Tag: Passover
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Why I Created a Petition to Change the (Future) Dates of Olympia Arts Walk
Last week it felt like two simultaneous preparations were happening. People were prepping for Passover, getting boxes of matzo, choosing recipes, sending and accepting invitations to Seder. And people were prepping for Olympia Spring Arts Walk, hanging art in downtown businesses, tuning up instruments, putting last minute preparations into Procession of the Species costumes. And…
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The Child We Think We Should Be, and the Child We Ought to Be: A Reflection for the Seder
The Seder is the story of a journey, and the Haggadah is the guidebook. Through engaging with symbolic foods and meaningful text, we retell the story of the Exodus. There are fourteen parts to the Seder, each one its own step in the journey. The section “Maggid” (“telling”) is dedicated to telling the story in dramatic…
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MLK’s Dayenu Moment
This week I wrote my monthly entry in the Rabbis Without Borders blog, reflecting on the confluence with the beginning of Passover and the Seders with the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. For my weekly message, I share what I wrote, and fitting as we move out of Passover this week.…
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Passover: Eat Differently, Clean House, Give Birth, Become an Ally
The holiday of Passover is upon us, beginning tomorrow night. The week-long festival marks the onset of spring and the story of the Exodus, the Torah story of the Israelites’ liberation from Egyptian slavery. The story is an important theological anchor for Judaism: the journey from redemption to freedom is a paradigm we refer to…
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From Goshen to the Sea: Passover as the In-Between
This coming Monday is (unofficially) Red Sea Crossing Day. We mark Passover at this time of year because this is the time of the events of the Exodus as recounted in the Torah. According to the Torah the march out of Egypt began on the 15th of Nissan, the first day of Passover. It was…
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Thinking of Overland Park–and beyond–this Passover
As we sit around the Seder table this year, I am sure the shootings in Overland Park, Kansas are on everyone’s mind. A blatant act of aggression and violence directed toward the Jewish community leaves us shaken, upset, insecure and angry. For me personally, the children of a friend and colleague were at the JCC…
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More Questions for a Meaningful Passover
The Passover seder is an ethical answer to a series of questions. It is structured as a lesson, the symbolic foods and retelling of the story comes in response to 4 questions (or 4 variations of 1 question) asked traditionally by the youngest person at the table: why is this night different from all other…
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Holidays and Red Lights: On Dayenu and Social Change
This week we entered the new month of Nissan—the month of Passover. The season of the Festival of Freedom is upon us. It is time to make our preparations for this physical and spiritual journey. We buy the matzo and special foods, we plan our Seders and special meals. And we think about the story…
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Treasure Each Day
“Teach us to treasure each day, that we may open our hearts to Your wisdom.” This is a verse from Psalm 90, and this interpretive translation and the music which goes with it was composed by Rabbi Yitzkak Husbands-Hankin at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, OR. I first heard it 17 years ago at the…
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