Category: Passover Reflections

A Seat For Those Who Can’t Come Home

This year, as we prepare the seder, we encourage an extra setting at your table—an empty chair for our family still in captivity in Gaza.

Rabbinical Assembly April 15, 2024 October 7th and Israel-Hamas War Passover

Reparations: The Difficulty and Bravery and Asking

Reparations: The Difficulty and Bravery of Asking

Look at reparations and the difficulty and bravery of asking, through the lens of slavery in Egypt, slavery in America, and the Holocaust.

Rabbi-Cantor Michael McCloskey April 5, 2024 Holidays Passover

The Secrets of Matzah

There are so many secrets hidden away within Matzah that ask to be uncovered, offering us spiritual wisdom.

Rabbi Mordechai Rackover March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

Every Year We Must See Ourselves As If We Were There

Every year at Passover, we must see ourselves as If we were there in Egypt and take on what that means for ourselves.

Rabbi Amy Eilberg March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

B’khol Dor Vador—In Every Generation

What does "b'khol dor vador—in every generation" mean in light of the events of October 7? How does this connect us to Passover?

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

Why Couldn’t Moses Enter the Promised Land?

Current events help us understand why Moses couldn't enter the Promised Land and remind us the importance of innocent lives.

Rav Shai Cherry March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

How a Show Like “Succession” Illuminates the Four Children

How can a show like "Succession" illuminate the Seder? Compare the Four Children of our haggadah with the four Roy children.

Rabbi Adam J. Rosenbaum March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

On Passover, We Are All Jews-By-Choice

On Passover, we are all Jews-by-Choice when we choose to remember what it is that brings us together for the holiday.

Andi Kahclamat March 27, 2024 Conversion Holidays

Slavery, Social Justice, and Family History

Reflecting on a "Pilgrimage to the South" on a Movement social justice trip as a Black Jew and how it has changed who I am.

Rabbi Heather Miller March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

The Seder as a Lived Experience

We use the Seder as a lived experience by reenacting the exodus, not just recounting it. Therefore, we can all connect to Passover.

Rabbi Lauren Tuchman March 27, 2024 Holidays Passover

Passover Reader 5784: Not A Haggadah

Exploring Judaism's 2024 (5784) Passover Reader, Not A Haggadah, includes essays to inspire a meaningful Passover.

Exploring Judaism February 25, 2024 Holidays How to observe Passover

This is the Bread of Affliction

This is the bread of affliction: Matzah adorns our Seder plates and nourishes our souls, as well—this food is fulfilling.

Rabbi Mark Asher Goodman December 26, 2023 Food Holidays

Yachatz: Brokenness and Wholeness

One explanation offered by the Sages for Yachatz in the seder is that it helps promote making the world less broken, if not completely whole.

Rabbi Dr. J.B. Sacks April 3, 2023 Holidays Passover

Climate Disruption and Passover

Let’s do more than remember our refugee origin story and include how climate change and disruption are leading to new refugees.

Yaira Robinson April 3, 2023 Climate and Environment Climate change

Mujaddara on Passover

How my family created and passed down cultural traditions, and how the Conservative Teshuvah on Kitniyot impacts our life outside the academy.

Emily Jaeger March 19, 2023 Food Halakhah

Why Is Diversity Important at the Passover Seder?

This is why I think my family's tradition of inviting a non-Jew each year to the Passover seder is important.

Emily Jaeger March 19, 2023 Holidays How to observe Passover

The Important Thing That Keeps our Family “Doing Jewish”

The most important thing to teach the next generation is how to make a seder, including what comes before the festival candles are even lit.

Atty Garfinkel-Berry April 13, 2022 Food Passover

When the COVID Plague Threatens Your Seder (Again)

Here are 10 tips on how to make Pesah meaningful and kosher (enough) even when the plague of COVID continues to threaten our celebrations.

Rabbi Ilana C. Garber April 13, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections

The Four Children and Racial Justice

We approach the Haggadah at a time of profound racial reckoning in our country. How might the four children help us relate to racial justice?

Rabbi Amy Eilberg April 6, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections

Mah Nishtanah: How Is This Moment Different?

Mah Nishtanah: How is This Moment Different by Rabbi Rachel Ain is a reflection on her recent trip to Ukraine in 2022.

Rabbi Rachel Ain April 6, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections

Leveraging Anger for Change this Passover

While anger and frustration can lead to stress and dissatisfaction, mindful approaches to our anger can move our lives out of complacency.

Rabbi Dahlia Bernstein April 3, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections

Ask the Questions and Dig Deeper

Combining lessons from the Mishnah and Human Resources, we realize that asking questions is the path to greater understanding.

Chaim H. Respes April 3, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections

The Four Questions and Living with Mental Illness

We have the opportunity to help teens create long-lasting positive connections to the very traditions they are appropriately questioning.

Risa Finkelstein Sugarman March 31, 2022 Health Illness

Freedom and Food Allergies

How is one with food allergies supposed to feel free when they can’t partake in the matzo balls, charoset, cake, or anything else?

Rachel Packer March 29, 2022 Food Health

Including non-Jewish guests at our Seder: A reflection

Reflecting on the universal nature of the Exodus, as "eternally contemporary; it’s the story of too many peoples."

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg March 29, 2022 Passover Passover Reflections