How a Quarantined Seder Can Become the Most Liberating Pesach in History

Rabbi Simon Jacobson launches a new 15-step Seder video series: A soulful and musical journey of healing and transformation

As we remain quarantined in our homes, with a plague raging in the streets, everyone is wondering how can we celebrate the “time of our liberation” under such duress, fear and upheaval?

Enter Rabbi Simon Jacobson with an incredible initiative. Just in time for Pesach, Rabbi Jacobson launched a moving new 15-step Seder video series: A soulful and musical journey of healing and transformation — which translates the 15 steps of the Seder into a method to free ourselves emotionally and psychologically from our present crisis, and become greater people in the process. 

The videos in this 15-step journey — which are accompanied by a downloadable Seder companion guide — go through each of the 15 steps of the Seder (for Kadesh to Nirtzah), and in pointed and succinct fashion, coupled with beautiful Seder melodies sung by Cantors Shlomo Simcha and Yaakov Motzen, present how every step offers us tools to free ourselves from the “mitzrayim” — the fears, uncertainties and challenges — of our time.

Says Rabbi Jacobson, “Healing is on two levels. Just as our bodies need physical healing today, so too do our souls. The Passover Seder is a 3332-year proven formula for all forms of emotional and spiritual healing — building up our morale, hope and courage — so necessary today. Indeed, demoralization and fear can in many ways be even more debilitating than the virus itself.” 

Passover has never been more relevant than it is this year. This 15-step journey helps us achieve like never before the words of Hei Lachma Anya, the famous preface to the Haggadah:  Kol Dichfin Yetzei v’Yechol, all who are hungry, let them come and eat? Kol Ditzrich Yeitzei v’Yifsach, all who are in need should come to celebrate Pesach with us? 

Throughout all of history we were never able to invite all the hungry to join in our Seder. This year, due ironically to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have the unprecedented opportunity to invite to the Seder all Jews, including the proverbial “fifth child” who never before showed up to a Seder.

Today, as our outer lives have been upended, And we are locked down, Jews everywhere have never been as receptive. 

“This is a tremendous opportunity to reach virtually millions of Jews who would otherwise have no way of experiencing a meaningful Seder,” said Rabbi Yanki Fellig of Chabad of Coconut Grove. “I plan on sending this out to thousands of my constituents and contacts. It needs to go viral.”

This year we have the ability to create the most liberating Pesach Seder in all of history. The quarantine compels us to dig deeper and discover the powerful liberating forces unleashed by the Seder. The global crisis has opened up people’s hearts and souls. Let’s ensure that this year all 16 million Jews celebrate 1 Seder together!

To invite every single Jew to the Seder, and fulfil the words of Hei Lachma Anya, we encourage everyone to share this powerful 15-step Seder experience with at least 10 people who may otherwise not have known how to perform the Seder.

Please go to meaningfullife.com/seder15 to access the 15-Step Seder Journey video plus a downloadable companion Seder guide.

In the merit of our bringing spiritual healing to so many , may all who need physical healing have a complete and speedy recovery, and may this virus be eradicated forever from our midst.