In all cases the principles of
national liberation should be repeated in a festive way. Some do it with
fireworks and parades. The Jews do it with a Pesach Seder. There, the story of
the exodus from Egypt is recounted in accordance to the Biblical mitzvah,
"You will tell your child on that day saying, this is for the sake of that
which Hashem did for me when I left Egypt," (Shmos 13:8).
The main message is that Israel was redeemed by Hashem in a miraculous
way, to be His treasured nation, and to exclusively inhabit the Holy Land . We retell the ancient story through the prism
of bringing the first fruits of the new season to the Temple
in Jerusalem .
In it we acknowledge our humble beginnings, sufferings in exile, and miraculous
redemption.
A festive meal is eaten with a
special plate set aside with foods that remind us of the holiday's message.
There is a roasted shank bone to recall the lamb that we sacrificed in Egypt . In
addition there is an egg to recall the tasty holiday offering brought to the Temple . There are bitter
vegetables to remind us of the bitterness of slavery, and there is the sweet
paste charoses, made to look like mortar, to remind of us of the hard labor of
slavery. There is a vegetable to remind us of the fine foods produced by the land of Israel .
We chant poems and songs of
praise. Four cups of wine are drunk symbolizing the four fold promise of
redemption. A fifth cup is set aside for Elijah the prophet who will tell us if
we should drink another in honor of our coming into the Holy
Land . We recognize that as long as we are under any sort of
foreign domination that our freedom is not complete. Therefore we conclude by
saying, "Next year in Jerusalem ,"
in the hope that the meshiach will come and our next Seder will be in the
rebuilt Beis HaMikdash.
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