Pour Out Thy Wrath | Passover haggadah by Noraa Kaplan

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In the traditional haggadah, the blessing over the third cup of wine is sandwiched between two very different quotes from the book of Psalms. The last line of the prayer before the third cup is “may Hashem bless us all with peace.” (Psalm 29:11) The first line of the passage that follows is (as rendered in the Maxwell House Haggadah’s ye olde English ) “pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen who will not acknowledge Thee, and upon the kingdoms who invoke not Thy name.” (Psalm 79:6)

It is strange and somewhat disturbing that the haggadah should switch so rapidly between a prayer for peace and a cry for divine vengeance made up primarily of quotes from the imprecatory psalms (a set of poems from the book of psalms that call on Hashem to kill our enemies.) Even more troubling is the fact that this passage is meant to be recited while opening the front door for the prophet Elijah. In other words, the only part of the traditional haggadah that is meant to be shared with the outside world is a call for violence.

Understandably, many readers with contemporary sensibilities are shocked or offended by this section and omit it from their seder.
However, it is important to note that without divine violence, there would be no seder, no Exodus, no Torah. B’ney Yisra’el was not delivered from slavery through peaceful protest or civil disobedience, but through plagues that decimated a population, left a horrific path of destruction, and took countless innocent lives. Though the midrash tells us Hashem rebuked the angels for singing as the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, Jewish tradition has incorporated the joyful song that Miriam, Moses, and B’ney Yisra’el sang at the sea into our daily liturgy. If Hashem mourned the death of the Egyptians and shamed the angels for rejoicing at their death, why did they preserve the Israelites’ triumphant song in the Torah? And why choose to use violence during the Exodus instead of nonviolent means? This contradiction raises serious questions about the purpose and limitations of both human and divine compassion.

Some attempt to reconcile ‘pour out thy wrath’ with their peaceful religion by saying we can’t judge these texts by modern standards, that just as animal sacrifice is no longer practiced in contemporary Judaism but we still read Torah passages about it, the imprecatory psalms are a reminder of Jewish history, a product of a more violent time with values alien from our own. This viewpoint is valid, but its naïve assumption that the age of violence is behind us is a dangerous supposition to make.

Another approach is to accept this section’s bloody anger as a part of our heritage, an understandable, justifiable reaction to millenia of exile, oppression, and genocide. We find an obscure clue buried in the language of the text itself supporting this idea. Why does the psalmist say “pour out thy wrath” and not ‘release thy wrath,’ ‘show thy wrath,’ or ‘act on thy wrath?’ The vivid imagery compares anger to a rainstorm. Since the days of Noah, rain has been associated with divine anger. But in the agrarian society of ancient Israel, it was also considered a divine blessing for farmers who depended on it to survive.

Nowhere is this dual idea of rain better exemplified than in the story of Honi the Circlemaker. During a time of drought, the Jews asked a righteous man named Honi to pray on their behalf for rain. He drew a circle in the dust and told Hashem he wasn’t leaving until Hashem sent rain. Hashem sent forth a gentle drizzle. Honi complained that this wouldn’t be enough for the crops to be saved. So Hashem sent forth torrential rain. Honi complained that the storm was flooding the city, and asked for moderate rain to fall. Hashem did as Honi asked.
In addition to celebrating our Exodus from Mitzrayim, Pesach is one of Judaism’s three major agricultural holidays. Along with Sukkot, the autumn harvest festival, it is one terminus of a daily cycle of prayer for protection from drought. In keeping with ancient Israel’s dry and rainy seasons, from the first morning of Pesach until Sukkot, Jews ask Hashem to ‘let the dew fall,’ and from Sukkot until the first morning of Pesach, we pray for Hashem to ‘make the winds to blow and the rain to fall.’ The evening of the first seder is the last time we pray for rain until autumn.

Special prayers for rain and dew are added to morning services of the first days of Sukkot and Pesach, respectively. Geshem, Sukkot’s prayer for rain, begins by telling us the angel of rain’s name: Af-Bree. The first part of the angel’s name, af, means ‘anger.’ The second part, bree, means ‘health.’ This name represents two ends of a spectrum of precipitation: a torrential downpour and a moderate shower. One possible translation of Af-Bree is “healthy anger.” Perhaps instead of praying for a downpour of violence, we can ask ourselves to pour out our wrath by letting it go.

One of the most joyful rituals held in the days of the Temple was nisuch ha-mayim, the pouring of the water. Every morning of Sukkot, water would be drawn from the pool of Siloam and carried in an elaborate procession to the Temple for a libation ceremony. And every night, at the pool of Siloam, there was ecstatic revelry, joyful song, and dancing with lit torches. The Mishnah says, “He who has not seen the rejoicing where the water is drawn has never seen rejoicing in his life.”

In order to make room for this kind of transcendent joy in our life, we need to find healthy ways to pour out our anger. This is possible through jouissance, joy that goes beyond the distinction between pleasure and pain, past the boundaries of meaning, and, often, against the law. Jouissance is the ecstasy of a riot, the thrill of theft, the triumph of gay sex, the rapture of rupture, the bliss of filth, the drunken blurring of Haman and Mordechai on Purim, the young passion of the Song of Songs, the spontaneous, morally ambiguous rejoicing that broke out at the Red Sea.

With this kavanah of revolutionary joy, let’s return to the imprecatory psalms and allow ourselves to pour out our wrath without self-judgment. May we take pleasure in imagining our revenge on the police who do everything they can to crush our happiness. And when all our righteous anger is poured out, may we be left with a desire for abolition that comes not only from hating cops but from loving our fellow human beings.

Pour out thy wrath, let your blazing anger consume them. (Psalm 69:25)
Let them be extinguished like a burning thornbush. (Psalm 118:12)
Let a blazing wind be their lot. (Psalm 11:6)
Let them wither like grass. (Psalm 37:2)
Let them be like chaff in the wind. (Psalm 35:5)
May their eyes grow dim, may their loins collapse continually. (Psalm 69:24)
Like a snail that melts away as it moves,
like a woman’s stillbirth, may they never see the sun! (Psalm 58:9)

Strike the face of my enemies. (Psalm 3:8)
Smash their teeth in their mouths, shatter their lion’s fangs. (Psalm 58:7)
May they be clothed in a curse like a garment,
may it enter their entrails like water, their bones like oil. (Psalm 109:18)
May they be clothed in disgrace,
may they be wrapped in shame like a robe. (Psalm 109:29)
Let the net they hid capture them,
let them fall into it when disaster strikes. (Psalm 35:8)

May no one show them mercy. (Psalm 109:12)
May their days be few. (Psalm 109:8)
May they be frustrated and terrified, disgraced and doomed forever. (Psalm 83:18)
Let burning coals fall upon them.
Cast them into deep pits that they may not rise again!0 (Psalm 140:11)
The righteous will rejoice when they see revenge,
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked (Psalm 58:11)
for you listen to the oppressed and do not forsake prisoners. (Psalm 69:34)

(Some people save the “plague waters” until this point in the seder, when they send a small group of people outside to pour it out away from the house. If you live near a police station, you might want to inconspicuously pour it out there. Yemenite Jews traditionally say, “May this go to all of our enemies and haters. May they create no suffering for us. Amen!” as they pour the “plague waters” out.)

haggadah Section: Bareich

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