Moving from Narrow Spaces Toward Freedom and Full Expression

Can you bring your full self to this life?

Last night my husband I hosted two other couples for a Passover seder. In the traditional Jewish tradition, we spent the evening “reliving” the Israelites journey from slavery to freedom. At our table, the theme of our discussions revolved around the passage through the Red Sea. The Hebrew name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means “narrow place,” [...]

How Do You Get Unstuck

stuck, Passover, narrow place, Mercury

On Friday night during our Passover seder, someone mentioned that Mercury was moving out of retrograde. I was happy to hear this, since that typically means the things that are stuck will get unstuck. I don’t normally follow astrology. I like it, don’t get me wrong. I believe it. I just don’t read about it [...]

There Is An Order to Life

order, seder, Passover, chaos, life

I’m about to go downstairs and start our Passover seder. The sun is setting over the ocean. I can see it from my office window. Seder means order. The service we conduct on Passover has a specific order. However, it strikes me that life has an order, too. And that much like the Israelites as [...]

Does Your Life Enslave You? Learn How to Free Yourself!

Horseradish usually is eaten as the bitter herb on Passover.

Today, I will look at the last seder plate symbol: maror. These are the bitter herbs that represent slavery. Of course, during Passover the issue of slavery comes up big time. We discuss how the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and how Moses asked the Pharaoh to let free them. When Pharaoh said, “No,” God [...]

Beitzah: Will You Be Reborn or Give Birth on Passover?

eggs

Today I’m considering the Passover symbol of the egg, roasted or otherwise. Called beitzah, it symbolizes rebirth and represents the second sacrificial offerings given at the ancient Temple in Jerusalem on Passover. Here are some questions that come to mind around beitzah. How do I want to be reborn? That’s a hard question to answer. [...]

Making Sacrifices and Seeing God's Hand

hand

Second day of Passover…on to the second symbol on the seder plate: zeroa, the lamb shank, which represents sacrifice. The zeroa symbolizes the Paschal lamb offered as the Passover sacrifice in the ancient Temple. Getting away from the idea of communal sacrifice, I am thinking about personal sacrifice now. Thus, I ask myself: What will [...]

Passover Questions…Ask More Than Four

On the spring Jewish holiday of Passover, Jews all over the world ask questions. Traditionally, we ask just four questions, and we are supplied with answers either in the Haggadah, the prayer book used during the seder, or home service conducted on Passover, or by participants at the seder. The questions – and the answers [...]

Freedom to Live Your Life Fully this Passover

I was just reading a blog by Rachel Barenblat (http://www.velveteenrabbi.com/) that made me think about living fully this Passover. She comments on a recent posting by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi called Toward Freeing the Seder, in which he takes the fifteen steps of the basic seder structure and offers creative suggestions for making each of them [...]

Mitzrayyim Makes My Passover Meaning-full and Spirit-full

I remember as a child sitting through the Passover seder each year with little sense of why I was there or what we were doing. I knew the Exodus story, but the actual celebration of Passover meant little to me. The only thing that got me out of the Mitzrayyim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, [...]