Music is the fire that ignites our imaginations when we sit down to retell the Exodus story. The Haggadah, to be sure, provides the script, but songs that keep everyone participating move the evening along. From year to year, familiar melodies draw family and friends together as they journey from slavery to freedom. This year, however, it's time to pour fuel on the fire. Shake up the Seder with a little funk, a little blues, and a lot of rock 'n' roll. And if someone complains, don't worry; tell them that the Haggadah says, kol hamarbeh... harei zeh meshubah- anyone who adds new ways to retell and enjoy the story is to be praised!

BABAGANEWZ has collected 11 hit songs for Pesach, written and performed by some of the country's best Jewish rock musicians. We've uploaded them in our online Jukebox. When you visit babaganewz.com, download the lyrics and learn them for your Seder. Here's a sampling of our favorites.

Baruch Hamakom

Sam Glaser plays concerts in over 50 cities each year. He knows how to get an audience on their feet, and he knows how to touch their hearts. In his tender balled "Baruch Hamakom," Glaser touches our hearts. The lyrics are a modern midrash on four short verses in the Haggadah that praise God, Giver of the Torah, for lifting our people out of slavery with an outstretched arm. The rabbis used a name of God hamakom (the Place) to emphasize that God is present everywhere and at all times.

Glaser's song imagines what God might have said to comfort our ancestors who were bruised and battered by centuries of slavery.

Put your faith in me/Safely through the desert will I lead you/ I can set you free/ And every year on this sacred night, you will say/ 'Baruch Hamakom, baruch hu.' [Praised be God Who is everywhere, Praised be God.]

Eli Chrisler, an 11-year-old student in St. Louis, recognizes a modern message in the second stanza of Glaser's song.

Put your faith in me/Safely through your lifetime will I lead you/ I can set you free.

"The song says to me that God will always be there with us," says Eli. " I find that helpful when I deal with tests in school and everything else that's going on in the world."

"Baruch Hamakom" also touched Eli's mother, Ivy Chrisler, who teaches at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis. She first heard the melody shortly after being diagnosed with a serious illness. "The lyrics resonate deeply in my soul," says Chrisler. "I especially like the part that describes how precious we are to God."

At the midnight hour you'll feel My outstretched arm right by your side so that you know/You are the precious child I long for every day.

"We each have our very personal 'midnight hours,'" she adds. "At those points in my own life, more than ever, my comfort and strength come from knowing that I rest in God's arms." Eli's mom plans to add Glaser's version of "Baruch Hamakom" to her Seder this year because its "message is the same for everyone: You're not alone. God is there and will show the way."

Leaving Mother Russia

SAFAM rocketed to the attention of the Jewish world in 1978, when the group recorded "Leaving Mother Russia," their soulful tribute to the spiritual courage of Natan Sharansky. Today, Sharansky is a high-level official in the Israeli government, but in 1977, he was an outspoken, young activist in the Soviet Union, fighting for the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel. The Communists feared his influence and falsely accused him of spying for the United States. SAFAM's anthem exposed the evil injustice and anti-Semitism at the core of these charges.

See my accuser standing in the hall/He points his finger at us all/You now must pay the penalty/For the crime of daring to be free.

At his trial, Sharansky demanded, "Otpusti narod moy" (let my people go). But just as Pharaoh rebuffed Moshe 3,000 years earlier, Soviet officials responded harshly to Sharansky and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

Sharansky's 'midnight hour' lasted for nine brutal years- with much of the time spent in solitary confinement- but he stubbornly refused to give up hope. "I went back to my Jewish roots," he explained in 1997, a decade after worldwide protests forced the Soviets to release him from jail. He recited Psalms daily, turning to God for courage; he celebrated Pesach as best as he could, using salted sprats (a small fish) as maror and substituting hot water for haroset; and he embraced his role as a link in the chain of Jewish history. Sharansky explained that the sense of belonging to something greater than himself gave him "a lot of power, a lot of strength." By singing about the spiritual strength that Sharansky drew from Judaism, SAFAM inspires us to cling firmly to our tradition and to take pride in being Jewish.

So stand up now and shout it to the sky/They may bring us to our knees, but we'll never die.

"I love it when my family sings 'Leaving Mother Russia' at our Seder," says Liron of Silver Spring, Maryland. "It reminds me that although Jews still face many pharaohs in the world, we have a tradition that gives us strength to overcome them."

Avadim Hayinu

Peri Smilow is a Jewish singer and songwriter whose foot-stomping music has electrified audiences. She created the Freedom Music Project- a dynamic singing group of Black and Jewish teenagers in the Boston area- because she believed the freedom music of the Seder could break down barriers that still divide many Blacks and Jews.

The group recorded a popular version of "Avadim Hayinu" ("We Were Slaves"), the paragraph from the Haggadah that begins to answer the question, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" As the group rehearsed the song- with its simple message of optimism- the music worked magic on them. The lyrics translated into English say:

We were slaves, but now we're free people.

The words hit home with the Black students, and moved them to share with their Jewish peers some of their painful experiences of racism. "I wasn't just learning the words to the Hebrew songs," says Marika Robertson, an African-American participant. "I was learning about the Jewish people and their struggle for freedom and comparing it to ours."

When the Jewish teens saw the impact of the Exodus story on their Black counterparts, they began to appreciate their own tradition in a new light. "There was a lot of respect between all of us," says Daniel Sobol, who joined the group shortly after becoming a bar mitzvah. "I formed a special bond with a lot of people... There was something magical about it."

Piece of the Puzzle

The Pesach music on babaganewz.com really rocks. It can change the way you think about the holiday, and it can change the way you celebrate it. It can help you appreciate the Jewish past, and it can help you cherish the Jewish future. As Craig Taubman writes in his beautiful song, magic happens when you think of yourself as a "piece of the puzzle."

Look at yourself leaving Mitzrayim/Look at yourself as if you crossed the sea/Look at yourself as Deborah or Aaron/Look at yourself and the things that you can be.