Passover

A supplemental reading and discussion prompts for your Passover seder, as you retell the story of our slavery in Egypt. We recommend you download and print this beautifully designed PDF in full color, but you can also scroll down for the full text.             Our oppression in Egypt was the...

Commentary for Shabbat HaChodesh and Shabbat HaGadol This coming Shabbat is Rosh Chodesh Nissan, which means the clock is ticking for Pesach’s arrival. The following Shabbat, we will read as Haftarah the very last passage of the last of the classical Hebrew Prophets: Chapter 3 of “Malachi.” We name the day “Shabbat Hagadol” – referring...

The Passover story recognizes that the journey to freedom involves struggle and suffering. In the midst of our most joyous celebration we acknowledge the pain our liberation caused for others by taking wine out of our cups as we recite the ten plagues. It teaches us that the lesson of compassion is inextricably linked to...

At the first Passover, we marked our doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb to protect us from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:23). Although that was a one-time ritual, doors continue to be a central symbol of the holiday. It is a symbol that seems more relevant than ever in an age when nativism...

For Pesach 2018, T’ruah offers this short, text-and-photos conversation starter about Jewish women’s resistance over the centuries. Bring it to your seder for use with the Four Children, the story of the Israelites’ enslavement, or a springboard for discussing the #MeToo movement.

Reading haftarah on Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach, we saw through the prophet Ezekiel’s eyes a valley full of dry bones (bikah meleah atzamot) declaring that their hope is gone (avdah tikvateinu). For a living human being, bearing witness to human mortality at vast scale is profoundly unsettling. These bones in earth show us where we come...

“…And you shall explain to your son on that day, “It is because of what Adonai did for me when I went free from Egypt…” (Exodus 13:8). From the midst of the original Exodus narrative, the text jumps suddenly forward in time, imagining you and me, future generations, retelling this sacred story in a very...

This year, I’ve found myself obsessing over the Passover Seder plate. I don’t usually do that, I promise! I like it, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t dwell on it all that much. But this year, I have been reading a fair amount of sources on new symbols that can be added to (or...

This ritual, developed by T’ruah and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, places a tomato on the seder plate in recognition of the farmworker who picked the tomato and their struggles for justice.

Change in the air. Sugar-flecked red, yellow, orange, and green jelled semi-circle slices; macaroons; pounds of nuts; Barton’s tin can almond kisses; overflowing grocery bags. My mother and I shop among the street carts and small shops that dot Blake Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn. Although my family is not observant, the white gold-rimmed...