The haggadah is filled with fours.  Rabbi David Seidenberg explains that the secret of all these fours is in the transformation of each symbol or motif from a symbol of slavery into a symbol of freedom. For example, he points out, matzah appears first in our haggadah as a symbol of slavery (poor bread) but becomes a symbol of redemption when we ask:  “For what reason do we eat matzah? Because our ancestors didn’t have time to let the dough rise…” Matzah later represents the bread of political freedom eaten when the Temple was still standing when we make it into a Hillel sandwich.  Finally, matzah represents, as the afikoman, the hidden part,  the missing piece that completes the whole.  This last, he points out, is the bread that we will eat when Messiah comes.

Passover, like Yom Kippur, offers us so many chances to transform ourselves.  What has enslaved us; what can free us?  How can we become whole, and healed?

Hag sameach!

Rabbi Barbara