KAVANNAH (Intention): Nisan

During Pesah, we read the history of our people's Exodus from Egypt. In our haggadot, we retell the miraculous story of God's parting of the Red Sea and the Israelites' escape before the Sea closed. We remember our ancestors who helped lead us to freedom, particularly Moses and Miriam. On our Seder plates, we find symbols of our rebirth: – karpas (the parsley) and beitzah (the egg).

Pesah is a holiday which celebrates our freedom from oppression, our opportunity to renew ourselves as a people. After the Israelites were freed from bondage, and began their journey toward the Promised Land, we were able to receive God's Laws and Commandments. Only after we were freed from oppression were we able to become a people – a people with our own Torah.

It is very appropriate that the holiday of our people's liberation should come in the month of Nisan. In the first month, we received freedom. And during our years of wandering in the desert, we developed a Jewish identity and a Jewish nation. Pesah is the time when we celebrate our freedom and fulfill the commandment that we say each Shabbat as we recite the Kiddush:

Zecher litziyat mitzrayim
Remember the exodus from the land of Egypt

Though our celebration of our rebirth as a people is a happy one, we remember the oppression that our people suffered in slavery. In addition to Pesah, the month of Nisan also has another holiday which reminds us of the terrible oppression that our people suffered because they were Jews. On the 27th of the month, we observe a solemn day, Yom Ha Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. This modern day of remembrance, which was added to our calendar after the horrors of the Shoah, is a somber reminder that our people has been oppressed in very recent times.

During the month of Nisan, we remember our miraculous exodus and the beginning of our people's identity as a nation. But we cannot forget the oppression that the Israelites suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. We also remember the horrors that the European Jews of our own times suffered only because they were Jews.

May God bless the people Israel as we enter into a new calendar. May we remember the strength and courage which our people have shown many times throughout history. May we be strengthened by the courage and determination of our ancestors and their will to live and pass on their traditions.

– Jessica Zimmerman, Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow

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