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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageFrom Symposium to Seder: How The Rabbinic Adoption of Roman Party Conventions Became Our Passover Seder
Apr 15, 2024 By Robert Harris | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Pesah
In the years following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish observance of Passover underwent a seismic shift. In lieu of the now impossible sacrificial Temple ritual, the rabbis adopted the Roman symposium in order to create a new type of festival meal, one that was rooted in new rituals and intellectual discourse. Together we explore what led to the rabbinic decision to conduct the Seder in this way, rather than opting for a different way to commemorate Passover, such as instructing the Jewish people to perform the sacrifice in their homes. We also examine some of the questions and answers in the Haggadah which are central features of the Roman symposium and core to our Haggadah.
Read MoreAcross the Divide: Tips for Hard Conversations at the Seder Table
Apr 15, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Pesah
Many of us are approaching seder this year with concern about seemingly unbridgeable divides about Israel. It’s tempting to try to avoid difficult conversations, but Passover isn’t merely a holiday of gratitude for a past redemption—it calls us to move toward transformation and freedom internally and externally, individually and collectively, especially with those closest to […]
Read MoreLeaving Egypt with Compassion and Justice
Apr 8, 2023 By Ben Levy | Commentary | Pesah
The Torah reading for Shabbat Hol Hamoed Pesah (Exodus 33:12–34:26) describes the aftermath of the Golden Calf. How do we make sense of this choice?
Read MoreThe Primacy of Questions
Mar 31, 2023 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
The truth is, of all the Jewish holidays of the year, Pesah, requires the most forethought, the most planning, the most cleaning, and yes, the most questions! The Jewish tradition understands deeply that ritual does not simply “occur,” instead it is the result of painstaking preparation and “beginning with the end in mind.”
Read MoreLiberating our Planet: Climate Torah for the Passover Seder
Mar 31, 2023 By JTS Dayenu Circle | Commentary | Pesah
This year for Passover, JTS is proud to share Liberating our Planet: Climate Torah for the Passover Seder. Passover is an annual reminder that profound changes to our lived reality are possible, and now more than ever, we as a Jewish community need to pursue profound action to stop the climate crisis. This project is […]
Read MoreBetween Words and Pictures: Medieval Illuminated Haggadot from the JTS Library
Mar 23, 2023 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Public Event video | Pesah
This session explored some of the priceless treasures in JTS’s collection of Haggadah manuscripts. We consider how the text of the Haggadah and the accompanying hand-drawn illustrations are—or are not—in conversation with each other and make some other unexpected discoveries between the covers of these rare medieval manuscripts.
Read MoreRemembering Together
Apr 22, 2022 By William Plevan | Commentary | Pesah
The celebration of Pesah is an outstanding example of the central role that memory plays in Jewish tradition. Underscoring the importance of memory for sustaining human societies, Elie Wiesel wrote, “Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” Communal memory, of course, goes far beyond what any one individual can remember and experience. And yet, what makes memory so powerful as a vehicle for communal identity is that it speaks to us on a personal level.
Read MoreWhich Is “Wiser”: The Story of the Exodus or the Laws of Pesah?
Apr 15, 2022 By Jeremy Tabick | Commentary | Pesah
One of the core aspects of the Torah’s Pesah commentary is the education of the participants. In its very introduction, in the reading for the first day of Pesah, the concern of education is placed front and center: “When your children will ask you, ‘What is this service for you?’ you will say, ‘It is a pesah sacrifice to God . . .’” (Exod. 12:26–27). Indeed, justifying the practice of Pesah to children comes up in the Torah no less than four times.
Read MoreLearning from God to Anticipate the Reactions of Others
Apr 2, 2021 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Pesah
Why do we eat matzah on Passover? According to the instructions that God conveyed to Israel prior to the Exodus we eat matzah because we are commanded: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread (matzot)” (Exod. 12:15). However, according to Exod. 12:39, where the narrative of the events is related, we eat matzah because the Israelites, having been driven out of Egypt, were unable to linger to allow time for the dough to rise: “And they baked unleavened cakes (matzot) . . . because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry.” If so, why does the Torah present the mitzvah (the command) before the Exodus has actually taken place?
Read MoreA Holiday of Contradictory Emotions
Mar 26, 2021 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah
Preparing to celebrate our second Pesah under the grip of a global pandemic, our hearts are filled with both sadness and hope. No one has been untouched by COVID-19. We’re grieving a loved one, friend, or neighbor whose life was cut short. We’re experiencing its social and economic toll—overtaxed first responders, teachers, and food providers; overwhelming social isolation; devastating financial insecurity—all exacerbated by underlying inequities. Thankfully, millions have received the vaccine, though many have yet to receive it, and new variants temper our expectations.
Read MoreMatzah’s Majestic Meaning
Apr 8, 2020 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Pesah
I don’t know why we ask the first of the four seder questions—“On all other nights we eat both hametz and matzah but on this night only matzah.” The Ha lahma anya paragraph that immediately precedes the questions already answers it. The opening words, “this is the bread of affliction (lahma anya in the Aramaic) that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt,” suggest that the Israelite slaves in Egypt, who presumably had no time to bake bread, ate matzah. And that is why we eat matzah on Passover. So why ask the first question?
Read MoreJTS Seder Supplement for the COVID-19 Pandemic
Apr 6, 2020 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Collected Resources | Pesah
Selected thoughts on the Haggadah in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
Passover in the Time of Coronavirus
Apr 3, 2020 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah
What a difference a year makes—or a week, or a day. Last year at this time, reflecting on a period of rising anti-Semitism in America and Europe, I wrote that “discussion at your seder table will be different from all Passovers past.” This year, many of those discussions will happen virtually, and attendance at physical seder tables will likely be limited to close family or friends. Many people may be sitting at the seder table alone. The plague is upon us, striking every part of the world without regard to national border or religion. The holiday will not be the same, because we are not the same.
Read MoreFear and Faith at the Exodus
Apr 25, 2019 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Pesah
As they cross the Sea of Reeds and see the advancing Egyptian army behind them, the Israelites feel terror and cry out to God for help in Exodus 14:10. But in the next two verses they reject God’s wondrous efforts to bring them out of Egypt. The people ask for help and then reject it. Do they want God’s help or not?
Read MoreA Spiritual Caution for This Season
Apr 19, 2019 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah
The Shulhan Arukh—the 16th-century law code that serves as the essential scaffolding for the Jewish legal system—introduces its discussion of the holiday of Passover with the Talmudic prescription:
We ask and inquire about the laws of Passover 30 days before the beginning of the Passover holiday. (OH 429:1, BT Pesahim 6a)
Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1530-1572) immediately comments on this law:
Read MoreIt is a custom to buy wheat and distribute it to the poor for the needs of Passover.
Passover after Pittsburgh
Apr 12, 2019 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah
“Why is this night different from all other nights?”
Whether you are a twenty-something, a Millennial, a Boomer, or a member of the Greatest Generation; whether you are attending your first Passover seder this year or the latest in a long line of sedarim, chances are good that the discussion at your seder table will be different from all Passovers past. The Jewish community of North America has markedly changed since last Passover, shaken to its core by the synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and a significant spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States as well as in Europe that seem part of a larger outburst of racism and prejudice.
Read MoreCantillation for Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Ruth
Oct 23, 2018 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Prayer Recordings | Pesah | Shavuot | Sukkot
Recordings by Cantor Sarah Levine (CS ’17).
Read MoreFreedom through Torah
Apr 5, 2018 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah
“The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets” (Exod. 32:17). Do not read, “incised,” (harut), rather [read] “freedom” (herut)—for no person is truly free except the one who labors in Torah. (Mishnah Avot 6:2)
Freedom in biblical and rabbinic Judaism is a highly complex idea. Consider the mishnah above. At first glance one might think the law, the Ten Commandments carved on the two tablets, would be limiting, constraining human freedom. Counterintuitively, the Sages argue that true freedom only comes from an engagement with Torah! How might “laboring in Torah” and living a life according to the demands of the Torah induce freedom?
Read MoreThe Challenges of Change
Mar 30, 2018 By Mona Fishbane | Commentary | Pesah
I love Pesah, the holiday of intergenerational narrative. When we used to host the seder, our parents, siblings, and young children would join us at the table as we passed on and renewed the tradition each year. My husband’s puppet show was a favorite—he would spin a story from his vivid imagination—including, in one memorable year, how the bad guys stuffed Matzah into the Omphalos, the center of the world, causing havoc and chaos, and how Moshe had to get it unstuck and open the pathways. Sesame Street meets Kabbalah.
Read MoreRedeeming the Plagues
Jan 12, 2018 By Miriam Liebman | Commentary | Va'era | Pesah
Every year at the Passover seder, there is a brief pause in the chaos when everyone dips a finger in their cup of wine and spills a single drop for each of the ten plagues. We are spilling wine to remind ourselves that although the plagues served as miracles for us, those miracles came at the expense of others.
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