Cyber Seder set by temple tonight

Passover, a 3,000-year-old celebration of Jewish liberation, goes on the Internet today at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

A Seder in cyberspace will add a new twist to the traditional meal that commemorates - through discussion, symbol and song - the liberation of Jewish slaves from Egypt.

Temple Emanu-El, the world's largest Reform congregation, hopes to roll onto the information superhighway with its Web site: http://www.emanuelnyc.org.

Passover begins at sundown today. The service will be online every hour on the hour from 4 a.m. today - when it is sundown in Australia - through 7 p.m. tomorrow.

"It was a time to review our history, to reexamine the origins and development of Reform Judaism and to renew ourselves as a community with commemorative events that spoke to us about who we are where we came from and how we can anticipate the future," said Ronald Sobel, senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El.

Participants in the cyber Seder will call up images from a Haggadah - the prayer book that tells the Passover story - on their computer screen, accompanied by a pre-recorded broadcast on their soundcard, and get a virtual tour of the temple's main sanctuary.

Other congregations will celebrate Passover in their own ways this week.

Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a predominantly gay congregation in Greenwich Village, will hold a Seder on the second night of the eight- day holiday.

Members of the temple also will hold a feminist Seder using a special Haggadah that emphasizes the role of women, particularly Moses' sister, Miriam, and the midwives who defied Pharoah and protected their babies from slaughter, said Sandy Warshaw, one of the Seder leaders.