The Passover story

My dear Friends

On Tuesday night I had a beautiful experience. I celebrated Seder night (the Passover story) with 2 Jewish women friends of mine, mother and daughter. There is something very special about an all-women Seder and indeed a special grace was working.

Jane, the daughter, had ordered some unusual matsot (unleavened bread) -they were huge and round and had come all the way from Israel. She had also made a beautiful cake for dessert.

We started by Irene (the mother) lighting the candles in a special holder carved by an elderly Jewish friend and she said the Festival blessing. Then we proceeded with the liturgy, centred round the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea. With the cups of wine we celebrated going from slavery to freedom, darkness to light, bondage to redemption.

Interwoven with the proceedings were the ritual foods, the bitter herbs to commemorate the bitterness the Israelites experienced in Egypt, the charoseth to represent the bricks and mortar that the Israelites were forced to build cities with and the roasted egg and shankbone to represent the lamb which was roasted before their departure from Egypt.

Interspersed in all this was the Jewish music which I sang, drawing from my childhood memory in London and Glasgow when there would be fourteen people round the table, from different Jewish traditions.

The Exodus story and its story of redemption is an essential part of the history of salvation, mirroring Christ's death on the cross and his Resurrection which we celebrate this weekend.As we go through the shadow of the cross, may we come into the joy of new life.

Shalom from
Sister Gila