New ways to think about—and act on—the many meanings of this elaborate holiday.
Winter 2011-2012
The Joy of Chametz
by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan
A fresh take on the rigors of pre-Pesach cleaning.
Winter 2011-2012
Redemption, 1955
by Ellen Schecter
The author of the classic Family Haggadah recounts a childhood seder from hell.
Winter 2011-2012
My Daughter’s Exodus… from Kunming, China
by Nancy Cohen Israel
Remembering that adoption is the engine that launches the Passover story, an adoptive mother reflects on her adopted daughter’s future: “Will she wander? Will she toggle internally in some way between Kunming and Dallas? How will she understand her story?”
Winter 2011-2012
Miriam’s Cup: A Ritual for Adoptive Mothers of Chinese Daughters
by Rabbi Susan Schnur
Is there an adoptee at your Seder? Try this ritual—it’s not just for Chinese daughters. Remembering baby Moses, it weaves Passover’s adoption narrative into a personal story.
Winter 2011-2012
Counting in Seders
by Joanne Jacobson
“Next year in Jerusalem,” we call out together, as usual, at the end of our family seder in Chicago, while I silently wonder who among us will see another year.
Winter 2011-2012
Skyping the Seder
by Robin A. Harper
Webcam replaces seder plate when cancer keeps the author’s mother from attending the seder.
Spring 2005
How to Make Next Passover’s Seder More Meaningful, Starting Now
by Rabbi Susan Schnur
Passover is a journey towards wholeness, towards a metaphoric “promised land,” and if we remember that—and that alone—we will create a seder each year that is not only deeply meaningful but, de facto, different from every other year’s.
Spring 2003
Ode to the Passover Egg
by Rabbi Susan Schnur
A brand new reading for Passover, to help us remember what’s inside us: generations within generations.
Spring 2002
Four Hundred Guests for Passover
by Rhoda Asch
Try this one yourself! Rhoda Asch has figured out how to re-invite, annually, all who have ever come and eaten at her Seder.
Spring 1994
Passover: The Four Girls Within Us
by Ruth Berger Goldston
A clip-and-save addition to the Seder—a different take on being wise, wicked, simple and speechless.
Spring 1990
Anxiety 101: Leading the Passover Seder
by Jeff Axelbank
Judaism is such a public religion! So participatory! So have a little pity for a young man who takes on the task of leading his relatives through the desert–and even through the dessert–trying to meet everyone’s needs.
Spring/Summer 1977
How was this Passover Different from All Other Passovers
by Reena Sigman Friedman
Looking back on the Seders, most women remember cooking and serving. (“For this we came out of Egypt?”) But a growing number of women have gone beyond merely enabling their men to conduct the Seder.
Spring 2000
All Who Are Hungry
by Ilana Kurshan
A college student uses Passover to celebrate freedom from the slavery of anorexia.
April 2014, The Lilith Blog
Passover Midwives, Birthing Change
by Nechama Liss-Levinson
The attack and murder of Kitty Genovese, witnessed by 38 people who didn’t call the police, became headline news on the morning of the first Seder, 1964. The tragedy leaves us with an imperative to prevent the bystander effect by emulating the midwives in the Passover story, who defied Pharaoh’s ruling at their own peril.
