Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

Passover has been observed continuously for some 3,300 years. As one of the longest unbroken observances in the history of religion, Passover has an established ritual.

Yet it is a night very different from any other.

Although the master story is the same, each telling is particular to its generation, and its flavor is different for every family.

The Bible tells how Passover was first observed. The Haggadah text was created about 2,000 years ago in ancient Israel. The first known printed Haggadah appeared in 1482 in Spain. Some haggadot have only 32 pages, while others are massive 440-page volumes.

Over the past 12 years, Chicago attorney Stephen Durschslag has amassed 3,500 Passover haggadot, a collection that stretches from floor to ceiling in the library of his townhouse.

This year he can add to it the No Cholesterol Haggadah, the Vegetarian Haggadah, the Women's Haggadah, the Holocaust Haggadah, the Gay and Lesbian Haggadah and the Puppet Haggadah, among others.

In another development, the story of the Exodus can now be found in cyberspace.

Beginning at 4 a.m. on the day before Passover, Temple Emanu-El in New York will transmit a reading of the Haggadah to reach Jews at sundown in Australia. Personal computer users around the world with Internet sound links will be able to hear the reading and commentaries in their own homes.

This program, which is called "Cyber Seder," will include 33 color illustrations showing scenes such as the baking of matzah, taken from haggadot ranging from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

Instructions for the Internet seder can be found on Emanu-El's home page: http://www. emanuelnyc.org

Another recent insight into the Passover story is an article by Dr. John Marr, an expert in tropical diseases, and Curtis Mallory, titled, "Epidemic Analysis of the 10 Plagues in Egypt."

Their article, which appeared in a journal of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, postulated that a combination of algae, bacteria, insects, viruses and molds could have caused the plagues.

I prefer the metaphoric and midrashic interpretations of the 10 plagues.

Blood: the blood of innocent men, women and children shed by criminals. Frogs: the expressions of anti-Semitism that leap up everywhere. Vermin: the rodents that prowl our slums.

Beasts: the fear that we will lose our endangered species. Pestilence: AIDS, substance abuse and the many diseases we have not yet learned to control. Boils: the oil spills that leave us boiling in rage.

Hail: the pollution in the atmosphere that continues to rain down on us. Locusts: the repression of freedom that continues to bug us. Darkness: the lack of the guiding light of idealism.

Slaying of the firstborn: the possibility of nuclear holocaust that threatens us.

One of the highlights of the seder is Elijah's cup, because the prophet is the herald of the Messianic era.

Rabbi Naftali of Ropschitz used to pass an empty goblet and ask each person to pour some wine into it. His ritual was to demonstrate that each of us must share in creating a better world. It is a community effort.

A Jewish speaker, concluding a talk on Passover at the Harvard Club, was approached by an elderly black gentleman who said, "Seeds."

The encounter was rather mysterious, like when the man in the movie "The Graduate" counsels Dustin Hoffman with the single word, "Plastics."

"Seeds," the gentleman said. "That's the word for the '90s. We've had enough of roots. Roots don't take you anywhere. Roots keep you where you are. Seeds take you into the future. Think about it."

Passover is a time to think of the past, but it also is a moment to pass over to the future.