INTRODUCTION

The long history of our people is one of contrasts — freedom and slavery, joy and pain, power and helplessness. Passover reflects these contrasts. Tonight as we celebrate our freedom, we remember the slavery of our ancestors and realize that many people are not yet free.

Each generation changes — our ideas, our needs, our dreams, even our celebrations. So has Passover changed over many centuries into our present

holiday. Our nomadic ancestors gathered for a spring celebration when the sheep gave birth to their lambs. Theirs was a celebration of the continuity of life. Later, when our ancestors became farmers, they celebrated the arrival of spring in their own fashion. Eventually these ancient spring festivals merged with the story of the Exodus from Egypt and became a new celebration of life and freedom.

As each generation gathered around the table to retell the old stories, the symbols took on new meanings. New stories of slavery and liberation, oppression and triumph were added, taking their place next to the old. Tonight we add our own special chapter as we recall our people’s past and we dream of the future.

For Jews, our enslavement by the Egyptians is now remote, a symbol of communal remembrance. As we sit here in the comfort of our modern world, we think of the millions who still suffer the brutality of the existence that we escaped thousands of years ago.

Water is life. 

For those who travel on foot through the borderlands, water is an essential component of the journey. No More Deaths hikes water into active migration corridors because we believe that everyone deserves access to water. It is a privilege to be able to use water for a ritual like urchatz, and as we purify our hands, we think of those who thirst in the desert. 

We wash our hands now, with no blessing, to help us prepare for the rituals of the Seder to come. 

Take the water, pour it over your hands three times, alternating between hands with each pour. 

Pause and give thanks for ready access to clean, safe water, and share amongst your group what symbolism you see in spilling water tonight. 

Written by Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler 

Some Answers Questioning is a sign of freedom, and so we begin with questions. To ritualize only one answer would be to deny that there can be many, often conflicting answers. To think that life is only black and white, or wine and Maror, bitter or sweet, or even that the cup is half empty or half full is to enslave ourselves to simplicity. Each of us feels the challenge to search for our own answers. The ability to question is only the first stage of freedom. The search for answers is the next. Can we fulfill the promise of the Exodus in our own lives if we do not search for our own answers? Does every question have an answer? Is the ability to function without having all the answers one more stage of liberation? Can we be enslaved to an obsessive search for the answer? Do you have the answer?  

Take turns reading the 10 quotes below, followed by a 2 minute moment of silence. Each quote is taken from a news article from the last year. 

“I can barely buy a piece of stale bread, that’s why my children are dying before my eyes.” [Yemen]

“The Rakhine burned their houses down,” she said, referring to civilians from the Buddhist ethnic group that gives Rakhine State its name. “My friend is gone forever.” [Myanmar]

"I don't have my son with me. He's not coming back, period. He's gone. He's dead. So what are our options in here," [Parkland, FLorida]

“He approached me and told me in so many words, ‘I want you to have sex with this guy for money,’ I was very uncomfortable and I kept saying no, I didn’t want to do it. He kept telling me, ‘If you love me, you’ll do this. It’s just one thing. Just try it.’” [Texas]

“[The government] comes to your house, they ask you a series of questions, and you start to think, if I answer ‘no,’ they can cut me from health care. It just leaves you overwhelmed.” [Venezuela]

“What matters is he was a father of two, he had his family, he was an unarmed black man that was going to his grandparent’s house, and got assassinated, Nothing else matters at that point." [Sacremento California]

“We avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us,. There is no escape — we are all raped.” [South Sudan]

“Thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically altered by sexual violence have reached out to share their own experiences with me and have thanked me for coming forward…At the same time, my greatest fears have been realized—and the reality has been far worse than what I expected. My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats.” [Washington DC]

“It’s crazy seeing the world advance by the minute while seeing a place you call home decline by the second.” [Gaza]

“Mommy, I love you and adore you and miss you so much. Please, Mom, communicate. Please, Mom. I hope that you’re OK and remember, you are the best thing in my life.” [Detention Center, Arizona]

Tonight, we perform a number of rituals to try to arouse compassion within ourselves. We eat bitter herbs to give us a physical way to connect with the suffering of those who are not free. In the Bible, the reasoning behind the commandment to retell the story of the Exodus is explained as follows: “you know the soul of the outsider, because you were outsiders in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). Once a year, on Passover, we share the story so that we do not forget those in our society who, for any number of reasons, may be considered outsiders. The Seder reminds us that we were the undocumented immigrants in Egypt who put in long hours of hard labor doing the Egyptians’ dirty work; we were the unskilled workers, with no rights, working in subhuman conditions for wages that did not cover the basic necessities of life. Because we know this suffering first hand, we cannot sit back and watch while others struggle. We are grateful for the sumptuous fare we share tonight, but let’s also take a moment to consider those who have labored on the farm or in the factory to provide us with our festive table this evening. The entrepreneurs, farm owners, workers, janitors, truck drivers, loading dock workers and clerks all deserve to make a living wage. Many of us are aware of the human rights abuses that are often connected with the production of cotton, coffee, cocoa, steel, rugs, diamonds and cell phones in other countries, but it does not stop there. Let’s resolve to be more ethical in our purchasing decisions, and consider the companies and circumstances of the people involved in the supply chain, whether we buy products produced locally, through fair trade or from companies who have demonstrated fair and equitable treatment of their employees. The Seder reminds us that we must speak out if we encounter discrimination and abuses in our own workplaces, whether they are based on race, gender, religion, age, national origin, ancestry or disability. A highly respected twentieth century rabbi, Rav Soloveitchik, said this of the Seder: “without manifesting and demonstrating the sense of solidarity, responsibility, unity, and readiness to share and participate, the whole Seder becomes meaningless.” (Genack 2009, p. 27) As former slaves, we must advocate for the dignity and just treatment of all beings, especially of those who do not have the power or ability to speak for themselves. Poverty, prejudice, inequality and silence are what make slavery possible.

The Third Cup of Wine

A cup to the freedom fighters

this is a prayer for all freedom fighters, a prayer for the tired, the burnt out, the heartsick, the cynical

this is a prayer for all freedom fighters brave enough to cry, for the reaching around of arms, the firm handclaps of comradeship, the sanctuary of bodies when we need to hide our faces.

this is a prayer for wordless understanding, the flickering human eye flames of humor and warmth, compassion and mirth, the ridiculous, horrific, ecstatic worlds in our eyes, the volumes of untold stories.

this is a prayer for laugh lines and stretch marks, for the tough beauty of mothers and old folks, for skin gone leathery with the sun and the passage of years, for dirt stained knuckles and chapped lips.

this is a prayer for the road map scars, the burn marks, the tender new flesh of healing, the tattoos, the cuts and bruises, the patchwork of our hearts.

seeds watered with tears and summer thunderstorm torrents.

I am binding our stories together, blood and bone and sinew, stitch, solder, suture. I am building something with drill, paintbrush, knife, welding torch, needle, thread, time, garlic, hope, trash.

this is my prayer, this is my wish, this is my song under my breath and all the love in my heart, this is my loud cursing and giggling, this is my holiest silence.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam boreh p'ri hagafen.

Blessed is the source that fills all creation and brings forth the fruit of the vine.

Read and Discuss

The Three Levels of Oppression: Ilan Gur Ze'ev

The First level:
In our opinion, the first level of oppression, primitive oppression, is expressed by inflicting aggressive force (physical violence) in order to force someone to act against their will and interest. Uprising against this kind of oppression is possible with different levels of success. It is possible to diminish its influence and there is hope for liberation from this level of oppression.
In this type of oppression the oppressor is the more oppressed than the one he is oppressing.

The Second Level of Oppression:
The second level of oppression isideological oppression, in which the oppressor manipulates (lies) the oppressed to the point of identification, the oppressed identifies with the values and interests of his oppressor. The identification is an important element in blurring the consciousness of the oppressed to the existence of the oppression. This system lowers the oppressed self-consciousness partly because of his own actions. These actions are drawn to the system's existing movement, it straightens and sophisticates the existing order and then rebuilds its boundaries. Examples are ideological expression as a nationalism, "free initiative" and Marxism. Against this existing oppression there is a hope to activate (as Marx in his time) a critical ideology (creating awareness) and to raise the oppressed to resistance against his oppressor. This level of oppression, moves from the personal level (private) to the class or group level, from the personal to the collective, it is far more efficient than the first level of oppression, because it exceeds physical oppression as the oppressors’ main means of manipulation. In correlation the liberation from the second level of oppression is more problematic and as usual evolves into a more sophisticated type of oppression. As long as the uprisers are weak, they will focus their actions against the systems structure. Once stronger and their control is more established, the oppressed will take over the roles of judges and legislators, and teachers and psychologists will be sent against their enemies to mainly treat the soul. Yet there is still place for hope.

Third level of oppression:
The third level of oppression, is a faceless oppression without class identification, successful enough to be accepted by the oppressed with internalization and devotion.This oppression is conditioned by the "narrowing of the dialogue" and sterilization of the antagonist dimension in the taken-for-granted well know reality, and their undisturbed actions of controlling forces in the system.Markuza is on the verge of pessimism in view of what we call oppression of the third level, in which the structure of the oppressed, up to the point of where the need or capability of rebellion will not exist. This is described as the rooting and destruction of the new: diseases, necessities and needs; illness, drugs and poisons, antidotes to create a new world of symbols that sum up the founding of "new man" that will never want or be capable of emancipation.

-Ilan Gur Ze'ev.