Dear Congregation Beth Ohr,
Perhaps, like me, you have a constant mental checklist running at the moment, of all of the things that have to be done before Pesah! Take a deep breath, sit down for a minute: no matter how much we do (or don’t do), the holiday will start tonight, and everything will be fine.
We are hosting a seder in our home for the second night, and we still have some room to welcome guests from the community. If you would like to join us Saturday night, please let me know before Shabbes, or speak to me at services tomorrow morning. There’s a song that helps us remember the order of the seder, which makes excellent background listening for those last minutes of preparation today:
CLICK HERE to listen to Kadesh Urhatz
Text: paraliturgical
Music: ancient melody of unknown (Babylonian?) origin
Recorded by Cantor Sarah Myerson (voice, accordion, banjolele)
kadesh, we sanctify the act of drinking wine (or grape juice)
urhatz, we wash our hands
karpas, we dip green vegetables in salt water
yahatz, we break the middle matzah
magid, we tell the Pesach story
rohtza, we wash our hands again
motzi matzah, we eat matzah!
maror, we eat bitter herbs
korekh, we eat a sandwich of matzah and maror
shulhan orekh, we eat the main meal
tzafun, the search for the afikomen, our special desert
barekh, the blessing after the meal
hallel, we chant psalms praising God
nirtzah, we conclude with festive songs
When I was 16 years old, I started working at my synagogue Hebrew school. We had just engaged a particularly musical rabbi who could accompany himself on the piano. When he led the kids in the above song during the Hebrew school community singing session, with piano accompaniment, my jaw dropped. I had been singing Kadesh Urhats all of my childhood, and not until that moment did I realize it was in a major mode. It’s not that I thought it was in minor, or some other musical mode. I just hadn't thought about what musical mode it was, I hadn’t thought about the melody in that way.
Ever since then, I have loved this melody, because it now sounds so sweet and rich in my mind’s ear. This is how I feel about learning. There is so much that we know but don’t think about, and then something happens to spark a deeper appreciation of what we thought we already knew. May we be so blessed during our sedarim this weekend, to be open to that spark of learning, from wherever it may come.
Shabbat Shalom and Hag Pesah Sameah,
Cantor Sarah Myerson
