We begin our Seder and join our efforts with those everywhere who celebrate Passover searching for its meaning in their lives; as an expression of our liberation so far…
There are many possible modes for understanding the events retold in the Pesach Haggadah.
Of these, three are braided together so that, if we concentrate exclusively on only one, we might diminish the special qualities of the entire story.
By participating in the symbolic actions built into the order of the Seder, we can share in:
the experience of the rebirth of the natural world around us,
the national liberation of our own and other peoples,
the spiritual redemption of each individual human being.
We begin this evening:
some of us feeling shackled by the bonds of winter,
some of our people—and other peoples of the world—persecuted,
many of us confined by our own personal limitations.
Tonight we hope to set in motion:
processes of growth that encourage within each of us the
renewal of each person’s unique vision, and
efforts to work for the freedom of our scattered—and all, oppressed—people,
as we see about us the flowering of a new year.
Indeed, we begin our Seder here.
Our goals are neither
renewal, freedom, nor flowering.
Pesach is but the pointer to the acceptance of our commitments to complete these tasks—in a harvesting of the fruits of our labors yet to come.