The most widely read, beloved, and perplexing book of the Jewish tradition.

A desire to see wicked nations punished is bound up in the belief in a just and providential God.

Not willfulness, but freedom for excellence.

A communal, and often political, ritual that was commonplace for a few decades.

Egypt and Bergen-Belsen.

A poem.

“Soldiers in Hawaii had fresh pineapple for dessert. Kashrut was a secondary concern.”

The book read today would be unrecognizable to the ancient Jews who first devised the home ritual of the seder.