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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Welcome to the seder. Grab a pillow. Recline. Relax.
Perhaps you are sitting at a table with your family. Your friends. Your housemates. Or perhaps you are alone. At a counter, or a desk, or on a pile of blankets on the floor. Perhaps you are connected to your loved ones through computers. Straddling time zones or battling shoddy WiFi. Grasping onto togetherness. Holding tight to ritual in a time of free-fall.
As a child, I resented tradition. I thought, as so many children do, that custom was only a roadblock to new ideas and free spirits.
We were taught as children to admire trailblazers and radicals! Rule-breakers! Even the story of Exodus is about a man eschewing a tradition -- the slavery of the Jewish people at the hands of the Egyptians -- and leading his people into the uncharted newness of freedom. No time for ritual. Take your bread unleavened. Run. This man didn’t even respect the rules of physics -- he got his God to part the waters of the Red Sea !
What you never realize, as a child, is that your whole life is built on tradition. The comfort of ritual. A meal three times a day. A goodnight kiss. Being washed and dressed and held and loved by the people who wash and dress and hold and love you.
It is only through the steady hum of ritual, of tradition, that we acquire the tools we need to break the rules when the rules need breaking.
The Passover Seder has been with the Jewish people for thousands of years, evolving from an ancient celebration of springtime to a yearly retelling of the story of Exodus. Jews have held tight to the seder through times of hardship and prosperity. The Crusades, the Pogroms, the Holocaust. Through career successes, reunions, the birth of children.
This year feels unprecedented. As many years do. There will always be something to mourn. There will always be something to be grateful for.
The Passover seder is a thread that connects us from a rich past and into an expansive future. Here, now, we light the candles, close our eyes, and feel our bodies in space, held in suspension along that ever-present thread.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אַדֹנָ-י אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל יום טוב
Baruch a-ta A-do-nay Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-o-lam a-sher ki-di-sha-nu bi-mitz-vo-tav vi-tzi-va-noo li-had-leek ner shel Yom Tov.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of the holiday.
(No need to read this page out loud! This is straight background.)
Last year the task fell to me to arrange a new haggadah for our Seder from the plentiful resources on Haggadot.com. As the most goyishe of our cadre of Jewish Artists, I was overwhelmed with options. Either the material was painfully dense, or swung entirely in the opposite direction: too many College Liberal Reframings! Too many memes! Where were all the beautiful oral and textual investigations -- and jokes! -- I knew were the birthright (ha ha) of my Jewish community? So: instead of hunting them down, I avoided doing any more scholarly work than was necessary and my partner and I gathered our talented friends -- outstanding and celebrated Jewish artists, all -- to write some new ones instead. Here they are, and we are lucky and grateful to have them. I hope they bring you as much joy as they did me.
--Jake
Jake Beckhard is a director who was just Jewish enough to make it into Birthright. He was a 2018 Drama League Fellow and the founder of Artilliers Theater Company.
So here's how we went about it: we gathered a cohort of our favorite Jewish artists to contribute to our service, with very few guidelines. They were asked to choose a part of the seder that interested them and write whatever they wanted. Solemn, funny, personal, abstract, traditional, meaningful, cheeky. It was a pretty open prompt, but we hope that we have curated a varied and interested seder. Some sections are rather long, and we've bolded the sections we plan to read aloud in our seder. We also reached out to artist Sharone Halevy (also a fabulous director - all of our friends are multi-talented!), who has provided art that we used for the cover and througout the book.
Though Jake first had this idea in 2019 (about three days before our seder...sadly, not enough time to make it happen), it didn't actualize until 2020 aka Big Time Virus. We are all of us weeks into quarantine, and many of these writings contend with that reality. We hope this haggadah will prove useful in years to come, so perhaps we’ll update some of its contents, or else look to the Pandemic Passover as a springboard for broader truths.
This haggadah was curated with love for our artistic community and our Jewish community. Enjoy, and chag semeach.
--Serena
Serena Berman is a playwright, actress, singer, and producer. She is a resident artist at Ars Nova and is frequently type-cast as a Jewish teenager.
Sam Corbin is an acclaimed New York-based writer, comedian, and performer. Someone once called Sam a “force of whimsy,” and that still sounds about right.
In Hebrew school, Jewish children are made to drink grape juice out of Dixie cups in order to prime them for the experience of drinking wine as adults. I am not making this up. I remember the cups. And I also remember the first seder that my father finally poured me a glass of real wine, because of what he said as he poured it: “For purely ceremonial purposes.”
Over the course of tonight’s Passover seder, we will drink to excess for purely ceremonial purposes: four cups of wine, the first two of which are consumed on an empty stomach. Interesting to consider that we wait nearly a quarter of a lifetime to be deemed “mature” enough to give ourselves over to a ritual. More interesting, still, to consider that this ritual is one of filling. We consume the wine. We make it a part of ourselves. This ceremonial purpose is honored inside of us.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.
(If this is your first seder of the holiday)
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, she-hechiyanu v’key’manu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.
David Rosenberg is an actor and playwright. He is a graduate of the acting program at Juilliard, and one of two writers in this Haggadah with a play set on Passover ("Effect if Not Intent").
Urchatz calls on a fairly obscure Jewish ritual: washing our hands before eating foods dipped in liquid. But not all liquids! According to custom, there are only seven that necessitate washing: wine, honey, olive oil, milk, dew, blood, and water. It is said that these liquids possess the danger to bring about “tumah,” or spiritual uncleanliness, in the eater. Washing our hands ritually protects us from tumah and brings about “taharah,” or purity.
There is no prayer associated with Urchatz. It’s a real “Show Don’t Tell” ritual. But tonight, as we wash our hands, let us reaffirm our commitment to go beyond symbolic cleansing. Let us not rely upon ritualistic gestures to ward off spiritual uncleanliness. Let’s be proactive about pursuing taharah without symbolic reminders. And let’s acknowledge that “purity” is an ideal, not a reality. Let’s acknowledge the practical impossibility of taharah, but keep pushing towards it anyway.
There is a curious paradox that no one can explain.
Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain?
Who understands why spring is born out of winter's laboring pain,
Or why we all must die a bit before we grow again?
I do not know the answer; I merely know it's true.
I hurt them for this reason, and myself a little bit too.
--The Fantasticks
Now we dip our parsley into salt water before we eat it. The tears of slavery. The delicate promise of spring. There is no joy without pain. No rebirth without withering. A curious paradox. A cyclical cleansing.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree ha-adama.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruits of the earth.
Natalie Margolin is a playwright, actress, improvisor and graduate of Kenyon College. Her plays include "The Power of Punctuation," "Tutus," "All Nighter," and “The Party Hop” a new play specifically for zoom.
The Shank Bone - it symbolizes sacrifice, and you can't eat it till the meal!
Egg - the egg, a symbol of birth, of new beginnings, of winter transforming into spring.
Karpas (leafy greens) - The leafy greens on the plate represents the initial success of the Israelites in Egypt, before they were enslaved. If your leafy green is parsley, I think you made the right choice. To me, parsley is a successful green. Parsley is pretty, it's green, it often is sold in a large plentiful bunch! Impressive! If you are using a potato or celery, I don't find that as impressive, but I support your choice! Use what you have!
What's on our seder plate?
As Natalie explained, we have the egg (spring), the shankbone (spring), and the leafy greens (also spring). We've also got bitter herbs (lettuce), bitter herbs (horseradish), sweet treats (charoset), and the aforementioned matzah.
For a vegan seder plate, substitute a beet for the bone and a flower for the egg.
We may also include an orange (for the LGBTQ community), an olive (for Palestinian rights), an artichoke (for interfaith families), and a tomato (for farmworkers' rights). Those last two I had never heard of, but they were on a graphic made by Whole Foods, so.
Digging even further, I found a banana (Syrian refugees), cashews (troops in Iraq), a crust of bread (the proto-orange - "there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate"), potato ("Operation Solomon"), and fair trade chocolate (forced child labor). You can even make a "Food Desert Seder Plate," swapping all these out for rotting or processed foods to symbolize the lack of access to fresh healthy food in low-income communities.
All this may seem silly to some. But the point is: there is room on the plate, and there is room in Judaism to fight for a better world.
Matt Minnicino is a playwright, adaptor, actor, director, teacher, and theatermaker with an MFA from Colmubia. In his spare time, he teaches kids about Shakespeare.
There was a wonderful queer rabbi I knew, a man with a shaved head, sharp cheeks cut like burnished marble, and eyes that pierced and perceived like one searching the depths of a dark-watered sea, urging you not to look away. This rabbi told me once that the foods of the Seder are each the ingredients one must use to create love.
What do you mean, I said. I knew the story. I knew, even lax as I was in my own practice, the frenzied fable of our people’s rushing from dusty Egypt before the bread could rise, left with those dry placards I had so dreaded eating as a child. I knew the story.
No, no, said the rabbi (and I swear this is true), You must awaken from the slumber of what things are said to be and into the world of what you know them to be.
The matzoh, he said, is our divine love. We have three pieces of matzoh—the one above, which is G-d, the one below, which is our very selves, and the one between, which connects us.
I was of course perplexed, and asked further.
Why do we break the middle matzoh, I asked my friend, hearing the weary scowl of my voice lighten like a child’s.
Because connection is hard. And we often break ourselves off from what is divine in us, simply by being.
I couldn’t deny I was moved. He spoke with the delicacy of a palm frond on still water, and yet so resolute in this. A part of me needled him, wanted to poke a hole in his symbols.
What about the afikomen, I said. What’s this nonsense about hiding it, letting a child find it. Surely that’s just to entertain the kids! And I remembered how I’d be rewarded with a little chocolate gelt when I plucked the crumbly sheet of bread from between the pages of some old tome in our basement.
Ah, ah, the rabbi said. It is because, though we break ourself off, we cannot truly continue until we have found the part missing that will allow us to connect. And it is never us who find the piece. It is always our children.
(Here the middle piece of matzoh is broken, and one piece set aside. Someone at the table will now hide this piece - the 'akifomen' - for the children, or most childlike among you, to find later in the evening.)
Shara Feit is a playwright, performer, and dramaturg whose play "little lives" was a finalist for the 2019 O'Neill Playwrights Conference. She was raised Modern Orthodox, and we are very grateful to her for dumbing herself down for a Haggadah curated by Reform Jews.
Ha lachma anya di achalu avahatana b'ara d'Mitzrayim. Kal dichfin yeitei v'yeichul. Kal ditzrich yeitei v'yifsach. Hashata hacha, l'shanah haba'ah b'ara d'Yisrael. Hashata avdei. L'shana haba'ah b'nei chorin.
This is the bread of destitution/affliction* that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.
*Shara is used to the translation “affliction.” Translation of the Aramaic courtesy of Sefaria.com
...but, In Writing It, Has Helped Me Process How to Do Maggid This Year
(read the bolded sections aloud)
Ha Lachma Anya, the introduction to Maggid I’ve always known, is hard for me this year.
This Passover, Matzah does feel more like the bread of affliction than on any other Passover I’ve experienced.
In his Pesach Haggadah, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes that “What transforms the bread of oppression into the bread of freedom is the willingness to share it with others....” In a year when every place of shared nourishment (both the literal and figurative) are closed, when I am told I cannot stand closer than six feet to the people I love or welcome others into my home, when I am unwilling to share the bread of freedom with others, how can I extend an honest invitation?
And then there is Ha Lachma Anya’s conclusion, its leap to freedom and redemption. This is the least free I’ve ever felt in my otherwise now seemingly very beautifully boring and safe life. Pardon the language, but how the fuck am I supposed to think about invitation and community and freedom? How the fuck am I dreaming about a redemptive next year when we’re all taking things day, hour by hour, when who knows what next year is going to be and time has gotten slippery and days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days and I can’t say I remember when this even began, when death encroaches on all sides, when freedom and redemption couldn’t feel further away?
Do any of you artists have an initial impulse towards false uplift and sentiment, even if you hate it? For years, I strongly and vocally identified as a pessimist. Maybe that was just an ansty posture, a contrarian stance tied to anger and growing into my body and feeling like I didn’t belong in the religious community in which I was raised. People would be shocked when I told them about my straunch pessimism, maybe because I smile a lot and like baking cookies for my friends and generally making people feel better. And yet, though I would declare my self-identification with pride and defiance, I would write plays that ended neatly, where seperated loved ones were reunited and estranged family members held hands, or lovers would kiss and make up, despite everything. I am repelled by false uplift when I see it in art; I think it is both uninteresting and irresponsible. When I sniffed it out in my own work, I would have to untangle and revise my way to somewhere that felt truer: a world that is chaotic and messy and often really sad, a world that was more about tough questions than easy answers (more on questions later). “Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people” smells strongly of false uplift.
In Escape Velocity: A Post-Apocalyptic Haggadah, Stanley Aaron Lebovic argues that Ha Lachma Anya’s invitation is too late to be sincere. The delay of the invitation proves “We are NOT really free! We are NOT yet home! Our exodus from Egypt has landed us in a prolonged exile of unimaginable horrors…”
So, for reasons of both the Haggadah’s structure and the current reality of our lives, the invitation isn’t a real invitation.
But, lately, I have been thinking a lot about suspension of disbelief.
In my recent applications to institutions, I’ve had to articulate what I think is radical or meaningful or even just useful about theatre. I’ve found myself narrowing in on how, when disbelief is suspended, seemingly authentic, unshakeable givens fall away. I’ve found myself writing in definitive, declarative, statements about how theatre is radical because it places the seemingly impossible within the reach of human imagination. A better world must first be imagined in order to ever come into existence. And if a better world can be rendered in imagination, then it might just be possible.
Now, I read these statements, retch a little, and qualify all of them with a small, doubtful, quiet, pleading “right?” Consider this revision for our time: When disbelief is suspended, seemingly authentic, unshakeable givens fall away, right? Theatre can be radical because it places the seemingly impossible within the reach of human imagination, right? And a better world must be imagined in order to ever come into existence, right? And if a better world can be rendered in imagination, then it might just be possible, right?
As I write this, I see the shadow of what I think might be a mouse flit across my parents’ dining room floor. I hop onto a chair, for literally no reason because mice are tiny. I tell my parents. We have a short conversation, loosely summarized:
We could call someone.
Yeah.
But no one would come.
Yeah.
And my friend Hannah texts me. She’s just angry-written two chapters of her new fantasy novel. She wanted to share her seder with her sister. They both live in Boston. Even so, they can’t be together. I can cite endless examples of everything on the spectrum of wrong to tragic to nightmarish. I know you can too.
And here we are, singing about freedom.
There is the obvious framing of the Passover story that (presumably) draws all of us as ~artists~ to exploring its various facets: Maggid as a highly theatrical act of suspension of disbelief. You’ve got props, set, script, maybe a costume. Hold your matzah aloft. Drink at appointed times. It’s Site Specific Theatre, Baby.
In an article for Scientific American, Literary Critic Norman Holland cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge as the coiner of the term in The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, when he asked his readers for “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith,” though like many of y’all I recall first learning of suspension of disbelief through Aristotle or maybe theater camp. While neuroscience hasn’t quite figured out specifically how we suspend disbelief, Holland describes suspended disbelief in general terms. He writes “It isn't that we stop disbelieving—it's that we believe two inconsistent things. We accept that we are sitting and reading or watching a movie. We also believe or, more accurately, feel that what we are reading or viewing is happening.” When we suspend disbelief, our prefrontal cortexes do not fact-check our realities or trigger our motor impulses. But, our limbic systems make us feel the feels of the stories we’re taking in.
I Googled why we have the capacity, on a neuroscientific level, to suspend disbelief, what might be psychologically or evolutionarily valuable. I haven't had any luck finding anything definitive.
And I don’t know how I identify on the optimism-pessimism spectrum anymore, certainly not now, not in a world where there are hours when I feel the world has been sliced open, tipped over, and completely and utterly drained of purpose and there are other hours, sometimes in the same day, when I feel more grateful just to be alive than I can articulate.
Fuck Aristotelian misogyny and oppressive witch’s hat bullshit structure, but I raise my three glasses of grape juice and maybe one glass of very weak wine to suspension of disbelief and poetic faith. I invite my adolescent self with her blue sparkly eye-liner and anger and angst before she’d experienced anything like this and my present self who feels so very small and sad and scared and incapable of meaningful action. I tell myself, past and present that it’s not naive or foolish to imagine freedom, to use the devices we know from our work to get through this. It is nourishing. It is human. Maybe suspending disbelief, with its capacity to blur the world of reality and the world of story, it is an act of older, wiser, optimism for our times. I don’t know for sure, though. Leibniz’s doctrine of optimism is that this world is the best of all possible worlds. I don’t know if I can believe that about the world we’re living through.
As we embark on the journey of Maggid, we know we’re, up to a point, deluding ourselves. We’re too smart and cynical not to. We know our invitation isn’t real. We know our freedom isn’t, either.. But we’ve all been suspending disbelief, semi-constantly, for weeks: watching hours of television and movies, putting up small shows on the internet, reading books, telling each other stories virtually.
We are all famished. We are all in need. So, okay. Let’s try it. Let’s suspend disbelief. Let’s invite each other to feast. Next year, we’re going to be free.
PS. I hate that I didn’t cite any women in this, WTF.
מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת? שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה – כֻּלּוֹ מַצָּה. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה (כֻּלּוֹ) מָרוֹר. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אֵין אָנוּ מַטְבִּילִין אֲפִילוּ פַּעַם אֶחָת – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה שְׁתֵּי פְעָמִים. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְׁבִין וּבֵין מְסֻבִּין – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלָּנוּ מְסֻבִּין
Ma Neeshtana ha-laila ha-zeh meekol ha-laylot?
Sheh-bichol ha-laylot anoo ochleem chametz oo-matzah. Halailah hazeh chametz oomatz.
Sheh-bi'chol ha-laylot anoo ochleem sheh-ar yerakot. Ha-lailah hazeh maror.
Sheh-bi'chol ha-laylot ayn anoo mat-bee- leen afeeloo pa-am echad. Ha-laila hazeh sh'tay pi-ameem.
Sheh- bi'chol ha-laylot anoo ochleem bayn yoshveen oo-bayn misoobeen. Ha-laila hazeh koolanoo misooveen.
What differentiates this night from all [other] nights? On all [other] nights we eat chamets and matsa; this night, only matsa? On all [other] nights we eat other vegetables; tonight (only) marror. On all [other] nights, we don't dip [our food], even one time; tonight [we dip it] twice. On [all] other nights, we eat either sitting or reclining; tonight we all recline.
Oh.
I love Ma Nishtana.
I love Ma Nishtana, as recited in Yiddish with a thick, sweet Galicianer accent by my Zaydie.
I love Ma Nishtana as declaimed by me in Latin with the aid of a printout from my high school Latin teacher (at this point, I remember no Latin).
I love Ma Nishtana as my now grown up little brother’s indulgence of our family’s mishegas, sung while standing on a chair, even though he is over six feet tall, because he is the youngest and sorry, that’s just how it goes.
I love Ma Nishtana as sung through a smile by my Mom, who is the youngest of her siblings.
I love Ma Nishtana as joyfully scream-sung by my baby cousins who prepared so much and then got flustered but then rebounded.
I love Ma Nishtana as an epitomization of maybe the Haggadah as a guide to a pedagogy of freedom or feminism my Mom alludes to in her article, because Ma Nishtana is about inspiring accountable, joyful, empowered participation.
I love Ma Nishtana because it gave me one of my favorite questions in my dramaturgical toolkit.
I love Ma Nishtana because those four answers are some insufficient, direct, overly-literal nonsense, and therefore Ma Nishtana is actually an epitomization of something I can love without qualification about Judaism: all the damn questions, the sweet questions, the questions with no answers in sight, the questioning for the love of deep inquiry, because those four answers are, by no means, all of it. How could they be?
I love Ma Nishtana for the same reason I love seeing the messy, incomplete studies of great painters and hearing drafts on the way; I love when the mechanisms by which we learn to do the art can be art in and of themselves.
I love Ma Nishtana because most worthwhile things, including asking questions, require practice, and what a gift that we’ve been given a start and a guide, when so often embarrassment, shyness, or shame get in the way of the best questions ever being asked.
So.
What are you going to ask?
Echad chacham
The wise child asks, “What are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments we learn through the Passover story?"
Discuss with that child the order and meaning of the Seder, and teach this child the rules of observing the holiday of Passover.
Ve’echad rasha
The wicked child asks, "What is this service to you?"
By using the word 'you' and not 'me,' or 'us' the child is not including him or herself in the community. Say to this child: “It is because of what God did for me in the land of Egypt." 'Me' and not 'you' or 'us,' for if they had been there they would not have been saved.
Echad tam
The simple child asks, "What is this?"
To this child, answer plainly: “This is the story of the ancient Jewish people's journey to freedom.”
Ve’echad she’eino yodea lish’ol
What about the child who does not know how to ask?
Help this child by telling them the story of Exodus.
...and that is to advocate for the wicked child.
and of course, i do this because, well who are we to designate? who are we to call any kids good or evil, when the origin of evil is mysterious and inexplicable, and anyway, if kids know what good and evil is when they’re called one or the other it’s because they found out from some grown-up or something that a grown-up made or did? who are we to give them an essence that is one thing or another? i recall from a childhood that grows further and further away, that good and evil were mutable categories: my sister was good when she shared and evil when she stole my pretzels and lied about it and the distance between good and evil could be traversed back and forth in minutes. i digress. the origin of evil is not the point.
the point is, i stand in defense of the child who asks, what does this mean to you?
because the wicked child knows that every human is a planet, vast and fundamentally unknowable, and even those human beings who are a part of communities with rules and systems and structures.
because instead of speaking the language of strictures and commandments, the wicked child is asking about the kind of meaning unique to each person’s unmappable planet, is humbled by the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone else, and wouldn’t dare presume that what is yours is the same theirs, that your reasons are the same as theirs, and asks from a desire to understand what is so core to you that it can only be yours.
i say: hear the wicked child because it is easier to cite laws, to feed someone else’s language for purpose and meaning making back and forth, to parrot those people who are so very good and so very fluent in rightness, than to answer a question spoken to the molten hot core of what matters.
how scary it is to be asked such things. it is protective, of course, this impulse to anger and defensiveness. it is far easier to deny someone’s right to redemption than to hear what they are actually asking.
i would like to hope that if i found myself sitting opposite the wicked child, i would attempt to answer honestly, weaving through all of my i don’t knows and ums and pauses, doing my best arrive at something fundamental and honest, even if the only thing i could find to offer the wicked child was a quiet, hesitant question in response to a question.
and then i would ask, in turn:
what does this mean to you?
The story of Exodus is pretty simple: Jews are enslaved. An Egyptian-raised Jew is contacted by God to un-enslave them. He does. Well, I mean, it's hard -- 10 pretty grisley plagues have to happen first, and a bunch of drowned soldiers -- but eventually, he does. There's also a post-script about a mountain, some tablets, a golden calf, and we proceed to wander in the desert for 40 years.
Hebrew school, Wikipedia, and Disney's "The Prince of Egypt" cover this pretty nicely, if you'd rather not check out the primary source document.
So this year, we assume the Simple Child's inability to ask a question is not because they don't know the story, but rather for lack of visceral framing. And for them we offer a writer's grappling with her own Exodus on the eve of Passover.
Sofya Levitzy-Weitz is a current Core Writer and a 2018/2019 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, where the second seder play referenced in this book ("Cannabis Passover") was included in PlayLabs for their public season last fall.
(read the bolded sections aloud)
this morning I woke up to a text from my mother that said: feel that in a national crisis you should be with us. & never mad just sad. & I miss you terrible. Terribly. & I can’t get you here fast enough. & a text version of a poem she’d written about all the small moments my family is having right now, without me. laundry & baking & muffins & the smell of the house. & in this poem she accidentally set a small fire and it reminded her of me at three years old, my long hair accidentally caught on fire from the Hanukkah candles. I didn’t feel it, but remember the terror on her face before she launched on me to put it out.
a thought that happens more than most any in my mind is why am I not with the people I love the most?
in a line in my play about my family’s Passover, the mother who is based on my mother says – why do my children want to leave me? and the line gets a laugh because – Jewish mothers! – but this morning on the phone she cried and she was really scared and she is really scared and that scares me.
my Passover plane ticket – purchased months ago, purchased before this – keeps getting pushed. one day, then the next, then the next. I will already miss the scheduled seder. my mother tells me: It will get cancelled. It is going to get worse.
Inertia is the tendency to do nothing. Or to remain unchanged.
I stare at flights until my eyes blur. I stare at the map. The unfathomable difference, made small, made graphic. The google earth image, from almost a decade ago, but still my heart, it aches.
Los Alamitos, California is 2,802 miles away from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.
19 S**** St, Apt 3, with its very recent outfitted balcony patio, with an herb garden, with little lights, with two cats staring out the screen, is 2,802 miles away from 11542 D***** Road, where I learned to ride a bike, where I had family dinner every night, where I cried listening to music in my bedroom, where I ate and slept from age 4.
two weeks ago, I imagined putting my cats in their carriers, renting a van, and just driving and driving west. to the pacific, which is always stamped on the inside of my eyelids. I imagine this so hard it was as though it was already happening. it was as though I was already there.
go, go, go.
when the Israelites left Egypt, the only home they’d known, what did they think of the horizon? what did they think of the purpose of their lives, the ones they were leaving, and the ones they didn’t know yet?
the Israelites walked for forty years. many of them died, grew up, made new families. the generation that reached the Holy Land remembered little of what they had left.
today in yoga, live-streamed from my studio in Brooklyn, the teacher said: we often think of home as a place we eat, we sleep, the walls around us. but our real home is our body.
and at the end, in savasana: most of us are uncomfortable being at home in our bodies. But we are all we have.
& I felt comforted. & I cried.
when Moses first saw the burning bush, did he think: am I going fucking crazy? or: am I alone in this message? or: it’s too much pressure.
he was already exiled. he could have just left.
growing up, we had family dinner every night. we spent time together. we are a family that hangs out, a family that spends time in common areas. these past few weeks, with my roommates (my “isolation pod”) – I have felt like a family. we cook every night, we cry, we talk. it doesn’t matter how many people I see in my normal life, I realized, almost stunned. this is what makes me happier.
Moses didn’t know his family. his mother, hiding him in a basket in the reeds, to save his life, hoping the Pharaoh’s daughter would find him, and she did, and his sister watched to make sure it would be okay. the faith, it rocks me.
in a poem I wrote almost 2 years ago, about my grief, about my heartbreak, I wrote of unpacking my little suitcase between any four walls. I wrote of home. I wrote four walls is a body.
one time on a plane ride from Chicago to LAX, watching the little virtual map as I always do, I watched as the unincorporated area known as Rossmoor, the neighborhood I grew up in, appeared on the screen. even now, I think I’m making it up. why would it be there? it has never been there again, never was before. but the boy I loved was with me, and he saw it too. How did it know, I was going home?
one Thanksgiving, he and I were alone in New York, with the cats. I like it, he’d said. Our little family. But I longed to be home, for the kitchen, for the kitchen island, for my brother’s jokes, for my dad’s quiet puttering, my mom’s laugh, the smells, the warmth, this place, my home.
how will I ever make a new home, one that competes?
it was the women at the base of Mt. Sinai who believed Moses would come back. the men panicked, tore the earrings from their wives’ ears, melted them into idols. the women said, he will come back. women, used to waiting. used to fleeing.
we weren’t supposed to do this. leave communities. go off, alone.
for what?
today, my friend said: you are leaving one family to go to the other. both can exist.
but I still don’t know if I can -
a woman I worked on a television project with– who I admire more than almost anyone – said to me: you’re always thinking about somewhere else.
this boy I loved for a long time wrote a play in which a character who was based on his sister wishes she could split in half. this was after years of me telling him I wished I could be two people. I wished I could be two places. I wish I could live two separate lives at once. I want to be with my family, I want to be with my family, why am I not with my family? When anything could happen at any point.
But what about me? He never said. Aren’t I your family? But of course, eventually, that would be part of why we never would be.
In that same play, that character asked: how do you love the place you are? As though I’d spoken it.
I remember seeing the movie Sliding Doors as a child and being obsessed with the concept, something I already thought about constantly. What decisions – both tiny and large – are changing the landscape of our whole life? What infinity of tiny decisions, both in and out of our hands, are changing everything, right now, and always? In one life, Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t discover her husband cheating on her in their bed. In the other, she cuts her hair short, does the things she’s always wanted from her life. Or at least that’s how I remember it.
god saved the worst plague for last. god warned and warned – did it have to come to this? – before the death of the Egyptian firstborns.
it is when the Pharaoh’s own son dies, that he finally says. go. defeated.
Jews are always going somewhere else. we’ve been called wandering. we’ve had to flee almost every place we lived, our bread can’t even stay in the oven, we must cook it on our backs, in the sun, eat it later, as crackers.
when the Israelites thought of the holy land, what did they see? the land of milk and honey? what is home, when you have never been there? what is home, when you have never had one? is it worse to imagine it, or to see it so clearly, in all its most distinct and beautiful details, and miss it every second?
in two days, I am supposed to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, home for Passover, where I will need to wear a mask and only see my family in the outside of our backyard. On the plane, I will sit in my own row, I will watch as the lights of Los Angeles start to appear. I will see the sliver of ocean as it unfolds. I will feel the drop. I will search amidst the tiny houses for my parents’ house, fruitless, but do it every time, nonetheless. I will hold my breath as we get close enough that tiny dots become tiny people, but this time, they will all be in the patchwork of the flicker of lights that is a house. their houses.
I will leave, to go home.
Jake Brasch is a playwright + lyricist + composer + pianist + performer + clown + baker and a Brooklyn-based fancy-free queer sober Jew from Colorado.
Each year we take a moment to acknowledge the plagues that the Holy One brought upon the Egyptians in her quest to free the Jewish slaves.
We regret that the Egyptians had to suffer so greatly before allowing the Jews to leave. We don’t wish suffering on anyone. We mourn the fact that it took the Egyptians so long to get the message.
What message is the spirit eternal trying to share with us now? Is she sharing a message? Or perhaps several messages? Are her messages conflicting? Are we getting the message? Should we be trying to get the message? Should we be sharing what we believe the message is?
This year, as we consider each of the plagues, we look at them a little differently. We ask ourselves what it would have been like to live through them. We question whether or not we would get the message if we were in the Egyptians’ shoes.
***
Blood | dam | דָּם
(We dip)
A mother bathes her daughter. The river turns to blood. She pulls her daughter out of the river. She checks for wounds. The baby cries. She looks for the dead animal that is poisoning the river. She can’t find it. She runs home.
Frogs | tzfardeiya | צְפַרְדֵּֽעַ
(We dip)
A cobbler sees a frog making its way into his workshop. He loves frogs. Many others are grossed out by frogs. He’s not. When three more frogs arrive, he smiles. He hears a sea of ribbets. He goes outside. He laughs. The gods sure do have a strange sense of humor. He dances with the frogs.
Lice | kinim | כִּנִּים
(We dip)
A small boy is very itchy. He cannot figure out why. He wants to bathe. The river is still blood. Ugh. He tries to figure out what is happening, but he can’t think straight. The frogs are loud. He’s so itchy. He runs. He runs. He runs.
Beasts | arov | עָרוֹב
(We dip)
An elder is losing her marbles. She must be. For there is a mirage in the distance. She sees zebras, elephants, wombats, crows, crocodiles, all dancing in the meadow. They are approaching. They are not playing. They are fierce. She tries to pinpoint the moment she lost her mind. The itchiness? The blood in the water? Did something happen before that? Or was this gradual? Did she just never notice? She saw it happen to her own mother. A painful decline. She doesn’t want this for herself. She closes her eyes.
Cattle disease | dever | דֶּֽבֶר
(We dip)
A farmer is not happy. He successfully kept his cattle safe from all of those tigers that showed up yesterday and for what? For his cows to just start randomly dropping dead? One at a time, they’ve just been crapping out. He’s fed ‘em. He’s done everything right. He sits down. He throws away his hat. He gives up.
Boils | sh’chin | שְׁחִין
(We dip)
A small child stares at her arm. She loves the little red spots. Yes, they hurt, but no more than where she was bit on the thigh by a wombat. No more than her gut hurts from all the blood she drank from the river. The spots are forming little constellations on her arm. She wishes she could be someone else.
Hail | barad | בָּרָד
(We dip)
The Pharaoh is, like, super freaked out. The last few days have been weird. He looks for answers in the sky. He begins being pelted by little cold spheres. He laughs. He can’t help himself. This is just so weird! He knows he must take this all seriously. He knows he should feel scared. But he laughs. It’s too ridiculous. He just laughs.
Locusts | arbeh | אַרְבֶּה
(We dip)
The starving family holds each other for warmth. They are terrified. They haven’t gone outside for days. A bug flies inside. A child catches it. She eats it. Several more bugs fly in Eureka. It’s a feast. It’s a miracle.
Darkness | choshech | חֹֽשֶׁךְ
(We dip)
Convinced that the world is about to end, a young couple decide to venture out to watch one last sunrise. It never comes.
Death of the Firstborn | makat b’chorot | מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת
(We dip)
Our mother has kept her daughter inside ever since the bloody river incident. Her lover tells her about everything that’s been going on. It sounds really scary. Really scary. But she feels safe. She kisses her baby goodnight. She falls asleep. She dreams that she’s able to go back outside. That she’s able to smile. That she’s pregnant again. Another child. Another girl. She awakes in the morning to a scream from a nearby house. She gets up. She rushes to the crib.
***
Only in retrospect do we see G-d's plan. We see the lesson only in the rearview mirror. Curses become blessings and blessings become curses. We are always in process. Our stories never end.
May we remember all of the uncertainty we have felt as a people. May we remember the pain. May we question our certainty. May we leave open the possibility that anything can happen, that tomorrow zebras may come marching into town or that the ocean will be turned to molasses. Stranger things have happened. And may we remember the deliverance, the pleasure, the warmth, the hugs, the little things that matter as we trudge through the endless unknown, the desert, on our way home.
As a way into Dayenu, consider this passage from The Seas by Samantha Hunt.
When I was young I went down to the pier looking for my father, I accidentally got on board the wrong boat. [...] I was scared on board, surrounded by five sailors. I thought that the captain was a pirate because he had a round bite taken out of his ear. To appease him I told him I’d work to pay for my passage. [...] Eventually I told him I would make a good end table or hassock. “Great,” he said. So I curled up on the dirty floor and prepared for work. I waited for some weight on my back but it never came. [...] When I was returned to my family I continued to work as a hassock around our house, and sometimes my father would actually use me, resting his feet while he watched the television. I liked the job because it reminded me of the sailors I had met on board.
This is the tense incarnate. We waited for the weight and it never came. But even after returning home, even after being free, we find solace in revisiting the shape of submission, if only to recall the passage itself.
(Now we drink the second cup of wine. Flip to the back of the book for the lyrics to "Dayenu.")
It is customary in Jewish religious practice, as in life, to wash our hands before eating and making bread. In fact, there are a number of instances in which Jewish ritual instructs us to wash ourselves-- when we wake up, after touching an animal, after we have sex. The provenance here seems pretty clear. Like so many Biblical and Talmudic dicta, these rituals are grounded in practical considerations: don’t handle dirty food with your hands, animals carry diseases, sex is messy so clean up after, etc.
There is, of course, a symbolic resonance here, but a decent (if cynical) argument can be made that these rituals were as much community health advisories as they were symbolic acts.
So as we wash our hands, at the advice of our forefathers who knew better, let us acknowledge those upon whom we depend for guidance and expertise to safeguard our health. Let us be grateful that we no longer rely on Rabbis for this kind of information, that instead we have access to highly-skilled medical professionals who sacrifice their well-being in the interest of the public health.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל נְטִילַת יָדָיִּם.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kidshanu bemitvotav vetzivanu al netilat yadayim.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your laws and commanded us to wash our hands.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ‑יָ אֱ‑לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמּוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ
Baruch Atah Ado-nai Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha-aretz.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings bread from the earth.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מַצָּה
Baruch Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’tzivanu Al Achilat matzah.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His laws and commanded us to eat matzah.
(Here we break the top and middle matzot into pieces and distribute them everyone at the table)
In quarantine I’m living with my mother, father and grandmother. We are lucky and safe and healthy in our home. In search of an angle, or take, or a point of inspiration when writing this…I went around the house and asked each of my housemates what they think of, when they think of the bitter herbs on the Seder Plate.
My mother responded “suffering”, my grandmother responded “it represents the suffering that the Jews experienced in Egypt.” And my father responded immediately to me and said “chocolate.” (????). Unclear where his head was at when I approached him… or perhaps very clear. Maybe he didn’t hear my question. Or maybe I should be concerned.
When thinking about the bitter herbs this Passover, it’s an obvious poignant and striking moment to reflect on the current suffering of our nation and our world as we all collectively suffer in different forms through this pandemic.
However, the bitter herbs are meant to be paired with haroset, and this important. The haroset is sweet, and this sweetness represents hope… an end to suffering. Though it took me a second to bring it all together…I guess my father had a point when he said “chocolate.” There is meaning in thinking of something bitter, and instead choosing to think of something sweet. I hope all of you in your time of quarantine… are treating yourself to some chocolate every now and then, because we must always continue to search for the sweetness, it is after all, the perfect antitode, to bitterness.
(The story of Matt and the rabbi continues:)
I pressed on, asking Why the maror, then, the bitter herbs ? and even then I remember blanching at the memory of horseradish on my tongue.
It is because love is bitter. Even at its best, there is bitterness in love. We remember that our people tasted the burning discomfort and strife of love but they ate it all the same, in order that they might love each other and what is divine in them.
ברוּךְ אַתָּה יְיַָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מרוֹר
Baruch Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’tzivanu Al Achilat Maror.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sancti- fied us with His laws and commanded us to eat bitter herbs.
But then the rabbi smiled, and I saw that he had been smiling this whole time but now the smile was wide, not wistful or wandering, and there was a bounty in it. And he laughed and said, But then we eat the charoset.
I laughed too. No, I know this. The charoset is the clay our people used to build the Egyptians their wonders. It reminds us of how we slaved.
No, said the rabbi, It may be a memory of that. But what it reminds me of is that, in our suffering for love, we became great builders, and our clay tasted sweet, and we learned that you need a sweet mortar to build a strong house. You need to take sweet joy with your bitterness and your broken heart, and you will see all the sides of love.
The rabbi ended here. We had other things to do. But I thanked him and held his hand with both of mine. Through him, and his own connection to what was divine in him, I am joyful to tell others what he taught me, why we eat as we do on the Seder.
(Here we combine our matzah, our maror, and our charoset to make a delicious sandwich)
Hopefully we are all enjoying the beautiful musings of this brilliant collection of Jewish writers. Now though, it's Shulchan Oreich. And everyone just wants to eat.
So no musings here.
Enjoy your food. Give thanks. Talk. Laugh. Drink. Share. And then come back to the haggadah for more prayer, more wine, and more musings.
Welcome back.
Full? Go get some exercise! It's time to find the afikoman from earlier. Whoever finds it first gets prize. Money. Or clout. Or the ability to eat the afikoman.
(Why do Jews seem to think matzah is a dessert in this context? I've never understood that.)
The search starts...NOW!
We have eaten the festive meal, tracked down the afikomen (hopefully it wasn't somewhere dusty), and now we're starting to wonder why we came back to this Haggadah.
Here's another glass of wine to keep you going.
With birkat hamazon, we give thanks for our food, and we pour ourselves a third cup of wine.
(Or, alternately, we say the kadesh again)
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.
(Flip to the back of the book for a song, or chat about something that struck you from the seder, as you empty your glasses for the final cup of the night!)
Traditionally, we open the door for Elijah, and we pour him a cup of wine.
In reading about Hallel I found writing that says the prophet Elijah visits the circimcision of every child and testifies that the family is following God's law, so we open the door for him on Passover so he can check that we are indeed circumcised and able to eat from the paschal lamb. If someone comes through that door and asks to check if you're circumcised, please, politely decline.
As a child I was told nothing of Elijah's relationship to male anatomy, but merely that he was a herald of the messiah, and that when he came we would finally see that promised land Jews love to talk about.
This year, with so many forced apart for the sake of safety, Elijah is your friends down the street, or your family across the country, or whoever you wish could walk through that door right now and take you in their arms. Elijah is the end of the death and the illness and the grief; a world where we can laugh and touch again, where close talkers can spit lightly onto your face and attentive friends can dab an eyelash off of your cheek. Elijah is the end to the aloneness. The hope. The promised land.
We pour a fourth cup of wine for ourselves, and a fifth cup for Elijah -- apparently he's going to sort out whether there should be four cups or five when he gets here)
Have a chat. Sing a song. Drink. The seder is almost over...
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
--Adam Zagajewski
--
לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשַָׁלָיִם
L'shana Haba'ah b'Y’rushalayim
Next Year in Jerusalem!
An only kid! An only kid
My father bought for two zuzim
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the cat and ate the kid
My father bought For two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the dog And bit the cat
That ate the kid
My father bought For two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the stick and beat the dog
That bit the cat that ate the kid
My father bought For two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the fire and burned the stick
That beat the dog That bit the cat
That ate the kid
My father boughtFor two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the water and quenched the fire
That burned the stick That beat the dog
That bit the cat That ate the kid
My father bought For two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
Then came the ox and drank the water
That quenched the fire That burned the stick
That beat the dog That bit the cat
That ate the kid
My father boughtFor two zuzim.
Chad gadya, Chad gadya
8. Then came the butcher And killed the ox . . .
9 Then came the angel of deathAnd slew the butcher . .
10. Then came the Holy One, blest be He!And destroyed the angel of death . .
to the tune of "Juice" by Lizzo
Pharaoh, pharaoh, in the halls
Don’t tell me you won’t free the jews (ooh baby)
My man moses got that beard
Don’t make him call a plague on you (ooh baby)
He was raised in Egypt land
But now he’s back with something new (ooh baby)
Gotta let my people go
Cuz the hebrews gotta fly the coop! (That’s how I roll)
Touch the water and the whole Nile turn to blood (Hebrew goals)
Darkness, boils and hail and even freaky bugs (now you know)
Frogs and lice and flies and Pestilence no good (so you know)
One more Plague from Moses and then, bitch you done!
CHORUS
It ain’t my fault that I’m out here asking Qs
Got my matzoh and grape juice Gotta pass over the Jews (yeah)
It ain’t my fault that god’s death angel is loose
Out here killing first-born dudes
Gotta pass over the Jews. Hineni
Hi-ne-ni
hi-ne-ni
Hi-ne- //-ni
Pass over the jews gotta pass over the jews hi ne ni Hi ne ni
Hi ne ni
Hi ne -
Pass over the jews gotta pass over the jews, yeah!
(by Jake Beckhard)
