We all want to share deep and thoughtful ideas at the Seder in order to enhance the experience. I hope these divrei Torah will aid you on your journey toward a meaningful, transformative Seder night.

What’s With All the Questions?

A notably

Why Pesach? If anything, the hallmark of this Yom Tov is the exodus—leaving the terrible conditions in Mitzrayim—so maybe let’s call it “chag ha’yetziyat Mitzrayim”! What’s the significance of recognizing the holiday as Pesach?

The reference to Pesach takes us to the time when Hashem was

Given the current price per pound, it sure doesn’t feel like Matzah is lechem oni, the bread of the poor person. This year, 200,000 pounds of handmade shmurah matzah were baked and shipped from Ukraine to the United States, in addition to what is shipped to Europe and Israel. But two hours before the last 20,000 pounds were

Years ago, I heard the following story from Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel. It will require a bit of your imagination: An Olympic Airline plane lands in Athens, Greece. An old man steps off the plane. He is none other than Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, now a very old man, having been away from his home for

While the entire Pesach Seder is centered around retelling the story of our redemption from Egypt, the primary demonstration of publicizing this miracle (pirsumei nisa) is through drinking four cups of wine. Most discussions of this mitzvah treat the four cups as a single unit (for example, the community must supply funds—or, in the

Every year in my family, when I was growing up, we would stop at the seemingly strange citation from Ezekial 16:7 that appears in the Haggadah text: “I have given you to be numerous (revavah) as the vegetation of the field, and you increased and grew and became highly ornamented, your breasts were set and your hair grew, but you were

We are all used to the idea that the verb פסח means “pass over” and that our holiday gets its English name from this meaning.

But there are many scholars who disagree. They offer two alternative interpretations of the verb פסח in the several times it appears in the 12th chapter of Exodus. They

Pesach begins on the night of the 15th day of the month of Nissan and lasts for eight days. This holiday commemorates the departure of the nation of Israel from Egypt. Pesach marks the birth of the Jewish people as a nation led by Moshe over 3,000 years ago. This is a as much a celebration of our spiritual freedom as the physical liberation

We have noted in the past that the Seder night contains a tremendous amount of wisdom regarding chinuch in general. The family-centered character of the Seder is actually built into the evening’s make-up from the outset, stemming from the Torah’s unique mandate of  “והגדת לבנך ביום ההוא”, “and you should tell

If you have read any of my previous articles, you will know that I am someone who looks forward to and enjoys each and every chag. I will be honest and say that this year for the first time that I can ever remember, I was not only not looking forward to Pesach, but at one point I found myself thinking how nice it would be if I could just

The Romaniote Jews of Greece are a unique Jewish community that have resided in Greece for millenia and are neither Sephardic or Ashkenazic. Their unique nusach (rite) is available for viewing at the website of the National Library of Israel at

(Courtesy of Bris Avrohom) On April 3, a model matzah bakery was held at CETT Hebrew School of Bris Avrohom in Fair Lawn, which is run under the direction of Rabbi Mendel and Elky Zaltzman.

The children at the school received a box containing three handmade shmurah matzos from Israel, which will