Nina Amir's Thoughts on Human Potential, Personal Growth and Practical Spirituality
It’s almost Passover, and for me this always makes me feel squeezed. Actually, it just makes me more aware of the areas of my life that give me that sense of the walls closing in or getting tight. You don’t have to be Jewish to understand this even though Passover is a Jewish holiday. Passover [...]
Today marked the last day of Passover. I think of the week of Pesach like a seven day birth period during which I have the chance to be reborn free of at least one the things I feel constrain me. We are told that the Israelites left Mitzrayyim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, which all [...]
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 [...]
Here in Northern California it does not feel like spring. It’s 40 degrees and rainy. However, it’s April and the lilies and daffodils are blooming, so I know spring has sprung. So, it’s appropriate that the next seder symbol I’m going to look at is karpas, the green vegetables that remind the seder participants that [...]
The first and second night seders are over, but we are still eating matzah and other Pesach foods. I’m still considering the seder plate symbols and answering questions related to them. I invite you to do the same whether you are Jewish or not. The next Passover symbol on the seder plate I’m going to [...]
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 [...]
Tonight many Jews around the world will participate in the observance Passover. They will take part in a first night seder, or service, that commemorates the Israelites freedom from slavery in Egypt. (The word “seder” actually means “order”; the service has a specific order.) I see the seder—actually the whole week of Passover—as a time [...]
Each year as Passover approaches I’m given reason to consider my fears and how I deal with them. I do this because I remember learning about how fearful the Children of Israel felt at the shore of the Red Sea as the Egyptians approached. I was at an event near my home in Silicon Valley [...]
Passover is over and bread is back in the house! More specifically, on Shabbat, we ate challah! I’m a bread lover, so a Shabbat during Passover week spent eating hard, cold, tasteless matzoh rather than soft, warm-out-of-the-oven, sweet bread just doesn’t seem right. I know, I know… Passover involves eating matzoh, the Bread of Freedom…the Bread [...]
Just as most Jews are finishing up their spring cleaning and getting ready to burn the last of their chametz, which we do on the morning before the first night of Passover, we get a chance to stop and do something totally different. It’s something we haven’t done for 28 years. Actually, it’s something we haven’t [...]
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