We Imagine Ourselves Allies | Passover haggadah by Rebekka Paisner

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Having now told the story of Jews’ Exodus from Mitzrayim we have come to know Miriam, Moses, Pharaoh, Tzipporah and the role each of them played.

Sarah Barasch-Hagans & Graie Barasch-Hagans use these roles to help us understand our roles in the fight against oppression — when we are strong allies and when we still struggle to be our best selves. A Note from Sarah: This piece began as a way of addressing my identity as an Ashkenazi Jew from St. Louis who is involved in activism in Ferguson. Because this experience is so tied up with my relationships with my family and friends of color, I struggle with the abstractness of being a “white ally.” The language of fighting for family makes much more sense to me, as a responsibility incumbent upon me as a member of an interracial family unit and of a larger multiracial human family. When I went to the Exodus story for lessons about allies, I was struck by how many stories of allies and oppressors there were, and of how most of the characters inhabited both roles at different points. This squares with my understanding of intersectional identity and of how we make choices to act based on our perceived power. The Exodus story, and particularly the story of wandering afterwards, is populated by family members wrestling with what it means to be allied with each other. Since our current struggles can feel like we too are in a desert, I hope this Haggadah supplement is useful to those pausing this Passover to listen for justice, just as the Midrash tells us that entire Jewish family did at Sinai: paused together in the desert to hear the message of justice. If everywhere is a desert then the sand we stand on is always shifting, and so is our relationship to each other. Let us take a moment to imagine ourselves thus...

We will get into groups of three and reenact what these passages mean.

Sometimes we are Bat Pharaoh…...Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing “compassion” without hesitation, pulling the baby out of the river and giving him a home. But when we pull him from the river, he is taken from his people and forced to pretend to be someone else in order to survive. And we know that he is family and we love him as our son, but we ask impossible things of him. We ask him to pass for Egyptian, we cut him off from his heritage in the hopes of keeping him safe. We do not recognize the futility, that safety is always an illusion. We do not use our proximity to power to try to change the situation for other babies like him. We can sleep at night because we tell ourselves we are good people living in a cruel system, but we do not admit that we could change things if only we would convince our synagogue to support the protests, or to at least stop hiring police officers to protect High Holiday services without questioning whether they make all of our community feel safe.

Sometimes we are Moses… ...conditionally white with Cossack eyes and a quick sunburn, passing but keeping a suitcase by the door just in case. Feeling mostly safe in the palace walls, guilty but not knowing why, until one day everything changes. Until one day we see the Egyptian striking the Israelite and knows he is hurting our family—and this time we do not run away. We know that Moses killed the taskmaster, but we do not do not strike anyone, knowing that violence will not lead to greater justice for our families because violence by those of us who ‘pass’ would be met with greater violence and retaliation against those who cannot hide behind conditional whiteness. So sometimes we are standing next to our our Black husband at the protest, and we are both chanting peacefully but the policeman strikes him and all we can do is choose not to run away, to stand firmly with our hands raised so that we both get hit. Because family means if you hit him then you hit me.

Sometimes we are Miriam… ...hoping our brother Moses survives the river, knowing danger and feeling unsafe in our Jewish skin, knowing what it means to be hated because of who we are. And then we are Miriam who, given time, a few chapters later mocks Moses’ Black wife Tzipporah. We are white-skinned Jews celebrating Fifty Years of Freedom Summer and putting on commemorative panels but escorting out anyone who yells #BlackLivesMatter. Or, acknowledging Tzipporah but refusing to defend her interracial, interfaith family when Jewish talking heads warn that families like hers are the end of Judaism. We are descendants of slaves who do not yell back that Moses had a Black wife and Black children and that #BlackLivesMatter to our people whether or not we acknowledge it.

haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu