Please join us for our annual Shabbat HaGadol shiur, taught by Rabbi Finkelstein: "Why Pesach?" Babysitting will be provided during the shiur.

Though every year at the seder we ask, “why is this night different from all other nights,” this year feels truly different. 134 hostages remain in Gaza and their seats will be empty at the Seder table. Hundreds more families in Israel will celebrate Pesach for the first time without loved ones. As the war continues, our diaspora Jewish community feels threatened by isolation, antisemitism, and strife.

On Shabbat Ha’Gadol [the Shabbat before Pesach], we will consider our present moment in Jewish history and explore a question fundamental to Pesach but often unasked: Why Pesach? Why was the exodus from Egypt an essential part of the covenant with Avraham to begin with?

To answer this question, we will go back to the very beginning of Jewish people, when God appeared to Avraham and said (Breishit 15:13): “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed”. We will study other examples of Pesach in Breishit, rabbinic interpretations and contemporary perspectives as well. Together, we will explore the beginnings of the Jewish story as we navigate the current chapter and our place within it.

 
The Shabbat HaGadol Shiur is endowed in memory of Dr. Leonard Kranzler, a”h.