It’s Passover, that wonderful holiday that combines story-telling, liberation, and sacred crackers.

Passover commemorates the liberation of the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt, and marks an opportunity for all to be mindful of the as yet unfulfilled redemption of all slaves. Slavery is too much with us in the modern world. In fact, according to Rabbis for Human Rights, 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world, more than at any other time in human history. Kevin Bales, founder of Free the Slaves, speaks on the problem at TED2010 and offers a simple question: Are we willing to live in a world with slavery?

This year, during the Jewish Feast of Freedom, we must acknowledge this tragedy and work to end it. Here are some things you can do:

Visit the Rabbis For Human Rights page and Act Now to Combat Slavery

Contact your elected leaders

Work hard this year to eliminate from the marketplace at least one product produced by slave labor, whether it be electronics, carpets, or even tomatoes.

Know where your dollars are going and direct them to responsible producers and away from those who profit by destroying the lives of others (pdf report).

If you want to include any of these issues in your seder, you can download a variety of Pesach materials here.

And of course, buy fair trade. I recommend Mirembe Kawomera Coffee, from the inspiring interfaith coffee cooperative in Uganda.

Thank you to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of CBST for bringing my attention to so many resources.

I hope, in spite of the news that a U.S. citizen posed as a Jew in order to case the Chabad House in Mumbai for the terrorists who murdered Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah that Jewish outreach organizations around the world will keep their doors open for all in spiritual or practical need when they are far from home.

An important moment in the narrative of the Jewish people comes at Genesis 18, when three strangers come to Abraham (they are, apparently the Lord and two angels) and Abraham, in spite of the heat of the midday sun, shows them hospitality. Three strangers to old Abraham and old Sarah in the desert. They were certainly vulnerable and these strangers could have been anyone–nomadic bandits or cattle raiders or any kind of terror, but, before knowing who they were, Abraham bowed to them, made himself vulnerable to them, and for that, he was blessed.

I believe there is great power in opening the doors, in making ourselves vulnerable. As the Mumbai terrorists have shown, the consequences can  be truly terrible, but I do hope that brave souls will continue to fling open to doors to Jewish life and Jewish institutions around the world, in spite of the risks. Some who walk through the doors will be enemies, some will be friends. You never know when one will be angel.

And because our world so badly needs some peace, here is a lovely video of Oseh Shalom, a celebration of “He who makes peace.”

I have no idea what what the dolphins and fish are about, but still, who doesn’t love dolphins?

…it doesn’t matter whether God is a benevolent father looking down on us all, or a delusion of the mind. It doesn’t matter whether the Exodus happened or not. What matters is that we possess technology that can transform the self, open the mind, unite a community, motivate ethical action and bring forth tears when your heart is broken. Before you light candles, you’re thinking of your mortgage; afterward, you’re thinking of your kids, or the meaning of life, or something else that actually matters. That’s what counts. Of course, if the Passover story, or the Yom Kippur myth, helps you do those things, great. If not, drop them. It’s the transformation, not the myth, that matters.

I am drawn to this idea that Jewish ritual provides a set of tools for transformation, a time-tested set of tools that has built a civilization in which are contained countless ideas and worldviews, and which has seen the rise and fall of many different creeds and many more nations. The reason generation after generation has carried on Judaism and constantly sought its renewal–from the Hasidim to the Reconstructionists–is that this set of practices might just work.

One can find spiritual power in a sunset, one can build a community around The Jonas Brothers, one can base an ethical world view off the collected works of John Steinbeck, but for durable tools to do any or all of these things, Jewish practice (however you build it) has proven quite effective at doing all of these things for quite a long time under a lot of different conditions. The Orthodox believe Torah and Jewish ritual have value because they are the word of God. That works for them. I believe it has value because it works for the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox alike. It provides a set of principles and practices that reflect the best of humanity and certainly inspired other great religious traditions. It does not lay sole claim to the truth, and is not the only path to “the good life.” But it is a good path to the good life.

Rooting Jewishness in a living Torah–a living, evolving, and useful spiritual practice–not only ensures the continued survival of Judaism, but uproots it from the troublesome ethnic chauvinism that cuts African and African-American Jews out of the picture, that devalues Sephardic traditions, and it cuts through the nationalist politics of Zionism that too often value F-18s over ethics. The ritual are a set of tools, a spiritual technology that, when applied, serves a variety of functions, both social and personal. It is adaptable, upgradable, expandable, and people are always tinkering with it, finding new and unexpected uses. Even better, it’s Open Source. Anyone can study it and engage with it. In fact, that’s a requirement. In that way it’s more like Linux that Mac OS X.

This isn’t all New-Agey nonsense. Look to the year 622 BCE, when Josiah declared the discovery of the Law Moses had recieved, the Book of Deuteronomy. It was then that Judaism went from an oral tradition to one of written laws. Many at the time feared that codifying the relgion into the written word would destroy it, would turn the text into an idol, that the scribes would inevitably corrupt the word of God or that the dynamism of the Israelite religion would be lost. Writing the Torah was a revolutionary act, just as, a century later, Ezra the scribe would revolutionize Judaism again by making the Torah the center of the religion, rather than the Temple, and just as assimilated German Jews and scholarly Polish Jews would revolutionize it again in the Mid-18th century in their own ways. Each of these acts was transformative, revolutionary, and hotly contested. Judaism has never been only one thing, and has constantly sought to reinvent itself for the times. Seeking out the why behind the ritual is part of Jewish tradition since the beginning, and this sort of questioning makes the religion live. If American Jews can be exposed to the phenomenal utility of Jewish ritual, perhaps even the most secular, assimilated among us can find their place in the continuum of Jewish life.

Today there are around 600 million Pentecostals worldwide, the vast majority of them in developing nations, and Africa is a hotbed. Pentecostalism is not so much an organized religion — it has no central authority — as a set of beliefs and practices that can be adapted by local entrepreneurs. It is perfectly suited to harness the modern forces of global crosspollination.

The article explores the global ambition of movements like the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God which seek to break all national, racial, and ethnic boundaries to ensure that “the church will one day claim an adherent in every family on earth.”

Compare this with the also rapid growth of the indigenous Jewish community in Africa, emanating from Uganda, but growing in Nigeria and South Africa (not to be confused with the African-American Jewish community, which is also growing). The largest number of converts to Judaism, Rabbi Bradley Artson of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies notes, come from the 7th Day Adventists. While the Christian iteration of rapid religious growth in Africa has growth as its goal, the Jewish version has no stated goal, like Judaism everywhere, does not seek converts, and seeks only the resources to sustain itself. If the passionate, conservative, and wealthy Christian movement in Africa reflects the future of global Christianity, then perhaps the evolving, and growing, Judaism of the Abayudaya of Uganda reflects the most sustainable form of Judaism, being deeply committed to interfaith cooperation and mutual respect for all faiths. This model of Jewish living, non-nationalistic, committed to Torah, but by no means dogmatic, might just provide the tools for an awakening among disenfranchised Jews in America, if its lessons can be harvested.

Lastly, for another NY Times piece about the tiny Jewish community in Manama, Bahrain, and how the King has taken unprecendented steps for an Arab ruler to reach out to Jews and to try to bring back expatriates.

“This seems to be very much to us a country that stands against extremism and against the threat of a nuclear and terrorist-sponsoring Iran,” said Mr. Isaacson, of the American Jewish Committee.

There are many such small and beloved Jewish communities around the world, though few so deeply embraced by their country’s leaders. The question this raises of course, is one of power. Is it easier for gentile nations to treat their Jewish communities well when they have no power? Is it when Jews weild power that anti-Semitism rears its head? Are we loved only when we are weak?