Preparing for Passover
Passover this year begins at sundown on Monday, April 22, and ends at nightfall on .
Please note: our office will close at 2:30pm on Friday, April 26, for Shabbat and for the seventh and eighth days of Passover, Monday, April 29 - Tuesday, April 30. Our office will reopen at 8:30am on Wednesday, May 1.
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Here is everything you need this year: service schedule, resources for your seder, virtual seder opportunities and more.
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Q: Is there a particular Passover family tradition or personal element you are focusing on this year? Share with us on our Facebook page!
If you're looking for an easy appetizer, check out this Rosen family favorite!
Resources, FAQ and suggestions for kashering your kitchen, shopping for essentials, and more can be found on the Rabbinical Assembly’s website:
As the Haggadah says, “In every generation we each must see ourselves as if we personally left Egypt.” To enable us to identify with that story once again, we reenact the Exodus through story, discussion, and song at the Seder table, and we restrict our diet to remind ourselves of the slavery of Egypt and the need to redeem ourselves and others again and again. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means “straits,” probably because the Nile enters the Mediterranean not as one river but through multiple straits. Jewish
interpreters, however, have understood the word metaphorically as well, teaching us that in every generation we must seek to redeem ourselves and others from the straits of life – poverty, ignorance, prejudice, illness, meaninglessness, etc. That is our Jewish mission for life, the charge that God has given us and that the Passover story articulates for us anew each and every year.
"[...] as we explain the dietary rules of Passover below, we fervently hope that they will instead function as they are supposed to – namely, to serve as graphic reminders throughout the holiday of the critical lessons of Passover, of the need to free ourselves and the world around us of all the physical, intellectual, emotional, and communal straits that limit us and others in living a life befitting of people created in the image of God. May we all succeed in making this and every Passover the stimulus for us to fix the world in these ways every day of our lives."
Click here for the full guidance from the Rabbinical Assembly's Kashrut subcommittee.Looking for Something New for your Seder?
- New for 2024: Exploring Judaism has a "Not a Haggadah" Passover reader of essays to inspire a meaningful seder, plus a Four Questions Hotline and more.
- New for 2024: HIAS has released a one-page supplement for 2024 to help transform the bread of affliction to the bread of liberation.
- New for 2024: The Shalom Hartmann Institude has released a supplement called In Every Generation, one it invites you to read ahead of your seder. "How can we celebrate a holiday of freedom when over 100 people are still held captive in Gaza? How do we call for all who are hungry to come eat at our tables when so many Israelis are not at their own seder tables and millions of Palestinians are on the brink of famine?"
- New for 2024: CCAR has released a supplement of prayers, poems, songs, and meditations in response to October 7
- New for 2024: Kveller offers a 2-page downloadable guide with 7 Ways to Address October 7 at Your Seder.
- Kashering your kitchen? Hadar offers a video series to guide you through the process.
- Rabbi Zerin recommends A Night to Remember, a contemporary sequel to A Different Night, with contributions from recent novelists and poets, scholars and leaders. All commentators are living now or within recent memory. If you're looking for something new to add to your seder, Rabbi Zerin recommends checking out Creating Lively Passover Seders: A Sourcebook of Engaging Tales, Texts & Activities.
- The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) and the Rabbinical Assembly (RA) have collaborated to create Exploring Judaism, a website with the shared goal of lifting up a wide range of voices representing the diversity of Conservative Judaism’s experiences, perspectives, and practices. The site includes several resources for Passover.
- NATAL (Israel’s Trauma and Resiliency Center) and the Masorti Movement has produced a Haggadah supplement.
- Rabbinical Assembly offers a downloadable version of its Feast of Freedom Haggadah here.
- Jewish Federation offers a 19-page printable Haggadah.
- JewishBoston has its "The Wandering Is Over" Haggadah. Here's one version, along with a variety of other resources, and one Rabbi Garber has used in the past.
- PJ Library shares a few kid-friendly Haggadot, including a two-page version you can download! You can also click here to download its "In Every Generation" interactive Haggadah. Click here to check out their 15-minute video series seder for young children.
- Kveller offers its Haggadah "for curious kids -- and their grown-ups."
- JewishBoston offers some fun printable activity pages for kids (of all ages!)
If you are looking to take part in a virtual seder, here are some opportunities:
- Rabbinical Assembly’s A Seder Made to Order from 2020 (pre-recorded video featuring rabbis from across the globe, produced by our own Rabbi Garber -- click here!)
- Cantors Assembly's Ultimate Virtual Passover Seder from 2020
