Passover
Freedom may be defined as the right to ask questions.
Passover 2024: April 22- April 30.
This is where it all began, when a family of tribes became a nation of people, when a body of slaves became a soul of freedom. Some people have an exit strategy; we have an exodus strategy. Freedom requires the removal of all ego. Then, you can sit down to the Seder, eat the matzo, drink the four cups of wine, and tell the story of your journey. We are all children and we all ask questions. There is a Seder plate and there are fifteen steps to the journey. These steps aren’t measured by their number but by their infinity. This is what it means to be a free people.
Passover Seder Guide: FREE DOWNLOAD
Passover in the Age of Corona: 15 Step Soulful and Musical Journey through the Seder
How to Host a Passover Seder
My Omer: 49 Steps to Personal Refinement
Seder Guide – 15 Steps to Personal Freedom
The Passover Seder is a 15-step process from slavery to freedom. This year, make your Seder personally relevant and transformational with the 15 Steps to Personal Freedom Seder Guide. Download this magnificently designed, easy-to-use, practical guide now!
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15 Step Soulful and Musical Journey
As we remain quarantined in our homes, with a plague raging in the streets, how can we utilize the Passover Seder as a method to free ourselves emotionally and psychologically from our present crisis, and become greater people in the process? Take the journey and experience Pesach like never before.
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The Spiritual Difference Between Bread and Matzah Told in Three Minutes
Bread and matzah (the unleavened bread eaten by Jews on the holiday of Passover) are both made from flour and water — so why are they so different?
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The Spiritual Difference Between Bread and Matzah Told in Three Minutes
Bread and matzah (the unleavened bread eaten by Jews on the holiday of Passover) are both made from flour and water — so why are they so different?
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Passover: The Exodus Strategy
Join Rabbi Simon Jacobson for this special Passover program and discover a five-step strategy that will allow you to free yourself from any of your fears and obstacles, empowering you, once and for all, to spread your wings and release your great potential.
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Protection from Evil: Pre-Passover Workshop
Join Rabbi Simon Jacobson weekly podcast at 8:30pm every Wednesday as he examines life and offers a comprehensive blueprint of the human psyche. Discover how to live a truly happy and meaningful life by using your divine gifts and wisdom to reach your highest potential.
*Enjoy MP3 recordings of this podcast when you become a free member at www.meaningfullife.com/join.
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How to Host Your First Passover Seder (or Your First Great One)
Discover in this program methods and tips to creating an unforgettable experience, which will empower all with sustainable tools to free themselves emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.
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Blood, Fire and Pillars of Smoke: 3 More Vital Secrets for Today — Pre-Passover Workshop
Rabbi Jacobson deciphers a cryptic phrase in the Passover Haggadah — “blood and fire and pillars of smoke” — and applies it to our lives today.
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Do You Know How to Renew Yourself? – Post-Passover Workshop
Discover within ourselves new reservoirs of strength and energy, allowing us to refresh and renew our lives and relationships at any given moment.
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The Seder — The First Therapeutic Model: Pre-Passover Workshop
Turn the Passover Seder into an exhilarating journey into your inner workings, and transform yourself and your relationships.
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Can I Extend the Magic of Passover All Year Round? Post-Passover Workshop
A post-Passover workshop and learn how to peer “under the hood” to check your inner material and spiritual workings.
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The Original 15 Step Program to Freedom
Uncover the profoundly relevant psychological and emotional blueprint that is the Passover Seder. Discover the steps to free yourself from your inhibitions.
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Are You Waiting For a Miracle?
Analyze the components of a miracle and discover how we have the power to create miracles by uncovering the hidden magic within us and everything around us.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week One
After leaving Egypt the people had to traverse the desert for 49 days until they were ready to reach the purpose of their Exodus – receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. This 49-day process is the key to true freedom.
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The Great Shabbat
A great miracle happened on this Shabbat a few days preceding the Egyptian Exodus. There are various opinions as to the nature of this great miracle.
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All This Talk About Man
Learn about the different levels of the world, allowing space for human existence in a world created and governed by an infinite G/d.
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Between a Rock and a Hard Place
When confronted with a challenge, the best approach to overcome it is to keep moving forward.
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The Seder Plate: A Microcosm of Your Psyche
The Seder plate serves as a reflection of both your purpose in life and your greatest potential, and contains in its structure multiple layers of symbolism.
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Four Steps to Freedom
There are four steps that G-d used to take His nation out of slavery in Egypt, mirroring the four steps necessary to achieve freedom today.
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Religion and Refinement
The contrast of a person being so devout on one hand, while being so coarse on another, is terribly unnerving.
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Your Seven Emotions
In the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, there is a map of the emotions. It’s a map that divides the emotions into seven categories, seven particular attributes and faculties.
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A Door Into the Unconscious
The spiritual meaning of a tsunami. Understand the spiritual contrast between land and sea. An educated look at natural disasters.
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Passover: From Boredom To Freedom
Using Torah thought to personalize the Seder experience on Pesach, rendering it into a powerful psychological/spiritual journey into our own hearts & souls.
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The Great Shabbat
We don’t really know when and where the “Great Shabbat” got its name. The history of Shabbat HaGadol and its name seems to be muddled, almost intentionally, in obscurity.
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Passover: Faith and Flesh
Did you hear about Israel’s latest plan to polish its image for the American public? Girls. Yes, you heard that right….
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Shemini: When War is Peace
As Israel reels from the Passover massacres and has since declared war against terrorism, there is much we can learn from Passover: The first Jewish victory…
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Passover: Our Calling
Rabbi Jacobson responds to a challenging letter which poses the question: How do we respond to the ‘clash of civilizations’ in the Middle East today?
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Agricultural Man: Shavuot and Wheat
Each holiday marks the soul’s growth from a tiny seed to a sprouting shoot to a bountiful harvest.
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On the Essence of Leadership
As Moses leads the Song of the Sea after the Jews escape the Egyptians, he demonstrates true leadership, for within Moses the soul of Israel was one.
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The Taste of Matzah
Matzah is the food of the redemption. Three matzah crackers sit on the seder table during Passover as a reminder of the Exodus.
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The Fifth Dimension
The laws regarding leavened bread on Passover are much more stringent than those dealing with other foods as this food has significant intrinsic meaning.
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Beyond Paradise
A story about the Baal Shem Tov and his quest to reach the Holy Land, his nearly failed Passover, and the stranger who changed everything.
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Eight Times Eight
A discussion about the Torah portion of Shemini, which literally translates to “Eighth,” and the number which signifies a dimension beyond nature.
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From Bondage to Servitude
How can setting aside our own reason lead to greater wisdom? Can subjugating our passions and desires yield a feeling of freedom and liberty?
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Miriam’s Song
Learn the spiritual meaning of Miriam’s Song, at the Exodus from Egypt. Based on an address by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Two
The second week of counting the Omer corresponds to the emotional attribute of gevurah, discipline or justice.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Three
During the third week of Counting the Omer, we examine the emotional attribute of Tiferet or compassion.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Four
During the fourth week of counting the Omer, we examine and refine the emotional attribute of endurance known as Netzach.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Five
During the fifth week of counting the Omer, we examine and refine the emotional attribute of Hod or humility.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Six
During the sixth week of counting the Omer, we examine and refine the emotional attribute of Yesod or bonding.
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Your Guide to Personal Freedom Counting the Omer: Week Seven
During the seventh and final week of counting the Omer, we examine and refine the attribute of Malchut – nobility, sovereignty and leadership.
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Why Midnight?
At midnight of Nissan 15th, 2448 (1313 bce), G-d broke the last manacle of Egyptian bondage by killing all Egyptian firstborn, and the nation of Israel was born as a free people. Why midnight?
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Wet Matzah
Prohibitions of chametz on Passover reflect G-d’s utter abhorrence of arrogance and pride.
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Walls of Water
A spiritual, Chassidic, Kabbalistic discussion of the splitting of the sea.
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Vital Fluids
G-d gave the Israelites two commandments—the mitzvah of circumcision and the mitzvah of korban pesach (the Passover offering)—so that they should merit the redemption.
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There and Here
In Egypt, G-d accepted every Jew as he was, despite his moral and spiritual station; there was, however, one condition: one had to desire freedom in order to deserve it.
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Then and Now
The Passover experience, then and now. Then: We had a spiritual experience. Now: We are ready for redemption.
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The Vegetarian Era
The spiritual symbolism of maror on the seder plate, as well as a commentary on abstaining from meat and eating vegetable matter.
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The Third Seder
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement, instituted the custom of partaking of “Moshiach’s Feast”—a mirror seder of sorts that includes matzah and wine—on the afternoon of the eighth day of Passover.
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The Real G-d
The real me, and the real you, are exposed when we are actively engaged in activities that better the lives of others and enrich our society.
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The Question of Freedom
Young children begin the Passover Seder by asking the Four Questions. A look beneath the surface of this custom.
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The Original 15 Step Program
The Seder is a profound mosaic that provides us with the keys to open the doors of freedom on Passover Eve.
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The Muddy Path
This, explain the Chassidic masters, is the spiritual significance of the “splitting of the sea.”
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The Mountain and the Sea
When the Jew is headed towards Sinai and is confronted with a hostile or indifferent world, his response must be to go forward.
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The Journey
Counting the Omer: Beginning with the second night of Passover, we count the days traversed from the Exodus, chronicling the milestones and stations of our journey of self-refinement.
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The Great Shabbat
Spiritual explanation: The Shabbat before Passover is called “The Great Shabbat” (Shabbat HaGadol), because a great miracle occurred on that day.
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The Frog in the Oven
A spiritual explanation of the symbolism of the plague of frogs during the final days before the Exodus from Egypt.
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The Freedom To Passover
The Hebrew word for “Egypt,” mitzrayim, means “boundaries,” and the endeavor to free ourselves from yesterday’s boundaries is a perpetual one.
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The Festival of the Child
It is the child who opens our eyes to the ultimate significance of Passover: that in taking us out of Egypt to make us his chosen people, G-d has liberated us of all enslavement and subjugation for all time.
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The Emancipation of G-d
The essence of Passover is to tell your child the story of the Exodus from Egypt, even if your child is antagonistic or not interested.
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The Coiled Spring
The spiritual winter of Egypt was now shown to have harbored and nurtured the Jewish soul below its frozen surface, just waiting for spring.
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The Candlelit Search
The search took all night, though Rabbi Schneur Zalman and his wife lived in a single room at the time.
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Speed In Three Dimensions
The haste of Passover emphasizes that life, for the Jew, is never again to be the passive and static experience it was for the clan of Hebrew slaves under Egyptian bondage.
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Passovering Time
In the closing hours of Passover, we enter into the world of Moshiach: having vaulted over millennia of past, we now surmount the blank wall of future, to taste the matzah and wine of redemption.
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Passover Greeting
Passover is the original fifteen step program to achieve growth and freedom. Every ritual at the seder is meant to open a channel connecting your inner and outer life.
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Dealing with Adversity
Instead of being paralyzed by doubt, FORGE AHEAD. Movement is the key to success.
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Atmosphere
Why Jewish customs matter for parenting Jewish children, as shown through the Passover seder.
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A Talmudic Mind
A poor woman sent to ask if she could use milk for the Four Cups; obviously, then, she could afford neither wine nor meat for her seder table.
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A Speck of Flour: Flour in the Torah
An in-depth and spiritual discussion about flour in the Torah.
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A Moment’s Harvest: Fruit Trees
Our sages relate that when the Red Sea split for the Jewish people, fruit-bearing trees grew from the sea bed; the children picked the fruit off these trees and fed them to the birds, who joined the Jewish people in their singing of praise to the Almighty.
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The Soul of Evil
When you learn this secret about the soul of evil, no evil will ever defeat you. When you learn this secret, you and your people will be free. Read Kabbalistic secrets to overcoming forces of evil.
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Tzav Passover: Money and Spirituality Part V
Wealth without its spirit, is the world in which we live in today. Wealth with its spirit is the economy of tomorrow.
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Pesach: Do You Believe in Miracles
The Baal Shem Tov offers us a novel interpretation of a miracle, and in the process turns the entire concept on its head. We learn how each of us can recognize – and create – miracles in our lives.
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Passover: Steve Jobs and Passover
The iPad mania reflects the design and marketing genius of Steve Jobs and his gifted team. But it also reveals the gaping vacuum in our lack of spiritual visionaries.
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Pesach: Celestial Passover
The Jewish calendar is regulated by the lunar cycles. We count by and are compared to the humble moon. But once every 28 years we are reminded to recognize the source from whence the moon receives its light.
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15 Ways to Invigorate Your Seder
Plumb the rich spiritual resources of Torah thought which personalize the Seder experience, rendering it into a powerful psychological/spiritual journey into our own hearts and souls – a Seder experience as it was always meant to be.
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Emor: Eloquence
The Hebrew calendar’s technical and spiritual dimensions are analyzed with respect to the counting of the Omer period between Passover and Shavuot.
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Father: I Will Ask You
Rabbi Jacobson tells a story about his own Passover growing up, intertwined with a discussion about the four questions and the experience of life.
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Vayikra: The Tzaddik
Based on the insight of the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe Rashab, the concept of a true tzaddik is explored in the context of the nature of this world.
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Passover: Back to Egypt
Reflections on a Puerto Rican Passover, the slavery of excessive freedom, and the search for the Divine inner light.
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Acharei: How Is This Night Different
In order to spiritually prepare for the Seder, one should ask himself a series of questions related to the four questions recited from the Haggada.
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Metzora: Beyond Paradox
In order to fully grasp the truth of this world, one must embrace both the orderliness of life and its paradoxes.
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Tazria: Divine Wrath
Understanding the apparent abundance of violence and anger in the Torah requires one to gain deeper insight into its literal and symbolic dimensions.
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Acharei Kedoshim: Transitions and Premonitions
A personal story about a man standing on the edge of the spiritual world is shared, followed by an examination of both spiritual and physical dimensions.
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Shemini: Religious Selfishness
Using personal anecdotes, Rabbi Jacobson explores of the side effects of practicing religion by rote, and the beauty of a true “religious” experience.
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Passover: The Slavery of Freedom
While hardship and lack of material prosperity are challenging, the opposites – freedom, ease, and wealth – beget soul-numbing complacency.
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Kedoshim: West of Eden
The present issues in the world are sourced in longstanding religious and metaphysical conflicts which revolve around the physical and figurative Babylon.
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Metzorah: In Search of Eden
The continued presence of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and particularly the Euphrates, indicates the ongoing presence of the Garden of Eden in this world.
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Tazriah: The River Euphrates
The Euphrates River has seen the rise and fall of man many times over, and plays a significant role in the ultimate redemption.
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Purim 2: Shushan War
Part two of the previous week’s article, “Purim: Connect the Dots,” continues to explore the significance of current conflict in light of historical events.
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