Fair Trade your Seder
Every Passover we gather as family and community, to celebrate our people’s freedom. We are obligated to tell the story of the Exodus, our journey from slavery to liberation. We eat maror to remind us of the bitter taste of that experience.
“In every generation a person is obligated to see him or herself as though he/she had personally been redeemed from Eqypt“, we read in the Haggadah. In recalling our people’s experience in Egypt, we are urged to remember that we were once slaves. We tell the details of the story, act it out, and eat charoset, symbolizing the mortar with which our ancestors made bricks for the Egyptians – we attempt to “experience” what slavery felt like.
Though we may not be actual slaves ourselves today, our history moves us to ask “Where does slavery exist today?”, “Who is enslaved?” “What is that slavery like?”
Thousands of children in West Africa, often trafficked and without choice, work hard to bring us our favorite chocolate treats. They spend long hours, working in hazardous conditions, not going to school, and losing their childhoods.
This Passover, may we tell their story and help free those children laboring in the cocoa fields!
Activities for your Passover Seder
- Kosher l’Pesach Fair Trade Chocolate is now available!
- Recite this special kavannah for eating Kosher l’Pesach Fair Trade Chocolate: Every generation learns that things are more than they seem. This chocolate I hold is more than just chocolate. This is a symbol of potential freedom, a realization that foods that give me delight can be made without child labor. Joy need not be accompanied by pain or oppression. May I experience the sweet flavor of this gift as a hint of the freedom that birthed it. May the world know liberation, one person at a time, mindful act by mindful act, until all people are free (Thanks to Rabbi Menachem Creditor)
- Make Chocolate Charoset this year!
- Sing “Fair Trade Dayenu” at your Seder songs this year (written by Talia Cooper for our Seder Lyrics Writing Contest)
- Include this Haggadah supplement, developed by Fair Trade Judaica, in your Seder to draw attention to the issue of children laboring in the cocoa fields; it also includes writing a letter during Passover to send to Hershey
- Read and discuss our “10 Plagues of non-fair trade chocolate”
- Place a Fair Trade chocolate bar on your Passover Seder plate and talk about child labor as a modern day form of slavery, or use it as the Afikomen gift
Resources for your Passover Seder
- Use this Haggadah for a Chocolate Seder by Rabbi Deborah Prinz
- Read this moving exploration of “The Four Children” by students at Congregation Dorshei Tzedek
- Learn more about child labor in the cocoa fields to share at your Seder
- Find more Jewish oriented resources on the T’ruah website
- Review the “From Chains to Change” Haggadah written by Moral Voices (an Initiative of Penn Hillel) for other inspirational readings
Inspire Others and Share your Fair Trade Seder Story
- Send us your story (and optional photo) and we will add it to our site.
