Pyramid Scheme

Melanie Gruenwald

There are two basic ways to approach the holiday of Passover:

External: The Passover reenactment is about what happened to others from another time and place.
Internal: The Passover story is a conceit for looking at what enslaves you in your life today.

The traditional Passover Seder is an “as if” experiment. Participants are asked to feel the weight of slavery’s oppression and the ensuing freedom of liberation by imagining themselves enslaved in Egypt and (finally) their emancipation. This turns into an exercise in empathy—to feel both despair and exhilaration for others and for ourselves—cultivating further our sense of acceptance and gratitude for life with its challenges and opportunities. .

The approach taken for a Kabbalah seder is contemplative rather than imaginal. While slavery was , and sadly still is, a gaping wound in human consciousness, we take this opportunity entering spring to examine the myriad internal taskmasters that keep us chained to a past that no longer serves us. This includes the chains of habit, procrastination, resentment, risk aversion and a victim mentality. How do we Pass Over these propensities so they don’t continue to plague us?

Please find attached a revised edition of the Haggadah (the guide for using ritual to freeing oneself). Its purpose is to provide a model for our meditative work on internal taskmasters. It is provided in both PDF and Word format (allowing for you to change the wording to fit your sensibilities and circumstances).

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Pass Over to Freedom
A Spiritual Journey