Wise Haggadah Supplement

PassoverPassover HaggadahHaggadah SupplementSupplement Commentary, discussion topics, and ideas from our clergy to make your seder special. LET’S GET MOVING! RABBI YOSHI ZWEIBACK Our story of going forth to freedom is an energizing, inspiring one. Our ancestors left Egypt on foot and when they crossed over the Sea of Reeds they sang and danced in the joy of their liberation. Our seders should be active, energetic, and joyful! Music can really help to bring more life to the retelling of our sacred story. There are lots of terrific Passover songs that you can purchase online. “Celebrate Passover” is a great choice along with my personal favorite, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” by Mah Tovu (full disclosure – I’m in the band!) Spend some time before the seder picking various spots for your favorite songs. You can sing them, play them on guitar or piano, or just play them on your stereo and encourage your guests to join in. Don’t be afraid to get up and dance and let the Passover spirit move you! – 2 – BECOMING FREE CANTOR NATHAN LAM The Season of our Freedom, z’man cheiruteinu, is one of the names used to describe Passover. We left Egypt to become a free people and we will eat matzah in every generation to remember that moment. Chametz can refer to excesses, materialism, gluttony, and even how we act and treat others in our daily lives. Just as we remove chametz from our lives for the week of Pesach, we become free to look at ourselves and see what “chametz” we can remove to become even freer, to become better human beings. Passover is a time of renewal and a chance to start over again. This image for me has always been very powerful. As a child, I remember my family taking the commandment of cleaning out chametz from our homes as an important prelude to the seder. We could not be free people unless we prepared by cleaning up our homes and, ultimately, our own lives. May this Passover be a time for us to observe the holiday of freedom by making choices that truly open our minds and hearts so that we are free from whatever tempts us to not reach our potential. – 3 – THE CENTRAL MESSAGE OF PASSOVER RABBI DAVID WOZNICA What is the central message that we and our children should learn from the Passover seder? (If reading this at your seder, take a moment to encourage responses.) The important ritual of the holiday is to tell the story of our Exodus from Egypt. It is a story depicting centuries of slavery, of God hearing the cries of the Israelites, of bringing plagues upon Pharoah and the Egyptians, and of God’s miraculous parting of the Red Sea toward ultimate freedom. For thousands of years, our seder has been an acknowledgement of Divine intervention in Jewish history. The central message is that of faith in God. Many Jews understandably and correctly find a universal message in Passover; that God does not want to see people enslaved. And yet, for the Jewish people, – 4 – it is much more. It was our ancestors that were brought out of Egypt. In doing so, God entrusted us to bring this message to every generation of our people. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God freed us from Egypt “with a mighty and an outstretched arm.” During the darkest hours and the most uplifting moments throughout our history, the Jewish people have been repeating these words of God’s promise to the Jewish people: that we will forever be here as God’s partner in bringing the Torah to our world. It is a reassurance that God’s promise to Abraham — a covenant with our people — was and will remain intact for generations. A loving statement of faith, one that we have transmitted for over 3,200 years, is one of the most beautiful gifts we can give our children and grandchildren. – 5 – EMBRACE THE WANDERER RABBI RON STERN You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 23:9) ְוֵגר לִֹא תְלָחְץ וַאֶתְם יַדְעֶתֶםאתֶ־נֶפַׁש הֵגִר כֵי־גִרֱים הִיֶיתְם בֶאֶרִץ מְצָרִים׃ Fifty-two! That’s how many times the Torah references “the stranger” and “the wanderer.” Nearly every single one of the references is like the passage above. Astoundingly, not one of the passages about the stranger and the wanderer advises caution or alarm about the threats the stranger might bring if he or she settles in the Jewish homeland. In fact, other passages in the Bible actually double down on this injunction. Consider the words of Jeremiah: Thus said the Lord: Do what is just and right; rescue from the defrauder him who is robbed; do not wrong the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow; commit no lawless act, and do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place. (Jeremiah 22:3) כָֹה אַמְר יָהוהעֲ ִׂשּו מ ְ ָפטׁש ּוְצָדָקְה וַהִצָילּו גִזּול מַיָד עְׁשֹוק וֵגָריְתֹום וַאְלָמָנה ַאל־תַֹנּו אַל־תְחמְֹסּו וָדָם נִקַי אִל־ת ְ ׁשְפַכּו בָמַקֹום הֶזה׃ These texts challenge some of the assumptions about the stranger that are in circulation in our world today. Yes, times are different and yes, caution is prudent. The last thing that we would want to do is invite danger upon ourselves. However, in its most powerful way, the Bible compels us to ask critical questions at our Passover seder as we recall our own story of wandering. We recognize that the Jewish story is one of wandering and one of seeking refuge; one of forced emigration and often a desperate search for safe harbor. In our world today, there are an estimated 65 million refugees. These are the strangers, the wanderers, the displaced who our Bible declares to be in need of welcome, support, and shelter. Many are displaced in their own countries as – 6 – a result of natural disasters, poverty, and war! Of those, three-quarters are women and children under the age of 18. Here’s a discussion for your Pesach seder in light of these Jewish texts and the world refugee crisis: • What is unique about the Jewish responsibility to refugees based on our sacred texts and our own history? • How do we balance safety and security with the needs of our world’s refugees? • What can we (the people at our seder table) do to help? For additional information about the world’s refugees and how you can help visit WiseLA.org/Passover. – 7 – BEDIKAT CHAMETZ: PREPARING YOUR HOUSE AND SOUL FOR PASSOVER RABBI SARI LAUFER Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day, you shall remove leaven from your houses. (Exodus 12:15) If you are looking for a good excuse for some spring cleaning, look no further. The rules of Passover are among the strictest in our tradition; we are, our texts teach, to have not a single crumb of chametz* left in our houses when the holiday begins. Here are three things to consider as you prepare for Passover this year: Selling your chametz. If you have a significant amount of chametz, and either cannot afford or cannot fathom simply destroying it, you have the option of “selling” it, for the duration of the holiday, to someone who is not Jewish. “Donate” your chametz. We collect non-perishable goods for SOVA year-round; you can bring your unopened chametz to Stephen Wise Temple. For the one week a year that we as Jews have these dining restrictions, it can be a reminder of the millions of people in this country who are food-insecure each and every day. Clear out your “spiritual chametz.” After all of the physical cleaning of Passover, take some time for a little spiritual preparation. Because while chametz is literally any one of five specific grains that has “puffed up,” our tradition has long understood it to be a metaphor as well for the things that puff us up, that keep us in our own narrow places. Passover is six months into the Jewish year; halfway to the High Holy Days and the new year. It is a holiday of reckoning and of redemption — and in the search for physical chametz, there lies a spiritual question and task for each of us: What puffs us up? Which of our desires, or ambitions, has turned sour? And, what do we need to leave behind to walk forward to liberation? *What is chametz? Chametz refers to food containing any amount of wheat, barley, rye, oats, and spelt, that has leavened, or “puffed up.” – 8 – IN SEARCH OF MIRACLES RABBI JOSH KNOBEL In 2001 the Los Angeles Times created a furor within the local Jewish community when it published an article entitled “Doubting the Story of the Exodus.” The article, which contained sermons from a locally renowned rabbi, alternatively drew celebration for its intellectual curiosity and condemnation for its willingness to abandon the historicity of one of Judaism’s most compelling tales — our journey from servitude into freedom. Casting the debate over historicity aside, merely considering the possibility that the Exodus did not, in fact, occur, as retold each year at seder tables across the world raises a very important question: Why does the Exodus matter? What compels Jews to revisit this story year after year? Aside from its grave moral implications (the Torah uses the Exodus to justify its imperative to embrace strangers no fewer than 36 times), the Passover represents the foundational story of the Jewish people. It not only transforms our relationships with others.

Load more