Interpretive Birkat Hamazon | Passover haggadah by Noraa Kaplan

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The four blessings of birkat ha-mazon are connected to pardes (פרדס) a word meaning ‘orchard’ which shares the same root as the English word paradise. It is also a Hebrew acronym for the four ways of finding meaning in the Torah: פשט, p’shat, the literal surface meaning of a text, רמז, remez, the allegorical meaning the text hints at, דרש, d’rash, a text’s symbolic interpretation, and סוד, sod, the mystic secrets hidden deep in a text for us to uncover. In birkat ha-mazon we find four ways of understanding abolition.

The p’shat reason for abolition is that it will save lives. It’s not hard to see that the carceral state puts people in mortal danger. Even in cases where the state is not outright executing people or sentencing them to stay in prison until they die, incarcerated people die at epidemic rates from murder, suicide, disease, hunger, and incompetent medical care. And outside of prisons, the police murder with impunity. At its simplest, abolition is piku’ach nefesh—it saves precious lives. As we thank Hashem tonight for sustaining life, we accept our responsibility to do the same.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, הַזָנָה אֶת הַכֹּל
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, hazana et ha-kol.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַזָן אֶת הַכֹּל
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, hazan et ha-kol.

Blessed are You, who sustains everyone and everything.

Freeing bodies from prisons is not enough: we must also liberate minds. Together, we can help each other escape from our mental prisons and kill the cops in our heads. Hashem fulfilled their first promise to B’ney Yisra’el by bringing them out of Mitzrayim, but when the Egyptians started chasing them and they saw the sea in front of them, they cried out to Moshe, “Was it for want of graves in Mitzrayim that you brought us out to the desert to die?” (Exodus 14:11) Their bodies had been taken out of Mitzrayim but Hashem had not yet freed them from the slavery of fear. In spite of what Dayenu says, being brought out of Mitzrayim was not enough on its own. They needed to be brought out of the desert as well. The remez of abolition is liberation, which not only keeps us alive but gives us a reason to live. We bless Hashem tonight not only for sustaining life, but for giving it room to grow.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל הַמָזוֹן
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, al ha-aretz ve-al ha-mazon
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל הַמָזוֹן.
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, al ha-aretz ve-al ha-mazon

Blessed are You, for the earth and for the sustenance.

The third bracha of birkat ha-mazon asks Hashem to rebuild Jerusalem. Many anti-Zionist Jews naturally have a hard time reconciling with liturgy like this, with its prophetic visions of Jews resettling Palestine and building a Third Temple. It’s important to consider the context in which liturgy like this was originally written, thousands of years before the modern Zionist movement existed. Its dream of a rebuilt Jerusalem is not of a colonialist apartheid state, but of the world to come—a better, kinder world where “nation shall not raise up sword against nation, and we will learn no more war” (Isaiah 2:4) and everyone, not just the Jewish people, will be free. In this revolutionary longing for the messianic world we find the drash of abolition: the possibility of transformation.
It’s often been said that Hashem was able to take the Israelites out of Mitzrayim in just a few short days, but it took forty years to take Mitzrayim out of the Israelites. Abolition does more than free one’s body from prison and one’s mind from internalized oppression: it allows us to become the people we need ourselves to be. Through a justice that transforms instead of punishes, we learn to take true accountability for ourselves. Then, we will be given “a new heart and a new spirit will be put inside of us.” (Ezekiel 36:26) In this bracha we ask Hashem to help us bring about an abolitionist world, so we can build ourselves anew.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, בּוֹנָה בְרַחֲמֶיהָ יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, bonah be-rachameha Yerushalayim

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, בּוֹנֵה בְרַחֲמָיו יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, boneh be-rachamav Yerushalayim

Blessed are You, who builds Jerusalem with kindness.

The last bracha, ha-tov veha-meytiv, is said outside of birkat ha-mazon upon hearing good news. More specifically, this blessing is only said over good news that benefits an entire community. Community is the secret to abolition. If abolition is ever to come about, it will be through the tireless efforts of multiple communities working together. We need supportive, caring communities in order to do the hard, necessary work of transforming our hearts and freeing our minds. In the last bracha, we find the sod of abolition, the secret hiding in plain sight: our liberation must be collective. Community makes abolition possible, and in turn, abolition makes broken communities whole.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, הַטוֹבָה וְהַמֵטִיבָה
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ha-tova ve-hameytiva

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַטוֹב וְהַמֵטִיב
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, ha-tov veha-meytiv

Blessed are You, who is good and does good.

haggadah Section: Bareich

Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan