Nina Amir's Thoughts on Human Potential, Personal Growth and Practical Spirituality
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
As my daughter left this morning to attend Easter Sunday services with her non-Jewish boyfriend, I thought about what she might take away from that service. I know she won’t be thinking about Easter from a personal growth standpoint as I do. And, despite my own Jewish leanings and upbringing, as always, I look at [...]
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