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Go Down Moses
Contributed by Noraa Kaplan

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

The Exodus story has long been a source of inspiration across cultural lines. It held special significance for Black people living under slavery in the antebellum South. There were obvious parallels between their plight and B’ney Yisra’el’s journey out of Mitzrayim. The spiritual “Go Down Moses,” which draws on this connection, has commonly been sung at Pesach seders since the 1960s. Sometimes, white Jews use it in an attempt to appropriate Blackness. That is unacceptable. We sing this song tonight not to co-opt the Black struggle, but to attempt to understand what slavery was (and is) like through our own lived experiences, just as the writers of “Go Down Moses” understood the Exodus through their own experiences. 


When Israel was in Egypt land — let my people go
Oppressed so hard they could not stand — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”

“Thus saith the Lord,” bold Moses said — let my people go
“Or else I’ll smite your firstborn dead”  — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”

We need not always weep and mourn — let my people go
And wear these slavery chains forlorn — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”
 
haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story
Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan

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