ

                                                            ii.      The forefathers inherit the land; Yaakov goes down to Egypt

                                                          iii.      בְרִית בֵּין הַבְּתָרִים

b.      וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה

c.       Egypt story: דברים כו: ה-ח. Each pasuk is analyzed word by word to derive the full details of the story. (Text is taken from the Kohen’s speech when he gives the bikkurim.)

                                                              i.      אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, עָצוּם וָרָב.

                                                            ii.      וַיָּרֵעוּ אֹתָנוּ הַמִּצְרִים וַיְעַנּוּנוּ, וַיִתְּנוּ עָלֵינוּ עֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה.

                                                          iii.      וַנִּצְעַק אֶל יְיָ אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ, וַיִּשְׁמַע יְיָ אֶת קֹלֵנוּ, וַיַּרְא אֶת עָנְיֵנוּ וְאֶת עֲמָלֵנוּ וְאֶת לַחֲצֵנוּ.

                                                           iv.      וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ יְיָ מִמִצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה, וּבְמֹרָא גָּדֹל, וּבְאֹתוֹת וּבְמֹפְתִים.

1.       10 plagues

2.       Recounting of plagues

d.      Dayenu

3.      Mitzvot of the night

a.       Pesach

b.      Matza

c.       Maror

d.      בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם

e.       First half of הלל

4.      ברוך אתה ה' גאל ישראל

5.      2nd cup

Interesting historical context of the Rabbis' seder at http://thorn.cc/faffle/node/8

In 1941, shortly after the start of World War 2,  President, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his annual State of the Union Address to the 77th Congress. This speech was known as "The Four Freedoms" speech because in it he expressed four freedoms that people should have worldwide. President Roosevelt said that America was fighting to spread freedom around the world.  The first freedom was "freedom of speech and expression," meaning the right to say and stand up for what you believe in. The second freedom was "freedom of everyone to be able to worship god in their own way." Third was "freedom from want," which means being able to have basic necessities such as clothing, food, and shelter. Lastly was "freedom from fear."  Roosevelt had in mind a world in which neighbors get along with eachother and people were not constantly in fear for their well-being. These freedoms express an ideal society where everyone posseses the basic rights that all people desrve.

The formal telling of the story of Passover is framed as a discussion with lots of questions and answers. The tradition that the youngest person asks the questions reflects the centrality of involving everyone in the seder. The rabbis who created the set format for the seder gave us the Four Questions to help break the ice in case no one had their own questions. Asking questions is a core tradition in Jewish life. If everyone at your seder is around the same age, perhaps the person with the least seder experience can ask them – or everyone can sing them all together.

מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּֽיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילות

Ma nishtana halaila hazeh mikol haleilot?

Why is this night different from all other nights?

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָֽנוּ אוֹכלין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה  הַלַּֽיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלּוֹ מצה  

Shebichol haleilot anu ochlin chameitz u-matzah. Halaila hazeh kulo matzah.

On all other nights we eat both leavened bread and matzah.
Tonight we only eat matzah.

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָֽנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת הַלַּֽיְלָה הַזֶּה מָרוֹר

Shebichol haleilot anu ochlin shi’ar yirakot haleila hazeh maror.

On all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables,
but tonight we eat bitter herbs.

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אֵין אָֽנוּ מַטְבִּילִין אֲפִילוּ פַּֽעַם אחָת  הַלַּֽיְלָה הַזֶּה שְׁתֵּי פְעמים

Shebichol haleilot ain anu matbilin afilu pa-am echat. Halaila hazeh shtei fi-amim.

On all other nights we aren’t expected to dip our vegetables one time.
Tonight we do it twice.

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָֽנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְׁבִין וּבֵין מְסֻבִּין.  :הַלַּֽיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלָּֽנוּ מְסֻבין

Shebichol haleilot anu ochlin bein yoshvin uvein m’subin. Halaila hazeh kulanu m’subin.

On all other nights we eat either sitting normally or reclining.
Tonight we recline.

Judaism is all about asking questions!” Jews are a people who love questions, who are characterized by questions, who “answer a question with a question.” Or so we tell ourselves.

At Passover we encounter this line of thinking a lot. The Haggadah’s Four Questions, its question-and-answer of the Four Sons, the Talmud’s instruction that if one is having a seder alone, one must still ask oneself, What makes this night different? – all of these elaborate on the basic theme of Judaism’s love of questions. In his outstanding Haggadah, Rabbi Mishael Zion quotes Rabbi Steven Greenberg, who puts the sentiment beautifully: “Autocrats hate questions. We train children at the Passover Seder to ask why, because tyrants are undone and liberty is won with a good question. It is for this reason that God loves it when we ask why.”

But the Jewish People has no monopoly on questions. The most famous questioner in history was Socrates. The great philosophers, artists, writers, and political leaders who have asked powerful questions are, by and large, not Jews. Yes, Talmudic reasoning is animated by question-and-answer, but so are most quality intellectual traditions. So to say that asking questions is an inherently Jewish activity isn’t true. Jews may revel in questions more than some others, but the act of questioning belongs to all human beings.

Nevertheless, there is no disputing that the Seder is a night of questions. It is a night for discovery of the new. But it is also a night for rediscovery of what we already know. Questions become gateways to new reading, to new understanding, to “modes whereby to discover, interminably, new relationships or subtle correspondences, beauty kept secret or hidden intentions,” in the words of French philosopher (and Jew) Vladimir Jankelevitch. The questions of the Seder express the rebirth and renewal of the spring, the Jewish people’s season of redemption.

But not all questions lead to this kind of experience. There are different types of questions, and there are different ways to use questions. Questions can lead to connection and learning, but they can also lead to disconnection and disintegration. Questions can be used to build up, but they can also be used to destroy. All questions are not created equal.

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, one of the great Torah scholars of the twentieth century, elaborated on this theme in explaining the answer prescribed for the Wicked Son in the Haggadah. The Haggadah reads:

The Wicked Son, what does he ask? ‘What does this ritual mean to you?’ To you, and not to him. By thus excluding himself from the community he has denied that which is fundamental. You, therefore, blunt his teeth and say to him: ‘It is because of this that the Lord did for me when I left Egypt’; for me, but not for him. If he had been there, he would not have been redeemed.

Among the striking elements of this passage is the fact that in the previous paragraph, the Haggadah tells us that the Wise Son also asks a question in the second person: “What are the testimonies, the statutes and the laws which the Lord our God has commanded you?” Like the Wicked Son, the Wise Son refers to “you,” and not to “us.” So why does the Haggadah come down so hard on the Wicked Son?

Rav Hutner comments that the issue here is the Wicked Son’s stance in asking his question. “The Wicked Son does not contribute to fulfilling the commandment to discuss the Exodus through question-and-answer,” he writes in his work, the Pachad Yizchak. “Only a question genuinely asked as a question contributes to fulfillment of the commandment.” The spirit, the tone, the emotion behind, surrounding, and within a question, matters just as much as the words of the question itself.

This is one of the most important insights of the Seder into the dynamic of questions: Questions don’t exist independent of a questioner. A question must be asked in order to exist. And thus a question implies a relationship, a stance of the questioner to the one to whom the question is asked. Yes, as Steven Greenberg reminds us, questions can be sources of instability, harbingers of revolution. But questions, when asked genuinely and coupled with real listening, are also seed-bearers of conversation and mutual understanding, of empathy and community.

The Wicked Son is the person who uses his question as a weapon, who is not interested in listening. He is there to remind us, through a negative example, of the amazing potential of questions.

The Seder is a night of questions. But more than this, the Seder is a night of questions and stories. It is a night of renewing relationships—to one another, to ourselves, to our tradition, to God. The Seder calls us to ask our questions with generosity. It demands of us to take our questions seriously, not only as an intellectual or rhetorical exercise, but with our whole self.

So when we say that the Jewish people are a people of questions, and that Passover is a holiday of questions and questioning, let’s delve a little deeper into what we mean. The great questions—the Big Questions—of Jewish tradition are ones that invite us into an eternal conversation. They are questions asked by everyone in every generation, questions that matter to everyone and that everyone can and must answer. In asking those questions, in having those conversations, we renew our lives and our commitments. That is what we aim for in the questions of the Seder.

By Noam Zion

In a culture of questions like that of the Rabbis, they wish to understand the purpose and the reason for each commandment and every social institution and to exercise free choice between options. This type of education is critical by nature and it generates not only the aspiration to political freedom, but also spiritual and intellectual freedom.

That is why the Rabbis took the image of the first Jew, who obeyed unquestioningly the divine commandment of lech lecha - “Go out of your land” - and accorded the spiritual hero the content appropriate to their world.

The Rabbis, like Philo the first century Jewish philosopher, attribute to Abraham a search for truth that involved challenging the accepted beliefs of his idolatrous society. (See the midrash about Abraham the iconoclast in the Haggadah itself.)

It is noteworthy that the Rabbis, and following in their footsteps, Maimonides, painted a portrait of Abraham as a doubter, someone who questions society’s conventions and is searching for a philosophical truth. He also tries to free others from their intellectual bondage by creating a situation that forces them to pose questions, as Hillel did with the proselyte and as the Rabbis demanded that each parent do on Seder night with one’s own child.

Here, the Rabbis painted a portrait of Abraham based on the Biblical nucleus of the story of Sodom, in which God encourages Abraham to ask tough intellectual and moral questions, challenging the supreme authority - God.

Willing participation

“Shall not the judge of all the land be just?” - This rhetorical question seems defiant toward God, and yet God invited this defiance by involving Abraham in the debate concerning the fate of Sodom. Why? Why did God not fear rebellion? Why did God agree to enter in the extended negotiations that involved making concessions to the product of God’s own creation, Abraham?

The answer, in my opinion, lies in a radical educational approach - God’s desire to teach humans to willingly participate in God’s plan, out of rational understanding and recognition of the intrinsic justice of God’s Torah.

The Rabbis also took this direction and constructed an educational method based on the idea of the mentor, the apprentice. In this relationship, there are no questions that may not be asked, no doubt that may not be raised - as long as the true motive for the question is a genuine desire to learn.

Raising doubts, continuing tradition

The child and spiritual heir, who raised doubts and discovered the inner logic of the Seder, who queried and contributed to its ongoing design in a process of questions and answers, will continue the tradition most faithfully.

A genuine question is not a rebellion against authority, but rather authentic curiosity that enables the tradition to be passed on. It is not easy for authoritarian figures who are already convinced of the rationality of their world and of the unreason of other ways, to listen to criticism from the younger generation.

It is vital that the parent-teachers learn at the very least how to open themselves, their teachings and the existing social order to the new questions. If the parent and teacher discover they have innocent pupils before them who do not know how to ask, they must open up to them and open them up to the asking of incisive questions.

Democratic society can learn a great deal from the openness of our Rabbis to the culture of kushiyot - questions. A kushiya is not merely an educational tool to arouse the interest of students in the “material” of Passover, but rather an educational “form” that educates teacher and pupil, parent and child to the dialogue of freedom.

Early in the Seder we say, “All who are hungry, let them enter and eat.” We move ceremoniously through the Haggadah, reminding ourselves that we once were slaves in Egypt and explaining the meaning of each bite we eat. But millions of Americans and Israelis have only a few bites to eat, which has a very different meaning – it is a reminder that they are  still  enslaved.

This year, please join MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger as we again ask The Fifth Question: 

Why on this night are millions of people still going hungry?

After the youngest person reads the four questions from the Haggadah, ask The Fifth Question and reflect as a group upon the crisis of food insecurity, why it persists and what you individually and collectively could do to end it. Then share your ideas with MAZON by emailing [email protected].

Mah nishtanah ha-lailah ha-zeh mi-kol ha-lailot?

Why is this night di erent from all other nights?

We know the traditional answers to this question: On this night, we eat matzah and bitter herbs, we dip and we recline. But this is not all, or even most, of what Passover is about.

On most other nights, we allow the news of tragedy in distant places to pass us by. We succumb to compassion fatigue―aware that we cannot possibly respond to every injustice that arises around the world. On this night, we are reminded that our legacy as the descendants of slaves creates in us a di erent kind of responsibility―we are to protect the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Let us add a fth question to this year’s seder. Let us ask ourselves,

Aych nishaneh et ha-shanah ha-zot mi-kol ha-shanim?

How can we make this year di erent from all other years?

This year, this Passover, let us recommit to that sacred responsibility to protect the stranger, particularly those vulnerable strangers in faraway places whose su ering is so often ignored.

Let us infuse the rituals of the seder with action:

• When tasting the matzah, the bread of poverty, let us nd ways to help the poor and

  the hungry.

• When eating the maror, let us commit to help those whose lives are embittered by disease.

• When dipping to commemorate the blood that protected our ancestors against the Angel of Death, let us pursue protection for those whose lives are threatened by violence and con ict.

• When reclining in celebration of our freedom, let us seek opportunities to help those who are oppressed. 

As we tell the story, we think about it from all angles. Our tradition speaks of four different types of children who might react differently to the Passover seder. It is our job to make our story accessible to all the members of our community, so we think about how we might best reach each type of child:

What does the wise child say?

The wise child asks, What are the testimonies and laws which God commanded you?

You must teach this child the rules of observing the holiday of Passover.

What does the wicked child say?

The wicked child asks, What does this service mean to you?

To you and not to himself! Because he takes himself out of the community and misses the point, set this child’s teeth on edge and say to him: “It is because of what God did for me in taking me out of Egypt.” Me, not him. Had that child been there, he would have been left behind.

What does the simple child say?

The simple child asks, What is this?

To this child, answer plainly: “With a strong hand God took us out of Egypt, where we were slaves.”

What about the child who doesn’t know how to ask a question?

Help this child ask.

Start telling the story:

“It is because of what God did for me in taking me out of Egypt.”

-

Do you see yourself in any of these children? At times we all approach different situations like each of these children. How do we relate to each of them?

The Four Sons as represented by the Bluth boys from Arrested Development.

Teach Your Children

Songwriter: NASH, GRAHAM

You Who Are On The Road Must Have A Code That You Can Live By And So Become Yourself Because The Past Is Just A Goodbye. Teach Your Children Well Their Father's Hell Did Slowly Go By And Feed Them On Your Dreams The One They fix The One You'll Know By. Don't You Ever Ask Them Why If They Told You, You Would Cry So Just Look At Them And Sigh And Know They Love You. And You, (Can you hear and) Of Tender Years (Do you care and) Can't Know The Fears (Can you see we) That Your Elders Grew By (Must be free to) And So Please Help (Teach your children what) Them With Your Youth (You believe in) They Seek The Truth (Make a world that) Before They Can Die (We can live in) Teach Your Parents Well Their Children's Hell Will Slowly Go By And Feed Them On Your Dreams The One They fix The One You'll Know By. Don't You Ever Ask Them Why If They Told You, You Would Cry So Just Look At Them And Sigh And KnowThey Love You.

The Wicked Child

I read the haggadah backwards this year
The sea opens,
the ancient Israelites slide back to Egypt
like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk

Freedom to slavery
That’s the real story
One minute you’re dancing hallelujah,
shaking your hips to the j-j-jangle of the prophetesses’ tambourines,
the next you’re knee deep in brown muck
in the basement of some minor pyramid

The angel of death comes back to life
two zuzim are refunded.
When armies emerge from the sea like a returning scuba expedition
the Pharoah calls out for the towel boy.
The bread has plenty of time to rise.

I read the hagaddah backwards this year,
left a future Jerusalem,
scrubbed off the bloody doorposts,
wandered back to Aram.

The Torah speaks of four Daughters: one possessing wisdom of the heart, one rebellious, one simple and pure, and one who cannot ask questions.

The daughter possessing wisdom of the heart what does she say? "Father, your decree is harsher than Pharoah's. The decree of the wicked Pharoah may or may not have been fulfilled, but you who are righteous, your decree surely is realized." The father heeded his daughter (Miriam). So we too follow in her steps with drums and dancing, spreading her prophecy amongst the nations

The rebellious daughter, what does she say? "Recognize" the ways of enslavement and the tyranny of man's rule over man. Although she rebels against authority it is said: She was more righteous than he, and we enjoy no freedom until we have left our unjust ways.

The simple and pure daughter, what does she say? "Wherever you go, so shall I go, and where you rest your head so there will I rest mine. Your people are mine, and your God my God" (Ruth,1:16). We shall indeed fortify her in her loyalty to those she loved, and it was said to her: "May God make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel."

And the daughter who cannot ask– only her silent weeping is heard, as it is written, "and she wept for her father and mother." We will be her mouthpiece and she will be for us a judge. We will return her to her mother's house and to her who conceived her, and we will proclaim "liberty in the land for all its inhabitants."

Each of the Four Daughters expresses a unique path from bondage to freedom in a national and human sense. They learn from examining their parents' lives and from the struggle of their nation, while their parents themselves are exposed to new spiritual layers as a result of their daughter's education.

Wise of Heart: According to the Midrash, young Miriam persuaded her father Amram and the other enslaved men of Israel not to separate from their wives despite Pharoah's decree to destroy all male newborns. When her mother Yocheved gave birth to a boy, the two worked together to save the new son/brother. Miriam recognized the historical significance of this nascent struggle, as she did at the splitting of the Red Sea, and thus led her people to redemption ( Talmud Bavli, Sotah 12 ).

Rebellious: Tamar's complex relationship with her father-in-law, Judah, son of Jacob our forefather, expresses a rebellion whose result was critical to the continuation of the tribe of Judah and the Jewish people. With her deeds, Tamar barricaded herself against her loss of freedom as an imprisoned widow. She eventually achieves the yibum (levirate marriage) to which she is entitled, and becomes the "founding mother" of the Davidic dynasty, symbol of messianic redemption (Tamar, Genesis 38:26).

Simple and Pure: Ruth the Moabitess remained true to her mother-in-law Naomi, and her ingenious loyalty is absolute. This wonderful emotional closeness that Ruth so adamantly demonstrates rescues both of them from poverty and internal bondage (Ruth 4:11).

The One Who Cannot Ask: This last of the four daughters lacks sufficient freedom to taste even slightly the redemption and thus remains weeping in utter slavery. Although the 'beautiful captive' from war is allowed to grieve for her parents before she is taken (Deuteronomy 21:13), she is a reminder of the reality of silenced bondage, which continues to exist in our midst in various ways. The silent weeping that erupts from this dark reality is a call to action for the cause of freedom and liberty of every man and woman (Leviticus 25:10), born in the image of God, in order to live securely in their homes, among their people and loving family (Song of Songs 3:4).

Rabbi Einat Ramon, is the first Israeli-born woman to be ordained as a Rabbi.

This clip originally appeared on Ritualwell.org.

Our story starts in ancient times, with Abraham, the first person to have the idea that maybe all those little statues his contemporaries worshiped as gods were just statues. The idea of one God, invisible and all-powerful, inspired him to leave his family and begin a new people in Canaan, the land that would one day bear his grandson Jacob’s adopted name, Israel.

God had made a promise to Abraham that his family would become a great nation, but this promise came with a frightening vision of the troubles along the way: “Your descendants will dwell for a time in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and afflicted for four hundred years; however, I will punish the nation that enslaved them, and afterwards they shall leave with great wealth."

Raise the glass of wine and say:

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ וְלָֽנוּ

V’hi she-amda l’avoteinu v’lanu.

This promise has sustained our ancestors and us.

For not only one enemy has risen against us to annihilate us, but in every generation there are those who rise against us. But God saves us from those who seek to harm us.

The glass of wine is put down.

In the years our ancestors lived in Egypt, our numbers grew, and soon the family of Jacob became the People of Israel. Pharaoh and the leaders of Egypt grew alarmed by this great nation growing within their borders, so they enslaved us. We were forced to perform hard labor, perhaps even building pyramids. The Egyptians feared that even as slaves, the Israelites might grow strong and rebel. So Pharaoh decreed that Israelite baby boys should be drowned, to prevent the Israelites from overthrowing those who had enslaved them.

But God heard the cries of the Israelites. And God brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm, with great awe, miraculous signs and wonders. God brought us out not by angel or messenger, but through God’s own intervention. 

Rabbi Prof. David Hartman z"l  talks about the way Israelites' enslavement in Egypt reminds us of the fragility of global interrelationships today. 

By Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman

There is a certain inherent ambivalence when we think of the meaning of freedom, and its association with the holiday of Pesach. One of the essential features of the liberation story is our freedom from human subjugation: "Yesterday we were slaves to Pharaoh, today we are free men and women."

This freedom, however, did not come about as a result of a revolution instigated by the Jewish people but rather, as the biblical story relates, through the redemptive hand of God. As a result, this physical redemption is often connected with a religious duty: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery; You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus 20, 2-3).

What is the nature of this connection? Is it an obligation or an opportunity? Is our commitment to God and the Torah a price we pay for the Exodus, or is it a gift – a gift made possible by our physical freedom, but one that we may choose whether or not to receive? The question we as Jews ought to reflect on this Pesach is whether the freedom from Egypt is limited to liberation from physical servitude, or does it include freedom of conscience and faith. 

Historically, Jews did not engage extensively in questions of personal autonomy; at most, they spoke about what Isaiah Berlin referred to as "positive liberty" (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty). As opposed to the simple, more intuitive concept of negative liberty - “the freedom from” constraints or compulsion, positive liberty is “the freedom to” - the freedom to be all one ought to be, to do that which is the fullest expression of one’s potential. The notion of positive liberty is clearly present in the rabbinic tradition, in such statements as, "There is no free person but he or she who studies Torah" (Avot 6:2). Freedom, for Jews, has traditionally meant “the freedom to” - the ability to achieve complete self-realization, through a firm, unwavering commitment to God and His word.

Commitment to religious freedom 

Standing alone, however, positive liberty is an extremely precarious concept. We need look no further than the 20th century, when different fascist leaders established their rule on a promise of positive liberty (the freedom to live in a stable society, the freedom to attain financial prosperity, the freedom to fulfill one’s destiny as a member of the master race), to appreciate the danger it harbors: the creation of oppressive, totalitarian regimes, violently trampling the rights of their citizens in the name of freedom. Without the underlying basis of negative liberty, positive liberty means nothing more than the freedom to do that which others determine you ought, to fulfill what others have decided to be your potential.

This question becomes all the more pointed in the context of the State of Israel. So long as Jews lived in Western liberal democracies, they vicariously inherited the value of negative liberty and function within its confines. But an essential question facing the modern State of Israel, the only Jewish democracy, is what concept of liberty does it officially espouse? Is Israel a “free state” that dictates the forms of Judaism that are most appropriate? Or does it guarantee its citizens the right and conditions to determine their own individual Jewish path?

If Pesach is going to be not simply a liberation story of our past but a modern, continuous liberation story "in every generation,” we must recognize that positive liberty is an incomplete liberty, that the freedom from Egypt - indeed our very existence as a free people in our own country - must be accompanied by a commitment to religious freedom and the diversity it will engender.

The spirit of Pesach requires a national pledge to free Israeli society of all and any vestiges of religious coercion, including the manipulation of public funds in order to constrain spiritual choices. In the spirit of Pesach we must commit ourselves to speaking only in the language of education, and never in the language of indoctrination and coercion.

One of the great paradoxes of Israeli society is that those who function in the name of positive liberty actively limit the actualization of the spiritual potential of Jews. Consequently, the State of Israel is one of the only places in which non-Orthodox Jews can barely receive a Jewish education. Religious coercion and legislation hasn’t furthered our marriage with God; rather, it has created an ever-increasing rift and divorce.

The freedom of Pesach has multiple dimensions. It is our responsibility to ensure it is understood and employed as a catalyst for progress, as a basis for assimilating the broadest notions of negative liberty within our religious language and values. Just as we reject being enslaved by Pharaoh, so too must we reject the subjugation of our minds and souls to any authority. In the end, if God is to be the God of the Jewish people, if Judaism and its values are to shape our lives, it will not be because we owe God for our redemption from Egypt, but because we choose a life with God as free men and women.

A close reading of the beginning of Exodus shows that a number of women were
involved in bringing about the redemption.
● Shifra & Puah, the midwives,(Jewish or Egyptian?) refused to fulfill Pharoah’s
command to kill the newborn Jewish boys. Their “excuse” - The Jewish women
give birth early & naturally, without needing midwives. They utilize Pharoah’s fear
of the Jews that reproduce so greatly as animals, to excuse themselves. They
“feared G-d” (his moral law) more than the feared the almighty ruler - Pharoah!
● The daughter of Levi (later introduced as Yocheved) married and conceived
even though Pharoah decreed death on all male newborns - bravely defied his
decree!
● Daughter of Levi hides her son for three months & when can’t hide him any
longer, she puts him in the “teva” in the Nile, hoping he will somehow be saved.
If asked where her babe is she would reply, I threw him in the Nile as per
Pharoah’s decree!
● Babe’s sister watches over him in the Nile to try to protect him. Ultimately gets
him back to his Jewish mother to wetnurse him for Pharoah’s daughter.
● Pharoah’s daughter defies her father’s decree & adopts the Jewish abandoned
babe. Gives him to Jewish wetnurse for some years & then takes him back &
names him MOSES (in Egyptian = “son”). Raises him as her son in the Royal
Palace. Moses is reborn from the Nile to his second Mother, Pharoah’s daughter.
Raised in royalty - maybe necessary in order to be able to lead his people ought
of Egypt. Even though raised in Palace, apparently Pharoah’s daughter does not
hide his Jewish identity from him!
● Tzipora saves Moses’ live by circumcising their son on the way back to Egypt.
allowing Moses to get back to lead The Jews out of Egypt.
● Many Midrashim develop these points!
● Reuven Werber - Kfar Etzion

My teacher, Rabbi David Hartman z"l, taught that at the Seder we should read and talk about how it is that the Israelites became slaves in Egypt.  Here is Exodus chapter 1 to help us reclaim this part of our story:

1These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, Joseph being already in Egypt. 6Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. 7But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them.

8A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. 9And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. 10Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.” 11So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor; and they built garrison cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites.

13The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites 14the various labors that they made them perform. Ruthlessly they made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field.

15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16saying, “When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” 17The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, letting the boys live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women: they are vigorous. Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth.” 20And God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and increased greatly. 21And because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. 22Then Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

The Children at the Seder ask us "Why is this night different from all other nights?" and thus begins the retelling of the story of Exodus. Each of us pulls our own meaning from the Passover Story, but rarely do we have a chance to share what we think about Passover with each other. So tonight, I ask each of us to ponder what it is about Passover that makes this night different from all other nights, and each of us answer the children's question with our own explanation of why the Passover Seder is special.

As we rejoice at our deliverance from slavery, we acknowledge that our freedom was hard-earned. We regret that our freedom came at the cost of the Egyptians’ suffering, for we are all human beings made in the image of God. We pour out a drop of wine for each of the plagues as we recite them.

Dip a finger or a spoon into your wine glass for a drop for each plague.

These are the ten plagues which God brought down on the Egyptians:

Blood | dam | דָּם

Frogs | tzfardeiya |  צְפַרְדֵּֽעַ

Lice | kinim | כִּנִּים

Beasts | arov | עָרוֹב

Cattle disease | dever | דֶּֽבֶר

Boils | sh’chin | שְׁחִין

Hail | barad | בָּרָד

Locusts | arbeh | אַרְבֶּה

Darkness | choshech | חֹֽשֶׁךְ

Death of the Firstborn | makat b’chorot | מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת

The Egyptians needed ten plagues because after each one they were able to come up with excuses and explanations rather than change their behavior. Could we be making the same mistakes? Make up your own list. What are the plagues in your life? What are the plagues in our world today? What behaviors do we need to change to fix them? 

Ten Ways to Bring Human Rights to Your Seder

1. Place a tomato on your seder plate in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,

agricultural workers who are eradicating slavery from the Florida tomato fields.

See www.truah.org/slavery for related readings and resources.

2. Ask each guest to bring an object or photo that symbolizes a contemporary human rights struggle.

Place these on a second seder plate, and have each guest talk about what s/he brought.

3. Stage an improvisational skit in which Moses, Miriam, and other characters from the Exodus

story encounter a contemporary human rights issue.

4. Assign each guest one section of the seder, and have guests bring a recent newspaper article or

photo that connects this part of the seder to a contemporary issue.

5. Learn about how contemporary slaves may have contributed to the items on your seder table.

See www.truah.org/slavery or www.slaveryfootprint.org for more. Include in your seder at least

one fair trade item. See www.fairtradejudaica.org for ideas.

6. After reciting the Ten Plagues, ask each guest to spill a drop of wine while mentioning a

contemporary “plague”—a human rights challenge of today.

7. During Hallel, the section of praise after the meal, read selections from the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights, and ask guests to reflect on why they are grateful to have these rights in their

own lives.

8. As an afikoman prize, give a donation certificate to a human rights organization—or ask the

winner to choose where s/he would like you to donate. See www.truah.org/afikoman for

information on ordering a certificate for a donation to T’ruah.

9. Before singing “ L’shana Haba’ah BiY’rushalayim ” “Next year in Jerusalem,” ask each guest to

offer a blessing or a hope for ensuring that Israel becomes a model for human rights.

10. Close the seder by asking each guest to commit to one way in which s/he will work for

human rights this year.

As all good term papers do, we start with the main idea:

ּעֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ הָיִינו. עַתָּה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין  

Avadim hayinu hayinu. Ata b’nei chorin.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Now we are free.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God took us from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm. Had God not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, then even today we and our children and our grandchildren would still be slaves. Even if we were all wise, knowledgeable scholars and Torah experts, we would still be obligated to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt.

The plagues and our subsequent redemption from Egypt are but one example of the care God has shown for us in our history. Had God but done any one of these kindnesses, it would have been enough – dayeinu.

אִלּוּ הוֹצִיאָֽנוּ מִמִּצְרַֽיִם, דַּיֵּנוּ

Ilu hotzi- hotzianu, Hotzianu mi-mitzrayim Hotzianu mi-mitzrayim, Dayeinu

If God had only taken us out of Egypt, that would have been enough!

אִלּוּ נָתַן לָֽנוּ אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה, דַּיֵּנוּ

Ilu natan natan lanu, natan lanu et ha-Torah, Natan lanu et ha-Torah , Dayeinu

If God had only given us the Torah, that would have been enough.

 The complete lyrics to Dayeinu tell the entire story of the Exodus from Egypt as a series of miracles God performed for us. (See the Additional Readings if you want to read or sing them all.)

Dayeinu also reminds us that each of our lives is the cumulative result of many blessings, small and large. 

We have now told the story of Passover…but wait! We’re not quite done. There are still some symbols on our seder plate we haven’t talked about yet. Rabban Gamliel would say that whoever didn’t explain the shank bone, matzah, and marror (or bitter herbs) hasn’t done Passover justice.

The shank bone represents the Pesach, the special lamb sacrifice made in the days of the Temple for the Passover holiday. It is called the pesach, from the Hebrew word meaning “to pass over,” because God passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt when visiting plagues upon our oppressors.

The matzah reminds us that when our ancestors were finally free to leave Egypt, there was no time to pack or prepare. Our ancestors grabbed whatever dough was made and set out on their journey, letting their dough bake into matzah as they fled.

The bitter herbs provide a visceral reminder of the bitterness of slavery, the life of hard labor our ancestors experienced in Egypt.

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ, כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרָֽיִם

B’chol dor vador chayav adam lirot et-atzmo, k’ilu hu yatzav mimitzrayim.

In every generation, everyone is obligated to see themselves as though they personally left Egypt.

The seder reminds us that it was not only our ancestors whom God redeemed; God redeemed us too along with them. That’s why the Torah says “God brought us out from there in order to lead us to and give us the land promised to our ancestors.”

---

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who redeemed us and our ancestors from Egypt, enabling us to reach this night and eat matzah and bitter herbs. May we continue to reach future holidays in peace and happiness.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree hagafen.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Drink the second glass of wine!

By Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman

Our rabbis teach that all Jews must see themselves as if they had come out of Egypt. The Exodus from Egypt is not a story of a distant past but a living memory which must shape our present lives and identities as Jews.

Memory is a tricky thing in which we are not merely passive recipients of past events, but active participants in shaping the memory and determining its features. The critical question we have to ask ourselves is what story we choose to tell. What do we remember from Egypt and most importantly what do we take away from that memory as a foundation block for contemporary Jewish life?

The Exodus story, as retold by our tradition, has many facets, each weaving its own narrative and moral lesson. The most dominant and common one portrays our liberation from Egypt as a story of Jewish election. It tells of our suffering in Egypt, of a God who remembers God’s covenant with our forefathers, and who reaches down with a mighty hand and outstretched arm and with great miracles to free us and to make us God’s inheritance and chosen people.

In telling the story we remember the liberation, so we can bask in the light of God’s love and care and feel the pride and dignity of being God’s chosen people. We count, relish, magnify, and multiply each miracle as evidence both of God’s unique love for us and as a foundation for the promise of things yet to come.

This story has served us well, especially in the darkest moments of exile as we awaited our next liberation story. It served to create a pride of membership even when our precarious political status seemed to suggest that we were the abandoned child. As our freedom and power increased with the rebirth of Israel and our newfound acceptance in the Western world the pride taken from the story served and serves as an ongoing catalyst for our people to strive for excellence and to define ourselves by our achievements. It is a story which embeds us with a sense of dignity and self-worth in which to be a Jew and to be mediocre is viewed as a contradiction in terms unworthy of the people who were freed by God from Egypt.

This story, however, can and at times has a darker side. Pride can be the mother of arrogance, and chosenness, instead of serving as a catalyst for achievement, can be the foundation for entitlement. The story of God’s love can give birth to a sense of superiority and a denigration of those who were not the recipients of that love.

In truth this darker side can be found throughout our tradition, as the Exodus story was sometimes used to discriminate between Jew and non-Jew. It even finds its way into the ending of the traditional Passover Haggadah with the calling for God to pour out God’s wrath upon the nations that do not know God. 

As we tell the story it is important that we own this part as well, for to ignore it will allow it to fester and to influence our soul. It is only when a symptom of an illness is recognized that appropriate acts can be instituted to activate healing.

As a part of this healing there is a dimension of the Exodus which rarely enters into the telling of the story or the traditional Haggadah, but which had significant impact on the Jewish moral code. It is the part of the story that precedes the liberation and which speaks of our humble and suffering past. It obligates us to use this memory as a catalyst for responsibility toward all who are in a similar circumstance. 

If the first story unites us with fellow Jews, the second places us forever in the midst of the community of sufferers. It tempers our pride with a measure of humility to ensure that arrogance and entitlement never become our inheritance. It channels our drive to achieve into areas which do not merely service our own interests but the needs of all, especially the downtrodden and forgotten.

If the prayer, “Pour out Your Wrath,” is the personification of our darker side, then the beginning of the Haggadah, “This is the bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, let them come and eat. All who are needy, let them join us at our table,” is meant to serve as its antidote.

Both, however, are present in our story. It behooves our people, whose liberation story serves as a catalyst for excellence, that we recognize that it is our responsibility to determine which side of the story we tell and which side we allow to define our future as a people. It is true that we were once slaves; now, however, we are free. As a free people the power is now in our hands to be a force for good or for evil. It is in our hands to show that Jewish pride and a sense of God’s love for us need not lead to arrogance and blindness to the needs and rights of others. It is in our hands to determine which story will define us as a people. Here too mediocrity and being Jewish must be a contradiction in terms.

There have been many suggestions as to Judaism's most fundamental concept.  Here's my candidate:  In each and every generation, each of us must see ourselves as if we left Mitzrayim.

Rav Kook says each of us took something from that experience that the world needs before it can be fully redeemed.  Our father Abraham knew well how to argue with God, but he didn't argue when told his descendants would be slaves for 400 years.  We needed to live through the affliction, and come out onh the other side, in order to empower others to do the same.  We remind ourselves, each year, of our history and our responsibility. 

We are commanded not to oppress the alien in our midst.  That alone requires much intention.  But, like God and our neighbor, the Torah commands we love the alien, the stranger, the undocumented farmworker or nanny.  Why?  Because we were aliens in the Land of Mitzrayim.  The Torah is explicit:  our experience in Egypt demand us to empathize with those who are in similar states of vulnerability.  That's our contribution to redemption.

As we now transition from the formal telling of the Passover story to the celebratory meal, we once again wash our hands to prepare ourselves. In Judaism, a good meal together with friends and family is itself a sacred act, so we prepare for it just as we prepared for our holiday ritual, recalling the way ancient priests once prepared for service in the Temple.

Some people distinguish between washing to prepare for prayer and washing to prepare for food by changing the way they pour water on their hands. For washing before food, pour water three times on your right hand and then three times on your left hand.

After you have poured the water over your hands, recite this short blessing.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּנוּ  עַל נְטִילַת יָדָֽיִם

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al n’tilat yadayim.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who made us holy through obligations, commanding us to wash our hands.

The blessing over the meal and matzah | motzi matzah | מוֹצִיא מַצָּה

The familiar hamotzi blessing marks the formal start of the meal. Because we are using matzah instead of bread, we add a blessing celebrating this mitzvah.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, הַמּוֹצִיא לֶֽחֶם מִן הָאָֽרֶץ

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who brings bread from the land.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתַָיו וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מַצָּה

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al achilat matzah.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who made us holy through obligations, commanding us to eat matzah.

Distribute and eat the top and middle matzah for everyone to eat.

Kitniyot literally means small things.  They include rice, corn, lentils, beans and peanuts.  At soime point in the Middle Ages, Ashkenazi Jews stopped eating kitniyot during Pesach.  

Conservative and Orthodox Rabbis in Israel have permitted eating kitniyot, as have some Conservative Rabbis in the United States.  Nevertheless, it remains a wide-spread custom within Ashkenazi Jewry to avoid kitniyot during Pesach.  

Hametz is made from one of these five grains.

WHEAT

RYE

SPELT

OATS

BARLEY

Matza MUST be made from one of these five grains.  From the moment that water touches the flour made of these grains, the matza must be rolled out and baked within 18 minutes.

Dipping the bitter herb in sweet charoset | maror  |מָרוֹר   

  In creating a holiday about the joy of freedom, we turn the story of our bitter history into a sweet celebration. We recognize this by dipping our bitter herbs into the sweet charoset. We don’t totally eradicate the taste of the bitter with the taste of the sweet… but doesn’t the sweet mean more when it’s layered over the bitterness?

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מרוֹר

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al achilat maror.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who made us holy through obligations, commanding us to eat bitter herbs.

Eating a sandwich of matzah and bitter herb | koreich | כּוֹרֵךְ

When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the biggest ritual of them all was eating the lamb offered as the pesach or Passover sacrifice. The great sage Hillel would put the meat in a sandwich made of matzah, along with some of the bitter herbs. While we do not make sacrifices any more – and, in fact, some Jews have a custom of purposely avoiding lamb during the seder so that it is not mistaken as a sacrifice – we honor this custom by eating a sandwich of the remaining matzah and bitter herbs. Some people will also include charoset in the sandwich to remind us that God’s kindness helped relieve the bitterness of slavery.

Why did Hillel advise eating the meat of the Paschal Lamb in this way?

The Torah commands us that on the afternoon before the Pesach holiday, we should roast a goat or lamb kid over a flame and then consume the meat together with the Matzah and the bitter herbs later that night at the holiday meal.

Now each of these foods has its own significance. But it is implied by the wording of the Torah verse that we should eat them all together. The verse reads, “ al Matzot u’merorim yochluhu, ” literally, “you shall eat it [the meat of the Paschal Lamb]  upon  matzot and bitter herbs.” Wishing to be in full compliance with the instructions of the verse, Hillel popularized the custom of actually placing the sacrificial meat on top of the maror and matzah and eating them all together. In fact, according to Hillel, one would not have fulfilled his Paschal obligations unless he consumed the three together.

Now, for the past two thousand years when we have not had a Temple and have been unable to perform the sacrificial rites, we cannot fulfill the Mitzvah of eating the Pesach sacrifice at our Seder. We do however have the ability to do the mitzvah of eating matzah, which is a separate commandment by itself. And although eating maror is really part of the Biblical commandment of eating the sacrificial meat and not a mitzvah of its own – the Sages enacted a rabbinical commandment that we continue to eat the maror as a remembrance of the Biblical command which we cannot observe today.

Eating the meal! | shulchan oreich | שֻׁלְחָן עוֹרֵךְ

Enjoy! But don’t forget when you’re done we’ve got a little more seder to go, including the final two cups of wine!

It’s traditional to begin the actual Seder meal with each person eating a hardboiled egg.A hardboiled egg symbolizes the korban chagigah (festival sacrifice) that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and was then eaten as part of the meal on Seder night. The egg is a symbol of mourning for the loss of the two Temples, the first of which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. and the second of which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. Hard boiled eggs were traditionally the food of mourners and therefore they are an appropriate symbol for the loss of these holy sites. On every Jewish festival, we remember to mourn for the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

We are now ready to consume this Passover lunch! At this time please put down the haggdahs, recline, and enjoy our festive meal.

Discussion Question:
In your opinion, what can the hardboiled egg symbolize

Finding and eating the Afikomen | tzafoon | צָפוּן

The playfulness of finding the afikomen reminds us that we balance our solemn memories of slavery with a joyous celebration of freedom. As we eat the afikomen, our last taste of matzah for the evening, we are grateful for moments of silliness and happiness in our lives.

Refill everyone’s wine glass.

We now say grace after the meal, thanking God for the food we’ve eaten. On Passover, this becomes something like an extended toast to God, culminating with drinking our third glass of wine for the evening:

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, whose goodness sustains the world. You are the origin of love and compassion, the source of bread for all. Thanks to You, we need never lack for food; You provide food enough for everyone. We praise God, source of food for everyone.

As it says in the Torah: When you have eaten and are satisfied, give praise to your God who has given you this good earth. We praise God for the earth and for its sustenance.

Renew our spiritual center in our time. We praise God, who centers us.

May the source of peace grant peace to us, to the Jewish people, and to the entire world. Amen.

The Third Glass of Wine

The blessing over the meal is immediately followed by another blessing over the wine:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree hagafen.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Drink the third glass of wine!

Singing songs that praise God | hallel | הַלֵּל

This is the time set aside for singing. Some of us might sing traditional prayers from the Book of Psalms. Others take this moment for favorites like Chad Gadya & Who Knows One, which you can find in the appendix. To celebrate the theme of freedom, we might sing songs from the civil rights movement. Or perhaps your crazy Uncle Frank has some parody lyrics about Passover to the tunes from a musical. We’re at least three glasses of wine into the night, so just roll with it.

Fourth Glass of Wine

As we come to the end of the seder, we drink one more glass of wine. With this final cup, we give thanks for the experience of celebrating Passover together, for the traditions that help inform our daily lives and guide our actions and aspirations.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree hagafen.

We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Drink the fourth and final glass of wine! 

The Cup of Elijah

We now refill our wine glasses one last time and open the front door to invite the prophet Elijah to join our seder.

In the Bible, Elijah was a fierce defender of God to a disbelieving people. At the end of his life, rather than dying, he was whisked away to heaven. Tradition holds that he will return in advance of messianic days to herald a new era of peace, so we set a place for Elijah at many joyous, hopeful Jewish occasions, such as a baby’s bris and the Passover seder.

אֵלִיָּֽהוּ הַנָּבִיא, אֵלִיָּֽהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּיאֵלִיָּֽהוּ, אֵלִיָּֽהוּ,אֵלִיָּֽהוּ הַגִּלְעָדִי

בִּמְהֵרָה בְיָמֵֽנוּ יָבוֹא אֵלֵֽינוּ

עִם מָשִֽׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד

עִם מָשִֽׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד

Eliyahu hanavi
Eliyahu hatishbi
Eliyahu, Eliyahu, Eliyahu hagiladi
Bimheirah b’yameinu, yavo eileinu
Im mashiach ben-David,
Im mashiach ben-David

Elijah the prophet, the returning, the man of Gilad:
return to us speedily,
in our days with the messiah,
son of David.

Psalms Chapter 114 תְּהִלִּים

א בְּצֵאת יִשְׂרָאֵל, מִמִּצְרָיִם; בֵּית יַעֲקֹב, מֵעַם לֹעֵז.	1 When Israel came forth out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;
ב הָיְתָה יְהוּדָה לְקָדְשׁוֹ; יִשְׂרָאֵל, מַמְשְׁלוֹתָיו.	2 Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion.
ג הַיָּם רָאָה, וַיָּנֹס; הַיַּרְדֵּן, יִסֹּב לְאָחוֹר.	3 The sea saw it, and fled; the Jordan turned backward.
ד הֶהָרִים, רָקְדוּ כְאֵילִים; גְּבָעוֹת, כִּבְנֵי-צֹאן.	4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like young sheep.
ה מַה-לְּךָ הַיָּם, כִּי תָנוּס; הַיַּרְדֵּן, תִּסֹּב לְאָחוֹר.	5 What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest? thou Jordan, that thou turnest backward?
ו הֶהָרִים, תִּרְקְדוּ כְאֵילִים; גְּבָעוֹת, כִּבְנֵי-צֹאן.	6 Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams; ye hills, like young sheep?
ז מִלִּפְנֵי אָדוֹן, חוּלִי אָרֶץ; מִלִּפְנֵי, אֱלוֹהַּ יַעֲקֹב.	7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;
ח הַהֹפְכִי הַצּוּר אֲגַם-מָיִם; חַלָּמִישׁ, לְמַעְיְנוֹ-מָיִם.	8 Who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters.

מִן הַמֵּצַר קָרָאתִי יָּהּ עָנָנִי בַמֶּרְחָב יָהּ

Out of my straits I called upon the Lord;  He answered me with great enlargement.       יט פִּתְחוּ-לִי שַׁעֲרֵי-צֶדֶק; אָבֹא-בָם, אוֹדֶה יָהּ. 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will enter into them, I will give thanks unto the LORD. כ זֶה-הַשַּׁעַר לַיהוָה; צַדִּיקִים, יָבֹאוּ בוֹ. 20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter into it. כא אוֹדְךָ, כִּי עֲנִיתָנִי; וַתְּהִי-לִי, לִישׁוּעָה. 21 I will give thanks unto Thee, for Thou hast answered me, and art become my salvation. כב אֶבֶן, מָאֲסוּ הַבּוֹנִים-- הָיְתָה, לְרֹאשׁ פִּנָּה. 22 The stone which the builders rejected is become the chief corner-stone.

A cup to Ourselves, to all of us who are at this seder tonight, to the present moment. We must love ourselves, for we are holy, and we have been created out of all that is. Let us take this moment to honor our bodies, our lives, and our communities. Let us honor all the things that have made us who we are––the pain and the pleasure. Let us savor our bodies in all their uniqueness: our skin and our bones, all of our different strengths and sizes, the places that look and move in ways unique to us. Note the places that hurt, the places we struggle with, the places that are changing and unfurling. Note the parts that have come down to us from our ancestors, the parts we have been taught to hate, the parts we have been taught to love. We are beautiful. Let us never forget that caring for ourselves, as we would care for our most precious and beloved, is part of creating the world we want to live in.

Nirtzah  marks the conclusion of the seder. Our bellies are full, we have had several glasses of wine, we have told stories and sung songs, and now it is time for the evening to come to a close. At the end of the seder, we honor the tradition of declaring, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

For some people, the recitation of this phrase expresses the anticipation of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the Messiah. For others, it is an affirmation of hope and of connectedness with  Klal Yisrael, the whole of the Jewish community. Still others yearn for peace in Israel and for all those living in the Diaspora.

Though it comes at the end of the seder, this moment also marks a beginning. We are beginning the next season with a renewed awareness of the freedoms we enjoy and the obstacles we must still confront. We are looking forward to the time that we gather together again. Having retold stories of the Jewish people, recalled historic movements of liberation, and reflected on the struggles people still face for freedom and equality, we are ready to embark on a year that we hope will bring positive change in the world and freedom to people everywhere.

In  The Leader's Guide to the Family Participation Haggadah: A Different Night, Rabbi David Hartman writes: “Passover is the night for reckless dreams; for visions about what a human being can be, what society can be, what people can be, what history may become.”

What can  we  do to fulfill our reckless dreams? What will be our legacy for future generations?

Our seder is over, according to Jewish tradition and law. As we had the pleasure to gather for a seder this year, we hope to once again have the opportunity in the years to come. We pray that God brings health and healing to Israel and all the people of the world, especially those impacted by natural tragedy and war. As we say…

לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשָׁלָֽיִם

L’shana haba-ah biy’rushalayim

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM!

Next Year in Jerusalem

By Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl

During the Passover Seder, the four cups of wine mark the four promises of God: “I am YHVH. I will free you… I will deliver you... I will redeem you… I will take you to be my people (Exodus 6.6-7).” In the discussion about this in the Talmud Yerushalmi, Rabbi Tarfon suggests that an additional cup of wine should be consumed to reflect a fifth promise: “I will bring you to the Land that I promised to Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov.” According to many commentators, this is the origin of the Cup of Elijah - a fifth cup that reflects the hope for a messianic redemptive return to the Land of Israel.

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, Rabbi Menachem Kasher unsuccessfully proposed that after Israeli independence we should consume that fifth cup. In our home, even though we don’t drink the fifth cup, we do pour a bit from our individual cups into the Cup of Elijah to indicate that we join with God to play a part in the act of redemption. Rabbi Michael Marmur (CCAR Journal, 2007) suggests interpreting the cups of wine at the Seder as indicative of different Jewish perspectives on contemporary life, with the fifth cup representative of the role of Israel in unifying our people.

The first cup is full, reminding us of the blessing of sufficiency. This cup is for those Jews who feel blessed by our families, by having enough, and by the virtues which guide our lives - kindness and hesed, tsedakah and justice, humanity and mentschlikhkeit. This is a cup of fulfillment.

The second cup is empty, signaling us that there is real poverty, powerlessness and pain in this world. We have glimpsed this on the streets of Toronto, in the news clips from Darfur, and in the missile attacks on Sderot. This cup calls us to act in solidarity with those who still experience life as problematic and painful. This is a cup of challenge.

The third cup is overflowing, pointing to those who seek enlightenment, ecstasy or serenity. There are spiritual seekers who want something that will give transcendent meaning to their daily lives. Whether through kabbalah, meditation, or yoga, these Jews want something beyond the ordinary. This is the cup of rapture.

The fourth cup is broken, calling us to realize that the Holocaust profoundly disrupted the lives of so many of our people. Emil Fackenheim wrote that we cannot imagine Jewish life as ever being the same after the Shoah, even as we are bidden to continue to live as Jews. This cup calls on Jews to exercise power so that we will never again become victims. This is the cup of rupture.

Rabbi Marmur writes that each of these cups is “important and each is deficient. A commitment to [individual] happiness outside of history [may create] walls” that cut off our personal lives from the rest of the world, as if our own homes and family are enough. A concern for others’ problems may bind us to the legitimacy of our own needs. A search for spiritual fulfillment can sometimes shift from self-development to self-indulgence. An awareness of rupture can too easily slide into a justification of every act in terms of a rampant survivalism.”

In Hebrew, mizug is the pouring of wine. The same term refers to the blending of the many different Jews who have come to this tiny country. In a deep sense, Israel is mizug galuyot, the mixing of the diversity of Diaspora Jewish life into a new blend. Israel pours for us a blended fifth cup of wine, for while it has provided survival, security and stability for our people, it is also full of poverty, pain, and the challenge of making peace. Just as the search for spiritual uplift through meditation or mitzvot is a part of life in the Holy Land for many Jews, so too is awareness of the Holocaust a constant reminder of the need for strength, swiftness and self-sufficiency. Israel is a complex country seeking a civic culture that will blend the wine of all the initial four cups.

May each of the cups you drink during Pesach add to your self-awareness and understanding of the variety of Jewish life. When you sit for seder, think about the historic issues Israel resolved, the contemporary challenges it faces, and how Israel might blend and unify the various aspects of your Jewish yearnings and identity.

Baruch Frydman-Kohl is the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Rabbinics and Rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, Canada. He is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute

Thoughts on the meaning of Passover

 These thoughts are adapted from an essay by Rabbi Prof. David Hartman  (z”l), written in 2010.

As much as I am happy to be part of the Jewish people preparing for the holiday of Passover, I confess that I am bored by the atmosphere and the questions. I hope that Passover would mean more than spring cleaning, that we would at least attempt to take the notions of oppression and freedom seriously and examine how they were reflected in our lived reality.

But what do we talk about instead? In place of a holiday about values, Passover has become a holiday about recipes and halakhic minutiae. 

Does this truly reflect what Passover is about? A memory of miracles? An obsession with rituals? Whatever happened to the dramatic, overarching themes of freedom from oppression, self-governance, and spiritual rebirth?

What is the holiday of Passover about? We all know the story of the Ten Plagues, the Exodus, the Splitting of the Red Sea. But what do we make of our inherited narrative, which we recount every year around the seder table? How do we understand its theological implications? What kind of God is the God of Passover? And what are we talking about when we talk about freedom?

Passover is meant to celebrate and sustain our deep yearning for freedom, not necessarily to show that God can change the order of the universe. Passover is a holiday that inculcates the belief that humanity will overcome oppression, that freedom will reign throughout the world. The faith that tyranny will ultimately be vanquished is deeply embedded in the significance of Passover.

Redemption is not otherworldly salvation at the end of time. It’s not the World-to-Come or Resurrection of the Dead.  Redemption is an individual’s growth into a complete human being, a person who fulfills all of his or her aptitudes. Redemption is not an abstract philosophical or theological construct, but a fine-tuning of the human soul that helps us to love more and to be more sensitive. It creates a meaningful pattern of self-fulfillment.

It is the mission of these holy days to create conditions within human beings for their personal fulfillment. It is the purpose of the holidays to wake us up to our true capacities, to release the deeper ethical components of what it means to be a human being.

How do the rituals shape us ethically? How do the mitzvot propel us to become full human beings and reach our powers of ethical personality? In other words, how does Judaism impact us in the quest for human self-realization?  How does our heritage foster patterns of living with the potential to redeem us from selfishness, narcissism, cruelty, and open us to a world of holiness.

That is the reason it’s incumbent upon us to try to keep alive the ethical implications of the Haggadah. If we understand and internalize the true message of Passover, we can develop a whole new response to those without power, and take seriously the opportunity to love the stranger as yourself.

Who Knows One? 
At some seders, people go around the table reading the question and all 13 answers in one breath. Thirteen is hard!

Who knows one?

I know one.

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows two?

I know two.

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows two?

I know two.

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows four?

I know four.

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows five?

I know five.

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows six?

I know six.

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows seven?

I know seven.

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows eight?

I know eight.

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows nine?

I know nine.

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows ten?

I know ten.

Ten are the Words from Sinai

Nine are the months of childbirth

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows eleven?

I know eleven.

Eleven are the stars

Ten are the Words from Sinai

Nine are the months of childbirth

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows twelve?

I know twelve.

Twelve are the tribes

Eleven are the stars

Ten are the Words from Sinai

Nine are the months of childbirth

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Who knows thirteen?

I know thirteen

Thirteen are the attributes of God

Twelve are the tribes

Eleven are the stars

Ten are the Words from Sinai

Nine are the months of childbirth

Eight are the days for circumcision

Seven are the days of the week

Six are the orders of the Mishnah

Five are the books of the Torah

Four are the matriarchs

Three are the patriarchs

Two are the tablets of the covenant

One is our God in Heaven and Earth

Chad Gadya

חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא

דְזַבִּין אַבָּא בִּתְרֵי זוּזֵי

חַד גַּדְיָא, חַד גַּדְיָא

Chad gadya, chad gadya

Dizabin abah bitrei zuzei

Chad gadya, chad gadya.

One little goat, one little goat:

Which my father brought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The cat came and ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The dog came and bit the cat

That ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The stick came and beat the dog

That bit the cat that ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The fire came and burned the stick

That beat the dog that bit the cat

That ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The water came and extinguished the

Fire that burned the stick

That beat the dog that bit the cat

That ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The ox came and drank the water

That extinguished the fire

That burned the stick that beat the dog That bit the cat that ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The butcher came and killed the ox,

That drank the water

That extinguished the fire

That burned the stick that beat the dog That bit the cat that ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The angle of death came and slew

The butcher who killed the ox,

That drank the water

That extinguished the fire

That burned the stick that beat the dog That bit the cat that ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

One little goat, one little goat:

The Holy One, Blessed Be He came and

Smote the angle of death who slew

The butcher who killed the ox,

That drank the water

That extinguished the fire

That burned the stick that beat the dog That bit the cat that ate the goat,

Which my father bought for two zuzim.

 Who knows 1? I know 1! 1 is Our God, 1 is Our God, 1 is Our God, in the heavens and the earth.

Who knows 2? I know 2! 2 are the tablets that Moses brought and ….

Who knows 3? I know 3! 3 are the fathers, and ….

Who knows 4? I know 4! 4 are the mothers, and ….

Who knows 5? I know 5! 5 are the books of the Torah, and ….

Who knows 6? I know 6! 6 are the books of the Mishnah and ….

Who knows 7? I know 7! 7 are the days in a week and ….

Who knows 8? I know 8! 8 are the days till circumcision and ….

Who knows 9? I know 9! 9 are the months of pregnancy, and ….

Who knows 10? I know 10! 10 are the 10 commandments and ….

Who knows 11? I know 11! 11 are the stars in Joseph's dream and ….

Who knows 12? I know 12! 12 are the Tribes of Israel and ….

Who knows 13? I know 13! 13 are the attributes of God and ….