Korech

We dip the marror that will fill the korech sandwich into Charoset, the paste—whose consistency is reminiscent of the clay our ancestors used in Egypt to manufacture bricks...

We were forged as a nation at the brick kilns of Egypt, and the manufacture of bricks remains the essence of our mission in life.

Why bricks? There are two basic materials used in construction: stone and bricks. The "stone" represents those materials with which G-d provides us to build our lives. In our personal lives, these are the elements that are naturally qualified to serve as part of a home for G-d and readily lend themselves to this end: our positive character traits, the sacred times and places in creation, objects and forces designated for the performance of a mitzvah.

Then there are those elements that are as qualified a building material as raw clay: our selfish and animalistic instincts, and a material world that obscures the truth of its Creator. Elements that, by nature, are unconducive, or even contrary, to anything good and G-dly.

To include these elements in the "dwelling for G-d" we make of our lives, we must forge bricks: knead and mold them into a shape they have never known, fire them in the kiln of self-sacrifice and love of G-d, until they become as solid and supportive as the sacred "stones" in our edifice.