Tag: Pesach
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The Wilderness Was Always The Point
The expectation of a stable, secure world as a precondition for real life, for serious community, or for spiritual depth, is, in the Torah’s own terms, a category error. Safety as a precondition is not available. What is available is vulnerability, and a community that knows what to do with it. The question facing us…
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The Afikoman We Carry | Pesach Sermon by Rabbi Adrian M. Schell
In this Pesach sermon, Rabbi Adrian M. Schell reflects on a deeply personal and poignant Seder night in Berlin, where a table of rabbinical students, each carrying their own stories and silences, unknowingly held the broken pieces of our collective Jewish memory—and helped one another carry them. Using the powerful symbol of the Afikoman, Rabbi…
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Omer Counting 2025
The Omer marks our journey from freedom to purpose — day by day, step by step. Download your free counting sheet now from my website and join the tradition of sacred time.
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Shabbat Hagadol & Pesach 2020
Dear congregants and friends, The first of the three weeks of the national lockdown has nearly finished, and we hope this finds you all well and healthy. We understand that the circumstances have imposed challenges and hardships on many of you and observing the news nationally and internationally, we believe that we are only at…
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A guide for Pesach 2020
Dear congregants and friends, Based on the famous four questions we ask during the Pesach seder, Ma nishtanah ha-laylah hazeh mikol ha-leilot? – Why is this night of Passover different from all other nights of the year?, we, your rabbis, have asked ourselves in the past few weeks, if and how our Pesach seder will…
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Mark the Omer time in a significant way
Many of us know that Passover takes place during the Hebrew month of Nisan. In contrast, most of us do not know that the month of Nisan also includes another observance which begins on the second day of Passover. In ancient times, as set forth in the Book of Leviticus, our ancestors would start bringing…
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50 days that can help so many
At Bet David, we have found an additional way to give meaning to the traditional way of counting of the Omer. When we count the omer, we give 50 days of hope. I believe that education is one of the major ways to empower all parts of our society and to fulfil the dream of…
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Torah Sparks: Resurrection of the death?
This coming Shabbat, we have a dramatic haftarah reading from Ezekiel 37:1-14. The prophet shares the vision of dry bones coming to life. What does this vision have to do with Passover, our festival of freedom, our deliverance from slavery? The Haftarah Commentary, by Gunther Plaut, offers the following opinion on the connection between Passover…
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Pesach Seder: A very Jewish version of a symposium
The most well-known thing that Jewish people do during Passover is to gather together for a ceremonial festive meal called a seder. The main thing to understand about a seder is that it combines a delicious meal, the telling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and a lot of symbolic foods and rituals…
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Torah Sparks: Teach it to your children
An old saying teaches that we believe what we see, but the reverse is often true: we see what we believe. And what we believe is often coloured by the stories we’ve learned. In less than two weeks, we are going to celebrate Pesach, Passover. The most important mitzvah for Pesach is to share knowledge…
