Two sides of the egg
Having an egg on the Seder plate has two – contradictory – explanations.
On the one hand it signifies sorrow, the hardboiled endurance of all the trials and tragedies that have accompanied Jewish history.
On the other hand it symbolises hope, since life bursts out of an egg and denotes promise and continuity.
Our ancestors in Egypt had mixed emotions when they left the House of Bondage – sorrow at all the suffering of the generations of the enslavement, and excitement at becoming free and able to look forward to the future.
