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The New Shul

Pesah

In the Haggadah, we read:  “If the Holy One had not freed our ancestors from Egypt, then we, our children, and our children’s children would still be slaves to Pharoah in Egypt.” By the time the authors of the Haggadah wrote those words, the Egyptian Pharoahs were long gone.  So what could they have meant when they said that “we, our children, and our children’s children would still be slaves to Pharoah”?  

Perhaps they were talking about our own internal Pharoahs, the voices within us that limit our sense of what is possible.  We may remain enslaved to those voices even when there are no external Pharoahs to tell us what to do.  Moreover, in ways that we are barely aware of, we can bequeath those voices to our children, so that they remain enslaved as well.

The story of our redemption from Egypt is a story not just about physical liberation, but about inner liberation as well, the freeing of our imagination. It is a story of how we learned to see beyond what is, to what could be. On Pesah, our work is to free ourselves anew in the same way, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of our children and our children’s children.  May our work of inner liberation be a blessing, not only to ourselves, but to those who learn from our example.

Schedule of services for Pesah:

  • Eve of Pesah, Friday April 15: 6 pm at the Kanter-Wasserman home. Please contact us for the address.
  • First Day, Saturday April 16: 9 to 11:45 am at the shul. The kiddush-lunch will be sponsored by the Kanter-Wasserman family in memory of Jeannette Kanter.
  • Second Day, Sunday April 17: 9 to 11:45 am at the shul.
  • Hol hamoed (the intermediate days): Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings April 18-20, at 6:30 pm at the shul.
  • Eve of the Seventh Day, Thursday April 21. 6:30 pm at the Kanter-Wasserman home.
  • Seventh Day, Friday April 22: 9 to 11:45 am at the shul.
  • Eve of Eighth Day, Friday April 22: 6 pm at the Kanter-Wasserman home.
  • Eighth Day, Saturday April 23: 9 to 11:45 am at the shul. The service will include Yizkor, the memorial prayer.

    (Please note that there will be no e-message next week. The next e-message will be on Thursday April 28.)