Haggim

The Four Cups and the Four Children: A Meditative Journey for Passover

“I will take you out, I will save you, I will redeem you, I will take you to be my people.”

Four promises of the Exodus, represented by the four cups.

The Torah speaks of four children: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask.

Passover Haggadah

Closing your eyes, take three breaths and find yourself at a seder table. You may be alone or there may be people with you. There are not yet any cups for the seder on the table.

The wise child, the hakham or hakhamah, enters the room and brings you the first cup for the seder. Notice whether the wise child is familiar or unfamiliar, as well as all the other attirbutes of this child. Notice what kind of cup it is that the wise child brings you. If it seems right to Read More >

PESAH: THE SECRET OF JEWISH MEMORY

by Rabbi Len Levin

The taste of the maror and haroset are imprinted in my sensory memory, along with the smell of the wine and the eggs. The crunchy feel of the first seder matzah between my tongue and teeth. The sound of the familiar melodies and the voices of my family. The sights–the candles, the tablecloth, the special dishes, the Seder plate, the family gathered around the table. All the senses are engaged. Every layer of my personality– subconscious, conscious, and superconscious–focused on the ritual commemoration of our formative historical experience.

This is how Jewish group memory gets transmitted from generation to generation. This is why we have survived for over three thousand years and have kept up the journey several times around the world and back to our homeland in living memory.

In every generation each person should see himself or herself as if he or she Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann

Freedom From or Freedom To

The Pesah holiday is referred to in our liturgy as zman heruteinu, the time of our freedom. The reference is of course to our freedom from Egypt, our release from slavery. Interestingly, the word heruteinu or any form thereof does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The standard Biblical word for freedom in its root form, especially freedom from slavery, is hofesh, as in Ex. 21:2, where the Torah instructs us that a slave shall work for six years and go out to freedom (yezei la-hofshi) in the seventh. We also find the word dror used in the general sense of freedom or liberty, as in Lev. 25:10, which is the source for the famous quote on the Liberty Bell – “Proclaim liberty (dror) throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The Biblical words hofesh and dror were ignored by Read More >