The Seder has many symbols. We already looked at the Seder plate and the food items' meanings.

The Seder is a multisensory learning experience. There are opportunities to listen, talk, taste, touch, and smell. We will read and eat—even eating is active as we dip and drop, sing, color, ask and answer questions, and tell stories. All of this is in service to remember the time we were slaves and we were freed. We are called upon to remember it as if WE OURSELVES were slaves and we were freed. To try to touch upon the traces of DNA that still hold these memories deep inside of us.

There are four themes to the Passover Seder:

Freedom: "Let my people go so they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." 

Love The Stranger: "You shall love the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt." 

Pursuit of Justice: "This year, we are slaves. Next year, may we all be free." 

The past informs the Present and paves the Way for the future: In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they went out of Egypt.

“The exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.” —Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

We will drink the first of four cups of wine or juice.

To the wine, to the story, to God.

We are in Mitzrayim, the narrow place, And God says to us:

I Shall Take You Out,  

I Shall Rescue You,

I Shall Redeem You,

I Shall Take You to Me.


haggadah Section: Kadesh