But there is a fifth promise: "... and I will BRING YOU into the land." Should there then be a Fifth Cup? That question, we are told, will not be answered until Elijah comes to proclaim the Messianic Day. Meanwhile, it is a promise we remember with a cup from which we do not drink until all the world is redeemed. When will that time come?

The word is far from redemption. Our story, we have said, begins with degredation and ends with glory. Pain, injustice, denial -- since our beginning we have known many degredations. In every generation, there are those who seek to destroy us. But the Holy One, Baruch Hu, saves us from their hands.

Oh God, Ruler of the Universe, make this world safe for our people. Next year may we all be in Jerusalem, but this year, please take care of the Jews in all the cities of Israel and in so many other cities: in Pittsburgh and Seattle, Kansas and Paris. In Marseilles, Copenhagen and Brussels, Sderot and Donetsk. This Passover evening is a "night of vigilence" (Exodus 12:42). Watch over your people with your care and compassion. Protect our sacred tombstones and graves from desecration, our synagogues from defacement and destruction. Protect our children in their schools and our workers in their offices. Pour out your wrath against the world's injustices so that one day, you can out out your love. Together, we await that day. We will not wait passively. We will partner with you in a covenant to protect our people and remove then from harn's way. And we will reaffirm, in word and deed, our daily commitment to justice, boogdness, and kindness. Amen.

But the full glory is still far from sight. Ignorance, prejudice, hatred; contempt for truth and justice; hunger and terror; war and terrorism--these remain to plague the human race. 

To end these plagues, to summon Elijah-- that is our task. It is ours because we are the people who know the stranger's heart, the slave's aching bones, the shaking hands of exile. When will Elijah conme with the news of our freedom?


haggadah Section: Bareich
Source: Compilation