This is the night for love

If I invited you to do a Jewish program for Passover — and asked you to please bring a mattress, a bottle of wine, and some kind of aphrodisiac — you would probably look at me askance. Maybe even consider having me investigated.

But what do we do on Passover Seder night? We drink 4 glasses of wine, recline on pillows, and eat everyone’s favorite “aphrodisiac” — charoset — which is made from apples, wine, and nuts — the ingredients mentioned in the Song of Songs, the love song of the Bible.

It would have been so easy to create a simple Haggadah recounting the sudden and miraculous exodus from Egypt — quoting the appropriate verses and simply retelling the story. But those who invented the Haggadah apparently had something else in mind. They didn’t want us to present an historical recounting of what happened. And they didn’t want us just to “relive” it sensually — by eating the bread of affliction, tasting the bitter herbs, and drinking to our redemption.

There is something more going on here.

More than “re-live” the exodus, they wanted us to “re-love” it.

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