While we at OneTable consider ourselves mostly in the Shabbat business, Passover is actually the most celebrated home-based Jewish ritual.
For this reason, we are here to support your Seders even if they don't fall on Shabbat (though you can of course also celebrate the Shabbat of Passover through OneTable as well). “What even is a Seder?” you might ask. Well you've come to the right place. A Seder is a highly ritualized meal filled with story, song, and symbolic foods. While there are Seders for other holidays like Rosh Hashana and Tu b'Shvat, Passover has the most highly ritualized meal on the Jewish calendar. Just like Shabbat, this meal is as different as each table it’s held at, but the essence of these meals are all the same Just as Shabbat is meant to honor, weekly, the Divine's acts of creation followed by a day of rest, Passover asks us annually to reimagine ourselves as if we were part of the Exodus narrative. And the mechanism we do that through is the order of the meal (in Hebrew, “ seder” means “order”).
So, we sit around a table and use all the ritual objects to time travel back to the past, while sitting firmly in the present – looking for the personal meaning, relevance, and connection to this millennia-old story of freedom. Passover is also important to us here at OneTable because Jewish tradition offers two reasons for celebrating Shabbat: it’s an invitation to rest after a week's worth of creation or work and a reminder of our liberation from slavery in Egypt. The essence of any Passover Seder is that liberation story
This guide is here to do just that, guide you through the ritual steps of this meal. One thing this guide is not is a Hagaddah (literally means "the telling," a book that outlines every ritualized step in the Seder, its meaning, the context, and passages to read out loud). If you're just trying to get through the basics and to the meal, then this is the guide for you. It will certainly give you enough to get started and have a meal full of meaning, insight, and even some fun. If you're looking for more guidance and context, we recommend bringing along a Hagaddah (or two or three) to your meal!
Your Ultimate Passover Checklist
Each year, Passover begins on the 15th of Nisan – always on the full moon. This year, Passover begins at sunset on Saturday, April 12 and ends on Sunday, April 20 at nightfall. Depending on your custom or location (whether you are in Israel or in the diaspora), you might end Passover at nightfall on Saturday, April 19.
ESSENTIALS:
Enough wine or grape juice for the four cups per person. A cup is set out for Elijah, the Prophet. While many stick with the same beverage for the whole Seder, you might think about how your drink progresses with the meal to demarcate freedom (or just to pair with the food!).
Matzah, unleavened bread, symbolizes the quickly-prepared sustenance the Israelites brought when they fled Egypt. Each person should have three pieces of matzah or there should be a central plate with three pieces of matzah
Haggadah (the telling) guides you through the Seder steps and the story. Make your own at Haggadot.com!
A cup or bowl of salt water to dip karpas (parsley or green vegetables).
Two candles to welcome in the holiday.
ON THE SEDER PLATE:
Karpas: parsley or green vegetables representing spring.
Baytza: an egg representing fertility and renewal.
Maror: bitter herbs (horseradish, romaine lettuce, endive, etc.) represent the bitterness of slavery.
Z’roa: a roasted shank bone or a beet, representing the pascal sacrifice made at the Temple in Ancient Israel.
Charoset: a mixture of fruits + nuts, representing mortar used in the work of the Israelite slaves
Hazeret: another form of bitter herbs.
SYMBOLIC SEDER PLATE ADDITIONS:
An orange symbolizing LGBTQIA+ equality
A banana symbolizing support for refugees.
An acorn acknowledging indigenous land.
Cocoa or coffee beans acknowledging forced labor that still happens around the world
An olive symbolizing hope for peace between Israel and Palestine.
OTHER SYMBOLIC TABLE ADDITIONS:
An empty chair and place setting for hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Miriam’s Cup, or a cup of water to honor women.
Candle Lighting
Just as we light candles for Shabbat, the last act of work we do before the holy days of Passover is lighting candles.
Blessed is the Oneness that sanctifies our lives, and inspires us to kindle the light of this holy day.
Candle lighting is followed by Shehecheyanu, the traditional blessing for doing something for the first time either for the first time ever, or for the first time in a long time.
Blessed is the Oneness that inspires the universe, sustains us, raises us up, and enables us to reach this season. ,ויתוֹצמבּ
KADESH (Kiddush): Elevation
Wine is generally considered to be an absolutely integral part of the Seder, as important as matzah and the items on the Seder plate. And for most Jewish people, it is! But a certain sect of Jewish people, known as Karaite Jews, actually don't eat or drink anything fermented during Passover, so they skip the wine. This is all to say that while we might think some things are essential to the Passover Seder experience, they might actually not need to be, even according to Jewish tradition. So, consider this another invitation to truly make the Passover experience your own.
If you are partaking in wine, there'll be four distinct places where you can bless and then drink the wine throughout the meal. Wine is a method through which we elevate the meal and, during the Seder, wine helps us symbolize freedom Wine is the ultimate sign of freedom because of the amount of time it takes to make. Not only do we need to plant the vines, wait for them to bear fruit, and for the fruit to ripen, but then we harvest the grapes and juice them, and then that juice must ferment to become wine The time it takes to make wine stands in opposition to the matzah, the bread of affliction, which was made in haste in the Israelites’ fleeing from Egypt. The four cups of wine drunk throughout the Seder symbolize the ultimate liberation of the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt
Blessed is the Oneness that creates the fruit of the vine.
URCHATZ: Handwashing (Without the Blessing)
Before we begin the meal by eating karpas, we ritually wash our hands. Washing our hands connects us to the essential element of water and prepares us for the meal. This moment is an opportunity to connect with water and rainfall which enables us to sustain our bodies and to grow vegetables, wheat, and grapes.
Passover also represents the moment when the winter (or rainy season in the Middle East) ends and the spring begins, which is a moment to recognize and give thanks to the rainfall which makes our lives possible here on earth. During this time on the Jewish calendar, we actually switch from praying for rain to praying for dew. So, this is a great moment to be thankful for the rain which has come already this season and look forward to more precipitation to come in the future. During this first handwashing, we don't say any blessing.
KARPAS: Green Vegetables
At this point in the Seder, we turn our attention to the Seder plate. Each item represents different pieces of the Exodus story and also allow for a complete sensory and interactive experience.
We begin with karpas which comes from the Greek word karpos, meaning “fruit of the soil.” Usually karpas comes in the form of parsley but any green vegetable will do. We dip our green vegetables into salt water, a symbol of the sweat and tears of our ancestors and of present day injustices.
We dip the karpas into the salt water, then bless before we eat:
Blessed is the Oneness who creates the fruit of the earth.
YACHATZ: Breaking the Middle Matzah
Break the middle piece of matzah and keep half of it for the afikomen (typically the larger piece) or dessert for after the meal. In homes with children, the afikomen is often hidden as a game and a prize is given to the child who finds it.
If you're feeling youthful, you're welcome to hide the afikomen for your guests (don't forget to offer a prize!). If not, simply hold onto the afikomen for dessert.
There is a Syrian Jewish tradition to hand the designated piece of the afikomen around the table and touch the matzah to your left shoulder while holding it in your right hand. This reminds us how the Israelites brought the matzah out of Egypt.
Consider sending the afikomen around the table either literally or metaphorically by asking people to share what they are carrying with them at this Seder.
MAGGID: Retelling the Exodus Story
Maggid is when we tell the story of the Exodus, the flight of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom. This is truly the crux of the Seder when we fulfill our obligation of the Passover holiday, to understand and inhabit the story of the Exodus.
This section includes the "hits" you might remember if you've attended a Seder before:
THE FOUR QUESTIONS THE FOUR CHILDREN
10 PLAGUES
DAYENU
This is the section where, if you're hoping for the full Seder experience, we would recommend referencing a Haggadah. We've included our own OneTable twist on The Four Questions, 10 Plagues, and Dayenu if you ’ re taking the shorter path.
4 QUESTIONS FOR 2025
On Passover, we ask four questions to understand what makes Passover and the nights of the Seder unique from the rest of the year. Traditionally, the youngest person in attendance is given the honor of asking the questions. Consider asking your table who is the “youngest” at different things. For example, who has lived in your city for the shortest amount of time? Here are four reframed question topics for your table this year.
We eat matzah during Passover because it's what the Israelites ate while fleeing slavery in Egypt. We are reminded that even at their most desperate, our ancestors had sustenance. This sustenance and the prospect of their freedom were enough to keep them going Matzah should remind us of what is foundational to our lives and what is superfluous, a call to return to that which sustains us How might you commit to going back to basics this year? What feels foundational to your ongoing spiritual, physical, and intellectual sustenance?
We eat bitter herbs as a symbol of the bitterness of slavery So often we are pulled to gloss over that which is painful – it’s too hard to acknowledge, it's too divisive to talk about. The bitter herbs remind us that we cannot look away from the hard stuff. What painful things in your own life or in our world do you want to acknowledge? How do you want to acknowledge them?
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We dip twice during the Seder: first the parsley into the salt water, then the bitter herbs into the charoset When we dip the bitter herbs into the charoset, the sweetness softens, though does not fully mask, the bitterness of the herbs. What acts as charoset in your life? Where do you find sweetness that makes the hard things a little easier to handle?
According to the ancient rabbis, we recline during the Seder because that’s what free people do Yet, we know that not everyone in this world is free How do you use your freedom to advocate for others? There are also ways in which we, who consider ourselves free, may feel enslaved whether it’s by our tether to social media, our own mental health, a tendency towards overworking, or something else. In what ways are you still enslaved, and how can you reach for freedom?
10 Plagues
Ten plagues were inflicted on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to free the Israelites. While some of these plagues (like locusts) might feel relevant today, most (like boils and darkness) don't hit as close to home. Despite living in modern times, plagues continue to impact communities across the globe Consider these 10 plagues for 2025:
We pour the second glass of wine before reciting the Ten Plagues. There is a custom to dip your finger into your full glass of wine and put a drop of wine on your plate for each plague (those who do this custom often say that you should wipe your finger off with a napkin rather than lick the wine off so as to not taste the sweetness of another's pain). The origins of this ritual are actually magical by diminishing the wine in our cups, we're diminishing the power of each plague as well as the plagues’ power over us and our story! It is said that the act of removing some wine also protects us against future plagues. Consider as you dip your finger in the wine and make 10 drops, what protection and power do you hope these drops represent? How can they aid the journey towards freedom?
Dayenu
Dayenu literally means "enough." This piece of the Seder uplifts and celebrates all the incredible and wondrous acts that the Divine performed for the Israelites to escape from Egypt and find themselves en route to a world of their own creation. Dayenu is an opportunity to sit and be grateful for the things that have gotten us to this moment. What incredible acts have we witnessed to get us all here to enjoy this Seder together? Whether they are divine or human-inspired, take this moment — one of reflection and joy — after the plagues, to savor the stories that make up the Jewish people and the moments that make up our lives and our narratives.
BY JOSEPH BOVSHOVER
A mote of dust on the great, wide plane of this world more vain than a god with poise, have I, a dreamer, wandered through this life, cracking the skies and its gods, with a blood-longing, a feasting on humanity, not once, now the gods embittered. Oh, rather, in a desert I would wander, across the human void, the steppes of an emptied life, where no grass grows — no flowers, no trees, where no water flows and no wind blows, and the sun burns and glitters, unending hotter, like the scorching fires of hell — and its melting rays on the rocks, the wild, dunglike, naked rocks, and forging the home glow through hot sand paths, where the foot of the wanderer is sunken deep.
DAYENU
(CON’T)
How rather, in a desert I would wander, alone, with nothing to eat nor drink, but in my hand the shaft of wandering no bread, no water, as I pine for peace, searching for life, yearning for humanity, as one thing I die. And all the stings I would endure in silence, in silence with calm I would go the way of all flesh, seeing the vista but not heaven beyond! Oh, rather, in a desert I would die, passing through a world made of beauty and splendor, besotted with the hot thousandfold life, with happiness, of bliss, the enrapture of the deepening sweetness of our short existence. And, deepening, is my fervent wish though dwindled, devoured and depleted, that I starve, sweeping through corn fields, and by the marbled fountains I beg for water, creating for those a peaceful life, and I, unscreaming, fading into death, seeing heaven beyond but not the vista. Oh, rather, in a desert I would wander!
Translated By Tyler Kliem, from "Three Poems by Joseph Bovshover" published in Ayin Press's Otiyot Column, October 4, 2024
Joseph Bovshover was an early 20th Century Russian-Jewish poet who was known as one of the "Sweatshop Poets," writing for the Jewish working class in New York.
RACHTZAH: Handwashing
Handwashing round two! This time with the blessing. What's interesting about the handwashing blessing is that it doesn't state that we've become ritually ready, we are prepared to eat or anything else, but that we raise up our hands. Our hands are such important tools for us to experience the world and we often take them for granted. Take this moment during our second handwashing to feel gratitude and awe for these hand-y appendages that help us with tasks from ordinary to holy. And for our freedom to do our own will with them, and not another's.
Blessed is the Oneness who makes us holy through our actions and honors us as we raise up our hands.
MOTZI: Blessing Over the Bread
We begin the Passover meal as we begin the Shabbat meal, by blessing and eating the bread, or in Passover's case matzah, on our tables.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz.
Blessed is the Oneness who brings forth bread from the earth.
MATZAH: Blessing over the Matzah
We are finally at the moment of starting the meal… with the blessing over the matzah! Known as “the bread of affliction,” matzah symbolizes the sustenance the Israelites' made in their haste to flee Egypt.
Baking matzah involves all four natural elements: earth, air, water, fire. While matzah doesn't rise the way that our usual Shabbat challah does, the cracker-like matzah that we eat today isn't exactly the bread that our ancestors were eating during the Exodus It is more likely that the matzah they ate was soft, more akin to a pita than a cracker. In fact, certain communities from Libya to Yemen, Ethiopia to Syria, enjoy soft-er matzah at their Seder influenced by local cuisines. As you bless and then eat your matzah, consider that this ancient, basic item still holds the influence of our local communities As you eat, consider what members of your community had to come together for this matzah to make it to your table?
Blessed is the Oneness who makes us holy through our actions as we eat matzah.
MAROR: Bitter Herbs
As we are expected to experience our ancestors' journey from slavery to freedom during this meal, we taste the bitter herbs, maror, so we can truly savor freedom. The bitterness stands in relief against the sweetness of the wine and charoset and the blandness of the matzah. Bitter herbs also symbolize the coming spring, awakening our taste buds, noses, and other senses to the renewal of life that is coming. While some people use horseradish as their maror, others use romaine lettuce, celery, endive, or radicchio. To dampen the bitterness of the maror, we dip it in the charoset to bring some sweetness to the bite.
Blessed is the Oneness who makes us holy through our actions as we eat bitter herbs.
KORECH: The Hillel Sandwich
During this part of the Seder, we construct and eat the “Hillel Sandwich,” which combines the sweetness of charoset and the bitterness of the maror with matzah the bread of affliction and of freedom. Combining all these elements at this junction in the meal represents our transition from slavery to freedom, combining the bitter with the sweet, the narrow with the expansive.
SHULCHAN ORECH:
Time to Eat!
Enjoy the remaining symbolic foods on the Seder plate and the meal, symbolically (and literally) knowing you are free.
TZAFUN: Afikomen as Dessert
“Tzafun” means “hidden,” as this is the point in the meal when we bring back out or find the broken half piece of the middle matzah that we put away at the start of the meal (the afikomen). If you hid the afikomen, now's the time to send your guests off to locate it. Don't forget to reward them for their efforts!
“Afikomen” means “dessert” in Greek, as the Seder is actually modeled off a Greek symposium a banquet with drinking, discussion, a festive meal, and reclining. As we eat yet another piece of matzah as the dessert of our meal, we are symbolically joining our meal from the beginning of the Seder to the end, completing the journey from slavery to freedom We set aside this piece of matzah, knowing that we would be able to savor it later with the taste of freedom, so it would taste sweet just as dessert is meant to be. Metaphorically, this part of the Seder brings together the parts of ourselves that are free with the parts of ourselves that are enslaved, the parts that are out in the open with the parts that are concealed.
As you savor this last bite of matzah of the meal, how might you bring the taste of freedom with you into the rest of the Spring? How might you reveal more frequently the parts of yourself which you keep concealed?
BARECH: Gratitude + Elijah's Cup
As always, we end our meal with gratitude for feeling full and satisfied.
Brich rachamana malka d’alma marei d’hai
pita.
We are blessed with compassion by the Oneness that sustains us with bread.
This is when the third glass of wine is typically enjoyed, so your glass is refilled and blessed again.
The fourth glass of wine is then poured as we welcome Elijah to our table. Like a Jewish Santa Claus, Elijah is rumored to visit the home of each Seder and drink the glass of wine left for him (we also prefer wine to cookies and milk). Elijah is truly a fascinating figure in Jewish culture, he has morphed throughout Jewish history and time to show up in the most random places. Elijah is one of only two figures in the Hebrew Bible that doesn't die. We read in the book of Second Kings that he's actually taken up to heaven alive in a chariot of fire. Though he's not far from the Earth, as he regularly visits during havdalah (the ceremony that signifies the end of Shabbat), brit milah (when a male Jewish baby is circumcised on his eighth day), and during the Passover Seder. Folks often open the door for Elijah at this point in the Seder so he can be welcomed in with song and drink his glass of wine.
HALLEL: More Thanks
Hallel is the moment in the Seder where we express gratitude and praise for the conclusion of the story of Exodus: the freedom of the Israelites.
As the Seder asks us to imagine ourselves as if we were slaves in Egypt, this is the moment for us to express gratitude for a free and full life. While Hallel is traditionally expressed with Hebrew Psalms, songs, and piyyutim, liturgical poetry, the first time we see a song of praise for freedom is actually found within the story of the Exodus itself: the song of Miriam, Moses's sister, after the splitting of the Sea of Reeds
This is also the time for the fourth glass of wine, by now you might be feeling appropriately… loose... so feel free to take a symbolic sip, skip it, or go for it
Inspired by Miriam, perhaps this is the moment in your Seder for a dance party. Break out your timbrels (okay... maybe you have a hand drum, marraca, or tambourine), you can even just use the table or a utensil against your fourth glass of wine to bang out a beat. Give thanks with your feet, hands, voice, and heart for the meal you just had, the experience of the Seder, and freedom in all its forms. If you're looking for some inspiration, Debbie Friedman's "Miriam's Song” is always a good time.
NIRTZAH: The End
Next Year in Peace.
Traditionally, we end the Seder by saying "B'Shana Haba'ah b'Yerushalayim" or "Next Year in Jerusalem." This phrase has a number of interpretations, from the metaphorical Jerusalem which represents wholeness, peace, and serenity, to considering the completion of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt to Israel, to longing for the time when the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt
We hope for next year in peace, wherever it may find us.
