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Dear Friends:

We will soon gather with family and friends to celebrate Passover.  The heart of the ritual meal is 'maggid '-- 'telling the story.'  The word Haggadah comes from the word maggid and literally means, 'The Telling.' 

We come together for the most festive meal of the year and we ingest elements of the story: the matzah, maror, charoset, karpas, and salt water -- the bitter and the sweet, the crunchy, dry bread of affliction, and the green growing edge of springtime and renewal. 

If I were to ask any group of Jews, "Who here can tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt?" almost every person would say, "I can!" Each person would tell it a bit differently, but each would express some of the story's key meanings.

In the mystical book of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gives his view of the essence of a Biblical story.  Every Torah story wears garments over its body, which houses a soul.  Events and characters are the story's garments.  Moral principles conveyed are its body.  Subtle teachings about our encounter with the sacred are its soul. For Rabbi Shimon, soul is a story's true essence.

When it comes to the Passover story, I think all three aspects - characters, principles, and spirituality - are all essential.

Social justice activist Laurel Dykstra thinks it's essential to notice the characters - specifically, the women characters.  Moses' leadership is possible because his midwives Shifra and Pua, biological mother Yocheved, sister Miriam, adoptive mother Batya (Pharaoh's daughter), and wife Zipporah save his life over and over again.  Through them, Passover calls us to action - because acts of care and resistance happen at the grassroots level, not just in the courts of the elite.

The prophet Zechariah sees in the Exodus an essential political message: God manages history, directing it towards redemption.  Long ago, God freed the slaves on hayom hazeh, this day.

In the future, God will free humanity from war, religious violence, and colonial oppression bayom hahu - on that day.

Medieval Jewish philosopher and poet Yehuda HaLevi focuses on the spiritual experience of the liberated slaves.  People who felt God's awesome power described it to their children. Impassioned by the story's energy, the children told their own children.  And here we are, 120 generations later, so awed by God's attention, that we still tell the story.

Please remember that the retelling of the story is meant to be personal.  The Haggadah,our guide through the Passover seder (meaning 'order'), the central Passover home ritual, states: In every generation, each person should feel as though she or he were redeemed from Egypt, as it is said: "You shall tell your children on that day saying, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free out of Egypt.'  For the Holy One redeemed not only our ancestors; He redeemed us with them." 
 
This passage is the key directive of the celebration.  It teaches us that Passover is not simply a commemoration of an important past event, but an event in which we continue to participate.  Passover offers us the opportunity to re-experience the slavery and redemption that all of us confront in our own lives on a daily basis.  Our history becomes our present.  We are encouraged to tell our own stories and come to terms with our own personal struggles with what enslaves us and tap our resources of renewal -- hope and creativity -- to move towards greater freedom.

The Passover celebration is aimed at the child in all of us, allowing us to open our imaginations to rediscovering the lost elements of wonder, pleasure, and joyful celebration that are essential in this event.  Therefore, children have a special role at the Passover seder.  The "Four Questions," the "Four Children" and songs we sing are meant to involve the children and engage the adults in telling the stories -- our stories -- that convey the meaning of Passover. 

As far as I am concerned, there is only one sin on Passover -- and that is the sin of boredom.  Please do not let your seder become a dull reading of the Haggadah.  Ask your guests to bring a story from their own lives that captures some moment in which that person experienced a sense of enslavement and perhaps a sense of liberation.
 
When you re-tell the Passover story this year, what key meanings will anchor your creativity? Amazing characters?  Enduring moral and political teachings?  Intimacy and gratitude towards God? 

Choose with intention - because it's your retelling that keeps the sacred narrative alive.
A great Jewish spiritual teacher, the Baal Shem Tov, captured the essence of Passover when he taught, "Forgetfulness leads to exile, while remembrance is the secret of redemption."  What is it that we need to remember this year, at this particular moment in our lives.  In Yiddish we say, Have a zissen Pesach -- Have a Passover filled with joy!

Shalom and Chag Samayach,

Rabbi Dan