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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Kadesh (sanctify over wine)
We begin by sanctifying this time and saying thanks for wine and for this holiday, the festival of matzah.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life and sustenance and permitted us to reach this season.We each now drink a cup of wine or eat one grape. Savor the wine or the grape because unlike our ancestors in Egypt, we now enjoy the liberty to do so.
Pass a bowl of water, a small cup and a towel around the table. Everyone pours three cupfuls over their fingers. There is no blessing over this washing.
[Greens held up for all to see.]
KARPAS - Parsley and celery are symbols of all kinds of spring greenery. The second time, the salt water and the green can help us to remember the ocean and green plants and the Earth, from which we get the water and air and food that enable us to live.
Leader: N'-varekh `et pri ha-`Adamah.
Everyone:
Let us bless the fruit of the Earth.
[Please dip your parsley into salt water two times and eat it.]
Yaḥatz (break)
This is the bread of destitution that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should join us.
I have here three pieces of matzah. I will break the middle piece into two. The larger one is now the afikoman, our dessert, which I will wrap and put aside. The afikomen represents the sacrificial lamb in the Passover story, which we’ll get to next.
Magid (the story)
The recalling of the Passover story is the central component of the Passover Seder, and there are a wide range of traditions in how the story is told. The book of Exodus in the Torah is the Passover story, and we could simply read Exodus next, but that would miss the point and take quite a while. In the traditional Haggadah, parts of the story are related several times, from different perspectives, and in different levels of detail. The point isn’t to read the story as it’s found in the Torah, but to retell it in a way that makes meaning to each of us here tonight.
First, let’s get the basics. The Haggadah begins the story with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people (and who lived before Jews were ‘Jews,’ in Canaan). Jacob’s name was changed into “Israel” in a story in the book of Genesis, and his descendants are called Israelites, which is what you need to know to understand the start of the Exodus story:
Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt יַעֲקֹב וּבָנָיו יָרְדוּ מִצְרָיִם
since the famine was heavy in the land of Canaan. כִּי כָבֵד הָרָעָב בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן
And he became a nation of people. וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי.
And Egyptians enslaved the Israelites with breaking work. יַּעֲבִדוּ מִצְרַיִם אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּפָרֶךְ
Fast-forwarding, God decides to free the Israelites by making life so hard for the Egyptians through ten plagues that they agree to let the Israelites leave. God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doors with its blood so that God would pass over those houses and spare them from the last plague. While the Egyptians were suffering, the Israelites escaped into the dessert and headed toward the land of Israel.
We remember the sacrificed lamb not only as the afikomen but also as the bone on the Seder plate.
We’ve now retold the Exodus story, but we haven’t felt as though we were in the land of Egypt ourselves. So we’ll pause here, and I ask that each of you recall a time of suffering or oppression in your own life. And I ask that you keep that memory with you over the next few minutes.
With this in mind, please drink your second cup of wine or eat your second grape.
Around our tables sit four daughters.
Wise Daughter
The Wise daughter understands that not everything is as it appears.
She is the one who speaks up, confident that her opinion counts. She is the one who can take the tradition and ritual that is placed before her, turn it over and over, and find personal meaning in it. She is the one who can find the secrets in the empty spaces between the letters of the Torah.
She is the one who claims a place for herself even if the men do not make room for her.
Some call her wise and accepting. We call her creative and assertive. We welcome creativity and assertiveness to sit with us at our tables and inspire us to act.
Wicked Daughter
The Wicked daughter is the one who dares to challenge the simplistic answers she has been given.
She is the one who asks too many questions. She is the one not content to remain in her prescribed place. She is the one who breaks the mold. She is the one who challenges the status quo.
Some call her wicked and rebellious. We call her daring and courageous. We welcome rebellion to sit with us at our tables and make us uneasy.
Simple Daughter
The Simple daughter is the one who accepts what she is given without asking for more.
She is the one who trusts easily and believes what she is told. She is the one who prefers waiting and watching over seeking and acting. She is the one who believes that the redemption from Egypt was the final act of freedom. She is the one who follows in the footsteps of others.
Some call her simple and naive. We call her the one whose eyes are yet to be opened. We welcome the contented one to sit with us at our tables and appreciate what will is still to come.
Daughter Who Does Not Know How to Ask
Last is the daughter who does not know how to ask.
She is one who obeys and does not question. She is the one who has accepted men's definitions of the world. She is the one who has not found her own voice. She is the one who is content to be invisible.
Some call her subservient and oppressed. We call her our sister. We welcome the silent one to sit with us at our tables and experience a community that welcomes the voices of women.
(Used with permission of the Temple Emunah Women's Seder Haggadah Design Committee)
The traditional Haggadah lists ten plagues that afflicted the Egyptians. We live in a very different world, but Passover is a good time to remember that, even after our liberation from slavery in Egypt, there are still many challenges for us to meet. Here are ten “modern plagues”:
Inequity - Access to affordable housing, quality healthcare, nutritious food, good schools, and higher education is far from equal. The disparity between rich and poor is growing, and opportunities for upward mobility are limited.
Entitlement - Too many people consider themselves entitled to material comfort, economic security, and other privileges of middle-class life without hard work.
Fear - Fear of “the other” produces and reinforces xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia.
Greed - Profits are a higher priority than the safety of workers or the health of the environment. The top one percent of the American population controls 42% of the country’s financial wealth, while corporations send jobs off-shore and American workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively is threatened.
Distraction - In this age of constant connectedness, we are easily distracted by an unending barrage of information, much of it meaningless, with no way to discern what is important.
Distortion of reality - The media constructs and society accepts unrealistic expectations, leading to eating disorders and an unhealthy obsession with appearance for both men and women.
Unawareness - It is easy to be unaware of the consequences our consumer choices have for the environment and for workers at home and abroad. Do we know where or how our clothes are made? Where or how our food is produced? The working conditions? The impact on the environment?
Discrimination - While we celebrate our liberation from bondage in Egypt, too many people still suffer from discrimination. For example, blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate. Women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. At 61 cents to the dollar, the disparity is even more shocking in Jewish communal organization.
Silence - Every year, 4.8 million cases of domestic violence against American women are reported. We do not talk about things that are disturbing, such as rape, sex trafficking, child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse, even though they happen every day in our own communities.
Feeling overwhelmed and disempowered - When faced with these modern “plagues,” how often do we doubt or question our own ability to make a difference? How often do we feel paralyzed because we do not know what to do to bring about change?
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree hagafen.
We thank a higher power, shaper and maker, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Drink the second glass of wine!
Be patient.
Expand your sense of the possible.
Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
Understand humility.
Foster dignity.
Endure.
10 of the 25 "Principles of Adult Behavior" , by John Perry Barlow.
We now wash our hands before eating matzah for the first time tonight.
When the Israelites left Egypt, they were in a hurry to get away from the Pharoah’s army. While on the run, they made matzah. Matzah is plain, rough, and fragile. It symbolizes the harsh journey of the Israelites out of Egypt, through the desert, to Israel. Keep thinking about that memory of suffering or oppression as you eat a piece of matzah, from either the top piece or the remaining part of the middle piece of matzah.
Have Yourself a Piece of Bitter Maror
By Gary Teblum
(sung to the tune of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”)
Have yourself a piece of bitter maror
On each seder night
Then we’ll feel
The toils and our people's plight.
Have yourself a piece of bitter maror
Hillel sandwich way,
We'll recall,
Our troubles weren’t so far away.
Here we are as in a olden days,
Such sad slavin' days of yore.
Family, friends who are dear to us
gather near to us once more.
Through the years we all will be together
Just as we are now
Eating matzah, teaching all the children how.
And have yourself a piece of bitter maror now.
Korech: Mixing the Bitter and the Sweet
One of my favorite moments of the seder comes just before dinner is served. It is called Korech. It is also known as the Hillel sandwich. It is the moment when we eat maror (the bitter herbs) and the charoset (the sweet apple and nut mixture) on a piece of matzah. What a strange custom to eat something so bitter and something so sweet all in one bite. I can taste it now, just thinking about it, and the anticipation is almost too much to bear. I dread it, and I long for it all at the same time. Why do we do such a thing? We do it to tell our story.
The Jewish people tells our story through our observance of Jewish holidays throughout the year. The holidays of Passover, Chanukah and Purim remind us just how close the Jewish people has come to utter destruction and how we now celebrate our strength and our survival with great joy, remembering God’s help and our persistence, and our own determination to survive.
We also tell the story throughout our lifetime of Jewish rituals. The breaking of a glass at a Jewish wedding reminds us that even in times of life’s greatest joys we remember the sadness of the destruction of the Temple. When we build a home, some Jews leave a part unfinished to remember that even when building something new, we sense the times of tragedy in the Jewish people. And on Passover we mix the sweet charoset with the bitter maror, mixing bitter and sweet of slavery and freedom all in one bite.
Throughout each year and throughout our lifetimes, we challenge ourselves to remember that even in times of strength, it is better to sense our vulnerability, rather than bask in our success. We all have memories of times in which bitter and sweet were mixed in our lives, all in the same bite. Judaism says, sometimes life is like that. We can celebrate and mourn all at the same time. And somehow, everything will be ok. What is your korech moment?
Break some bread (or matzah!) and enjoy the festive meal!
Talk about the things that matter in life: family, global refugee policies / solutions, what’s happening with the Star Wars expanded universe!
When you’re wrapping up, take 5 minutes to reflect on the things in life you’re grateful for (go beyond health, family and friends), and try to summarize them all into a single sentence that you write down to share later.
With the meal complete, we can how have our last dessert. We now eat the afikoman. Remember that the afikoman represents the sacrificed lamb that helped God spare the firstborn of the Israelites, during the last of the plagues, and so it is fitting to be our last dessert.
We now drink our third cup of wine or eat our third grape. Enjoy the wine or the grape, for we are free.
We can honor the tradition of praising God by reflecting now on our obligations as a liberated people to help those who are not yet liberated. Let’s keep in mind that as a liberated people, we may now benefit from the oppression of others. We might even unwittingly be the hand of oppression ourselves. The work to liberate all people goes on.
We now drink our fourth and last cup of wine or eat our fourth and last grape.
This year, we are still fighting. This year there are still members of our community who are closeted, or denied justice. There are incarcerated trans folks placed in the wrong prisons. There are non-binary people being misgendered at home and at work and at school. This year the government wants to deny us the right to work, to wed, to exist. Queer youth are committing suicide from brutal bullying at school. This year, we are still fighting.
Next year, may our struggles come to fruition. May we gain equal protection under the law, and may all people accept our right to live and to exist. Next year, may we have the capacity to fight for the rights of other marginalized groups.
This year, we are still fighting. Next year, may we all be free.
Chag sameach.
