Passover

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Tonight at sundown, we read the story of Passover which commemorates the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The holiday is a celebration of freedom!

Here are a few words from the Passover Seder Haggadah that our family reads:

"Tonight we celebrate freedom for everyone on earth who is lucky enough to be free, and we PRAY for freedom for the people who live shackled by the chains of  fear, the chains of poverty, the chains of slavery, the chains of religious intolerance, the chains of violence and the chains of economic decline.

On this spring night, we have refashioned our ancient Passover ritual to include reflection on our own modern-day world, to find hope in this story of Exodus.

We hope to find our own Exodus from unproductive wars, from embittered enemies as well as friends, from the tyranny of theory over data and from a seemingly endless financial tailspin."

At the close of the Seder, we recite the following:

CLOSE OF THE SEDER, AFTER DINNER

Once again, we have recited the age-old epic of Israel’s liberation from bondage. 

We have learned the message of the Exodus for our day.

This freedom that we cherish does not mean only freedom from slavery, but freedom from want and fear, from prejudice and bigotry for all men.

“Let Freedom Ring”

TOGETHER

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, “Free at last!  Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington,  D.C. 1963

The speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was included in our amended Haggadah at Temple Beth Am when I was young. I always admired the way Rabbi Jacob Pressman included modern-day references into this ancient story.

I hope you have a meaningful Passover Seder my friends.