The authors of the Haggadah did not hold the simple child’s question “what is this?” in high esteem. This is unfortunate, as the question comes from Hashem themself: “When, in the future, your children ask you, ‘What is this?’ you shall tell them, ‘With a mighty hand, Hashem brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.’” (Exodus 13:14) The ‘simplicity’ of this question is deceptive, through asking ‘what is this’ the child gets at something deeper: what is possible? The first step to understanding the possibilities a situation affords us is to take stock of what lies before us. It is often the ‘untrained eye’ that is able to reveal a text’s hidden messages and meanings. Every question is valuable, no matter how simple, and every person brings precious insight to the seder table, no matter what their experience with Judaism is. 

I’ll be the first to admit that this Haggadah is very dense and at times my writing can be confusing, esoteric even. I refuse to dumb things down for my readers because I have so much faith in them. That being said, accessibility is one of my biggest concerns with any ritual I lead or space that I facilitate. It is of the utmost importance that everyone, regardless of their background or relationship to Judaism, can participate at the seder and have a meaningful, fulfilling experience. Because I’m challenging y’all to delve deep into ancient texts and do difficult work with me, I’ve tried to make this haggadah as user-friendly as possible—adding transliterations wherever Hebrew text appears, including an extensive glossary, writing a trillion endnotes to give more sources and background information, etc. My hope is that doing so will put everyone on slightly more equal footing, so that better conversations can unfold. 

To that end, I’m including four questions that people who are new to Judaism or radical Jewish spaces might ask, and providing simple answers. Thank you so much for trusting me on this journey.

what is pesach?

Pesach, פֶּסַח, is the Hebrew name for Passover, the holiday we’re gathered to celebrate. The meaning of the word Pesach is similar to ‘pass over.’ In the Exodus narrative, before sending the tenth plague which killed all of the Egyptians’ firstborn sons, Hashem promises the Jewish people that if they paint their doorposts with blood, פָסַח יי עַל-הַפֶּתַח pasach Hashem al ha-petach, “I will pass over your door and will not let the Angel of Death come into your houses to kill you.” (Exodus 12:23) 

Pesach is an eight-day long Jewish holiday that celebrates our ancestors being freed from slavery in Mitzrayim (Egypt.) In the times of the Temple it was one of the three major agricultural festivals during which ancient Jews would bring special sacrifices to Jerusalem. Today, Pesach is by far the most widely celebrated Jewish holiday. While many secular Jews make an effort to go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) nothing rivals the Pesach Seder in terms of enduring popularity amongst Jews of all stripes.

Pesach is celebrated by eating matzah, unleavened bread. During Pesach it is forbidden to eat chametz, bread or other food that has been leavened. The first two days and last two days of Pesach are sacred days of rest, when we’re not supposed to do any kind of work. Over Pesach, many Jews spend time with family and friends, eat special chametz-free foods, and enjoy the beautiful springtime weather outdoors.

what is a seder?

A seder is a special ritual meal held on Pesach to tell the Exodus story. The word seder, סדר, means “order,” reflecting the highly elaborate structure of a traditional Pesach meal. If you showed up to tonight thinking you were just here to eat, boy are you in trouble. (I kid, I kid.) The seder has 14 steps and each one has an important role in helping us tell the story. Many of the foods we eat are highly symbolic, even the way we set the table is symbolic. The seder is in some ways modeled after ancient Greek symposiums. We are instructed to recline, drink wine, and engage in lively discussion. In many ways the seder was designed with children in mind, to teach them the Exodus story and its meaning. Beyond its symbolism and its educational purpose, the seder is simply supposed to be a fun, exciting meal with delicious foods, rich traditions, games and riddles, and joyful singing. All of these components come together to make something truly special, an experience beloved by observant and secular Jews alike. 

what is a haggadah?

The word haggadah, הַגָדָה, means “telling.” A haggadah is a special book that is printed to go along with the Pesach seder, containing the text that we read from at various parts of the night. There’s a difference between a haggadah, like the one you’re reading from, and the Haggadah, which is the standard, traditional text that all printed haggadot (haggadahs) draw from. I often refer to the Haggadah in this book. To be specific, I should say that I primarily draw on the standard Ashkenazi version of the Haggadah. The text of the traditional Haggadah tells us that “anyone who adds to the telling of the Exodus story is praiseworthy.” There is no one definitive Haggadah, as the Haggadah is an evolving document which each generation of Jews leaves its mark on and adds to. Each generation connects the Exodus narrative to their own struggles and victories and introduces their own symbols and traditions to make those connections clearer and unlock new meanings. There has been an explosion of new haggadot over the past 50 years which connect the traditional story to a glittering array of political and social causes. Haggadot and seder rituals have been written about everything from human trafficking to disability justice, from healthy sexuality to Black Lives Matter. 

what is abolition?

In many ways this is the most difficult of the four questions to answer. It certainly is the one of these questions the average Jew would be least able to answer. On a dictionary level, abolition simply refers to the act of fully ending or stopping something. Perhaps a better question would be what do we need to end? The answer I and other abolitionists offer unequivocally is police and prisons. 

Prisons are an ancient evil. The Tanach is full of references to people being taken captive, incarcerated for various reasons in dungeons, jails, and pits and bound in irons. However, systematic mass incarceration is a new phenomenon. Newer still are police, an institution that has its origins in paramilitary groups founded in the antebellum American south to capture runaway slaves, punish them, and return them to their masters. Police and prisons (along with corrupt court systems designed to mediate between the two) are the primary manifestations of the carceral state. 

Abolition would mean fully and literally (not metaphorically) ending the institutions of police and prisons, along with the carceral structures that surround them. Abolition isn't the same thing as reforming prisons or defunding the police. Abolition is not merely firing the ‘bad apples’ in the police force or nationalizing private prisons. Abolition is not merely replacing contemporary police and prisons with similar institutions.

Abolition is radically recreating our world, bringing institutions that police and incarcerate the vulnerable down and never letting them arise again. Abolition is a revolutionary process that will change everything about how we see one another, care for each other, and keep each other safe. Abolition must be fought for, not legislated. Abolition must be material and spiritual. Abolition will change not only the world around us, but who we are ourselves. Abolition is a fulfillment of a divine promise of universal liberation. Abolition is necessary if any of us are to ever be free. Most of all, abolition is possible.     

Hello friend. You have a very big task in front of you, and a lot of responsibility for your guests’ experiences. As a seasoned seder leader, I know all too well how much pressure this can be. What's most important now is that you breathe.  

I would like to live in a world where there are no seder leaders, where seders are planned completely collectively. I’ve seen it happen and it’s beautiful, if a bit chaotic. But realistically, most seders are going to need someone to guide the chevruta through. So I’m going to give you some advice, in the form of Ten Commandments

I. Thou shalt not play God. 

This is something I struggle with—the desire to make everything perfect, to have everything planned to the tenth degree, to always be in control. Unfortunately, it’s just not gonna happen. Seders never go as planned. Even if we could make everything happen exactly the way we want them to, the seder would be no fun for anyone else.  

II. Thou shalt read the room.

The most important job you have tonight is to make sure everyone has a meaningful experience and a good time. It’s very important for you to be on the lookout for signs that people are checking out—yawns, looking at phones, and glassy-eyed stares are dead giveaways. It’s not your fault that this is happening—even at the most compelling seder, people inevitably get tired, and people always get a little bored. Try not to judge yourself, it will only make things worse. Observing what’s happening and reacting to it caringly will make the experience good for everyone.         

III. Thou shalt engage the tired, the bored, and the lost among you. 

Looking for people checking out is only half the battle, you have to also actively engage them. This doesn’t mean ‘wrapping it up’ when people are tired, it means offering people coffee and tea, literally and metaphorically. It means asking questions, switching gears, changing up the choreography of your seder. The best tools you have at your disposal: jokes, discussion, loud obnoxious singing, getting people up out of their chairs and moving, enacted rituals, props, games, riddles, having snacks on the table, caffeine. 

Greater than all of them is compassion. Let people leave early if they need to without pressuring them to stay. Move things along if people are bored of a section, even if you think it’s important. Let people chat. Don’t be a boss. Most importantly, ask people what’s going on if they seem upset or lost—privately, if at all possible—and accommodate their needs.            

IV. Thou shalt explain things clearly and respectfully. 

People will get lost during the seder. It’s important that you answer their questions thoroughly without talking down to them. You might be knowledgeable and passionate about all of this stuff, but not everyone else will share your enthusiasm or experience. Conduct the seder with that in mind, and be sure to make people feel comfortable asking questions.  

V. Thou shalt learn from everyone.

Everyone—no matter their Jewish background or experience, no matter where they’re coming from, has something to teach you. Everyone has precious, invaluable insight into this story. The Exodus is their story too, their own lived experience. Listen and learn with eagerness and curiosity, always.  

VI. Thou shalt make thy seder accessible. 

It’s extremely important that you make sure everyone in your seder space is comfortable and feels safe. That means checking in with people before reading particularly heavy or potentially triggering stuff, keeping snacks on the table, asking people in advance if they have any allergies, providing comfortable and fat-friendly seating, meeting in a place that is wheelchair accessible if at all possible, speaking up if there are hard of hearing people present, and taking everyone’s physical needs into consideration.   

VII. Thou shalt co-lead and delegate. 

Two heads are better than one. If possible, get a team of people together to lead your seder instead of doing it by yourself. A seder is a lot of work and has many moving parts—leading rituals, accessibility, cooking the food, getting supplies, setting the table, cleaning the house, etc. You will have a better time and be less stressed if you don’t do it alone.  

VIII. Thou shalt read the haggadah before leading the seder. 

This one’s a no-brainer. Especially with this haggadah, it’s important to see what’s on the menu before you dive in to the main course. Come in with a game plan of texts you want to use (both from this haggadah and any supplements you want to include) but be flexible. If your guests want to share traditions with you, accept their precious gifts. 

IX. Thou shalt come prepared.

Ideally, seder prep should happen weeks in advance. It doesn’t always work out that way. If you’re hosting the seder at your house, it’s important to do some private rituals of your own beforehand to get ready, like searching for chametz. Besides figuring out all the logistics beforehand and coming in with a game plan, you need to come to your seder with the right kavanah. Ask yourself, “Why am I choosing to lead this seder? What do I want to get out of this experience?”    

X. Thou shalt believe in the work thou doest. 

You are about to do so much work. It might not seem like it at first, but when you’re making matzah ball soup, texting your guests, setting the table, and brushing up on your game plan all at the same time two hours before the guests arrive, you will know what I’m talking about. 

At times, it might seem hopeless, like your seder is doomed. At times you might doubt whether or not your guests even want to be there. In moments like that, remind yourself why you’re hosting this seder, what Pesach means to you. I know you care about Pesach—every abolitionist Jew does, let’s be real. I need you to believe in the work you’re doing. I need you to believe in miracles. I need you to believe in abolition, if you are to help others believe. And I need you to believe in yourself, if at all possible. I know how hard that is. But I believe in you.
 

Shalom! Or as your people might say, “Howdy!” (I did not just make that joke.) I need you to understand two things: (1) you are very much wanted here. A Jew loves you enough that they invited you to participate in this most sacred ritual, because they believe in you and want to build a better world together with you. And (2) you’ve got to be respectful of this space. 

Bringing your goyish friends to seders is a tradition as old as time. I personally drag many of your friends (you all know each other right?) to my seders every year. Some years, there are more goyim than yids. You might not know it, but you actually have a lot of amazing insight that will enrich the seder conversation. Don’t be afraid to take part in discussions, share reflections and connections from your own cultural experiences, and ask questions. More importantly: don’t be afraid to feel things, to let this quintessentially Jewish story move your heart. 

I’m going to get in trouble for saying this. In my opinion, if you’re doing your job right, while you’re at the seder you’re a Jew. Welcome to a world of hurt, but also a breathtakingly beautiful tapestry of life. Don’t be afraid to access your neshama, your precious soul. The traditions you’re going to engage in tonight are poignant and absolutely saturated in meaning. You’re going to feel things. Humor is a uniquely Jewish instinct, not to mention a survival strategy. Let yourself laugh tonight, but don’t let your laughter or your skepticism keep you from feeling the full weight of what you need to feel. And please don’t let your laughter be at our expense.

My ancestors developed these rituals to survive unimaginable violence. If you’re at this seder, it’s likely your ancestors survived violence too. If not, it’s likely you have had to survive violence in this life. If not, I know you’ve experienced the spiritual violence of living in this broken world, watching people die day after day, feeling hopelessness and despair. Use this despair—let it be useful to you for once—to connect with us.

The story of the Exodus is a story about ancestors. My Judaism and the Judaism of so many people I know has meaning because it kept my ancestors alive. This should not preclude you from finding meaning tonight. The vast majority of the best Jews I know don’t have Jewish ancestors, at least not biologically. Jews who found Judaism later in life give me hope that a better world is possible. They have been my lovers and my friends, and I’m honored to call them my chosen family. I’m not bringing this up in hopes of converting you, by the way. (We don’t do that.) I’m telling you this because I want you to know that no matter where you come from, you can find beauty in the ways people have survived, along with radical insight that we all need if we to do the same. You are welcome here, an invited guest—perhaps it’d be rude not to cry?

All I ask of you is that you respect the traditions you encounter tonight, and respect the people who are sharing them with you. Don’t be scared of things you don’t understand. Nothing is arbitrary tonight, I promise you. Everything has its reason. Everyone has a reason to be here, too. Take this opportunity seriously (not too seriously, of course, we’re Jews y’know. Oy vey, etc.) and fully grasp this rare moment of stepping fully into someone else’s skin. The Haggadah says be-chol dor va-dor chayav adam lirot et atzmo ke’ilu hu yatza mi-Mitzrayim, in every generation, one is obligated to see themselves as if they left Mitzrayim. Chayav adam, the phrase meaning “one is obligated,” literally means ‘humans are responsible.’ The text does not specify that Jews are obligated. It’s a universal mitzvah for anyone who is willing to accept it. 

It is told that Adam was created alone to make peace among his descendents, so one person will not be able to say to another, “My father, is greater than your father.” Whether or not other Jews would agree with me about your Jewish status tonight, I think most would agree if you’re going to eat our bread of affliction and our bitter herbs, you might as well take the same radical imaginative leap that we do. Allow yourself not only to imagine slavery and liberation tonight, but to relive it, to embody it. Through this practice of radical empathy, abolition becomes possible. 
 

Charoset is the most mysterious of the seder plate’s symbols. It is typically a sweet, dark paste made from some combination of fruits, nuts, spices, and wine or grape juice. Recipes for it vary widely—some are quite elaborate and involve many symbolic ingredients, others are simple and divine (like Iraqi charoset, which primarily consists of halaik, date syrup) but the end result is something fruity, flavorful, and vaguely reminiscent of the mortar or mud our ancestors used to make bricks. 

Disputes over the purpose and meaning of charoset date back to the Talmud. Some ascribed its purpose to being an antidote to accidental poisoning from maror, others said it represented the bricks our ancestors were forced to make in Mitzrayim. This interpretation has become almost universally accepted, and there’s no denying that traditional recipes for charoset strive to imitate mortar, mud, and bricks. (Jews from Gibraltar go so far as to use actual crushed up bricks in their charoset recipe.)

But as Rabbi Arthur Waskow explains in his essay, “Haroset, the Seder’s Innermost Secret: Earth & Eros in the Celebration of Pesach,” there is a hidden meaning of charoset, one alluded to by Rabbi Levi in the Talmud (see Pesachim 116a) that often goes unnoticed. The recipe for charoset reflects Shir ha-Shirim, the Song of Songs, a book of the Tanach that Jews traditionally read over Pesach. In some ways, Song of Songs feels out of place in the Bible—it is an explicit erotic love poem devoid of any mention of Hashem. Yet Rabbi Akiva said that it is the most sacred of all the books of the Tanach. Over the years, numerous interpretations have been offered about how the book is really an allegory for Hashem’s relationship with Yisra’el, but at its core, Song of Songs is a book about love, sex, desire, and youthful passion. Many traditional ingredients of charoset are mentioned in Song of Songs: 

“Under the apple tree I aroused you…” (Song of Songs 8:5)
“I went down to the walnut garden…” (Song of Songs 6:11) 
“Your height, I liken it to a date palm, and your breasts to bunches of dates.” (Song of Songs 7:8)
“Please let your breasts be bunches of grapes…” (Song of Songs 7:9)  
“Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, because I’m love-sick.” (Song of Songs 2:5) 
“The figs give their fragrance, and at our opening there are all sorts of precious fruits, new and also old, which I have hidden away for you, my beloved.” (Song of Songs 7:14) 
“Their cheeks are like a bed of spices...” (Song of Songs 5:13) 
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your beloving is better than wine.” (Song of Songs 1:2) 

As Rabbi Waskow writes, “The text of the Song subtly, almost secretly, bears the recipe for ḥaroset, and we might well see the absence of any specific written explanation of charoset as itself a subtle, secret pointer toward the ‘other’ liberation of Pesach.” What is this ‘other’ liberation? He says it is “erotic, Earth-loving freedom.” Perhaps it is freedom from hopelessness, liberation from a passionless life where each day is the same as every other. “Winter is past, and the rains are over and gone,” (Song of Songs 2:11) and the spring of our passion renews. 

The radical message of the Song of Songs is that “love is as strong as death, passion is as strong as the grave.” (Song of Songs 8:6) The forces of death are powerful—incarcerated people and survivors of police violence can attest to that, as can the female protagonist of the Song, a Black woman who survives misogynist violence at the hands of the hands of her brothers and ‘men who patrol the wall.’ (“I am Black and beautiful… Don’t stare at me because I am Black, because the sun has gazed upon me. My mother’s sons abused me. They made me the keeper of their vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept.” (Song of Songs 1:5-6) “The men who patrol the city found me—they beat me, they wounded me. The ones who patrol the wall, they stripped my clothes right off of me.” (Song of Songs 5:7)) But the powers of love and radical passion are equally strong. 

This does not mean “love conquers all.” We are by no means guaranteed to win, and if love is our only weapon, we will end up getting hurt. But we are capable of great things when love is on our side. “Sparks of love are sparks of fire, of a great fire,” the Song tells us, “Many waters cannot extinguish love, and floods cannot wash it away.” (Song of Songs 8:6-7) Love enables all things, and passion makes everything possible. 

The brick was used to oppress us, as it is written: “They embittered our lives with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks.” (Exodus 1:14)
Brick was a weight on our backs and a stumbling block at our feet. We built great cities and temples to glorify our own domination.
Today, bricks build the walls of prison-houses, just as in Mitzrayim they built monuments to slavery. 
There they built cities, and here they build border walls that divide nation and nation, people and people.
There is a brick on our table tonight to embrace our unity. We struggle against walls that seek to keep us apart. 
We must dismantle barriers, divisions, and binaries wherever they stand and have stood.
If we are to be free, we must tear down dividing walls at the borders of our nations and the mechitzas of our synagogues.
‘Brick’ is a slur for some of our world’s most vulnerable. It is used to keep down trans women who don’t or can’t or don’t want to pass.
Some trans people build walls between themselves and their sisters. Like the wicked child, they cut themselves off from the collective.
All of us are built, and build ourselves. No one is born finished. Each one of us is a project that we must complete.  
“We come from the earth, and to earth we return.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20) If all we are is earth, we can sculpt ourselves in our own image.
“Like clay in the hands of the potter,” (Jeremiah 18:6) in our own skillful hands, so our bodies can be. 
There is a brick on the table to remind us to shape our bodies in holiness, when it is safe to do so.
Our struggle in Egypt ended when we put down our bricks and left. Another struggle began at Stonewall when we picked bricks up. 
No one knew that night that bricks would be thrown. No one brought them in advance. 
They simply saw them on the street, and saw an opportunity. They picked the bricks up where they lie and the rest is history. 
There is a brick on our table tonight to teach us to look for radical possibilities everywhere. Miracles happen amidst desperation.  
Tonight we consecrate prophets like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major who fought for all of us.
They saw a piece of the world that was broken, and knew how to fix it. Hashem called them to justice and strengthened their hands. (Isaiah 42:6)
In every tool of construction, there is potential for destruction. In every act of destruction, there’s potential for liberation.
Let every border wall, every prison house, every Pitom and Ramses be torn down brick by brick. 
Let a plague of bricks rain down like hail upon the heads of unkosher pigs. Let every window be shattered until prisons can no longer be. 
Let every shard of broken glass be gathered together into a prism. Let every broken heart be made whole.   
Let every body be sculpted into our own divine image. Let every incarcerated soul be set free.
Ken yehi ratzon. So may it be. 
 

cw: sexual assault

The red umbrella has become a symbol of the international fight for sex workers, the fight for them to be able to work safely and autonomously, without fearing the law or risking their lives. Sex work is work, and like all work, it is exploitative—but the carceral state puts sex workers in danger for the sake of hateful ‘morality.’ Exclusionary ‘feminists’ fail sex workers time and time again. In the name of uplifting women, they force women to turn to pimps and street corners and push them to the edge of society. 

False allies like these opened the door to legislation like SESTA and FOSTA, which became law during Pesach of 2018. These bills were an act of violence against sex workers. All they have done is made working conditions more dangerous and women less safe. Many have starved, gone homeless, and died because of this ‘advocacy.’ Laws that ‘protect’ the men who do sex work, that ‘free’ trans people from one of the only avenues of work we can find work are short-sighted, reckless, and cruel.

But the cruelty is the point. Not only do sex workers face criminal charges, they are systematically raped by police. Sex workers are beaten, stripped, searched in every ‘cavity,’ and put on display—not to mention straight-up raped every single day—all in the name of “law and order” by monstrous police. It is legal in most places for a cop to solicit services from a sex worker, have sex (consensually or non-consensually) with them, only to arrest them violently. This happens where it is not legal too. 

We put an umbrella on the seder table to spread our sukkat shalom, our shelter of peace, over our loved ones who do sex work and all other sex workers in our community. We affirm that their lives are precious, their bodies are holy, and they deserve to be able to do their work safely and with dignity. May they be blessed like Rahab our mother, from whose offspring the world shall be redeemed. As our ancestors said to her, so we say to them: “We pledge our lives to you, even to the death!” (Joshua 2:14) 
 

Pass the frozen orange around. Have each person hold it until they can’t hold it any longer. 

Placing an orange on the seder plate is a widely observed contemporary Pesach tradition. A common story circulates along with this ritual, which goes something like this: a Jewish woman is studying to be a rabbi. An old misogynist rabbi tells her, “A woman belongs on the bimah like an orange belongs on the seder plate.” So what does she do? That year on Pesach, she puts an orange on her seder plate.

The only problem with this story is that it’s false. The tradition of putting an orange on the seder plate actually originated with feminist scholar Susannah Heschel. While visiting Oberlin College in the early 80s, Heschel was introduced to a feminist haggadah that included a ritual of putting a piece of chametz on the seder plate to represent our need for including lesbians in Jewish spaces. Heschel felt that to put bread on the seder plate would be to accept that queerness violates Judaism like chametz violates Pesach. So instead, she put an orange on her seder plate that year. To her, it symbolized the fruitfulness of Jewish life when gays and lesbians are able to contribute. The oranges also had seeds which had to be spit out, which teaches us to repudiate homophobia in Judaism.

Heschel wrote, about the story about women not belonging on the bimah, “The typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: my idea of an orange was transformed. A woman’s words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is erased.” 

On Tu Bishvat, the Jewish New Year for trees, the orange is associated with the Kabbalistic realm of Assiyah—the world of bodies, action, and our relationships with ourselves. Oranges’ tough protective peels symbolize kelipot, the ‘shells’ or ‘peels’ that surround our soul and prevent us from connecting with the divine light. Hopelessness and heartbreak cause our souls to hide from love, to isolate themselves from community and refuse help when it is offered to us. In order to live fruitful lives, we must peel away the kelipot from our souls, even though doing so leaves us vulnerable. Through radical vulnerability, we not only allow our souls to heal, we become a blessing. 

But why a frozen orange on the Seder table? The affirmation of queer Jews is still here, as is the Kabbalist meaning of vulnerability. But through freezing our seder’s orange, we add a new layer of meaning to this rich ritual: uplifting the people in our lives who struggle with mental illness.  

Holding frozen oranges is a common coping skill among those who struggle with their mental health. Many people with disorders like anxiety, borderline, and PTSD practice holding something very cold to distract themselves from extreme stress or overwhelming emotions. Holding cold things like frozen oranges is also an excellent grounding skill for those who are having flashbacks or dissociating. When holding a frozen orange, it’s hard to think about anything other than how cold our hands are. They have the power to put us back in our bodies when we feel like we’re watching ourselves from far away. Tonight, we hold a frozen orange in our hands to experience the world around us more fully, to feel our feet planted firmly on the earth, and to feel more connected to each other. 

Frozen oranges don’t melt the same way as ice melts. Holding an ice cube in our hands is a fleeting experience—within minutes, sometimes seconds, the ice cube melts away, and we are left with a feeling of wet emptiness. We can hold frozen oranges for longer without hurting our hands or melting the ice away, but the experience is more subtle than that:  if we hold them long enough, we can feel them change in our hands as they start to thaw inside. Like winter slowly becoming spring, the frozen oranges we use ground ourselves and distract from acute distress quietly remind us that transformation is possible. 

Even among communities that struggle together, mental illness is all too often a private, lonesome struggle. The stigma around it ensures that people who are struggling stay quiet. Mental illness and its stigma make us feel alone, and lead to us isolating ourselves out of hopelessness and shame. So often mental illness is considered a personal problem—a chemical imbalance at best and a character defect at worst, when in fact most mental illness is caused by environmental factors. The medical care and social supports we have access to, our housing status, the quality of air we breathe and water we drink, the care our communities provide, the adversity we face as children, the trauma we survive: all of these factors cause and worsen mental illness. 

The seder asks us to relive the trauma of slavery and the bitterness of oppression, not to wallow in our misery but to heal the wounds these traumas left, by imagining liberation. Tonight, we welcome vulnerability and encourage all of us to accept our brokenness and the brokenness of our world, so that together we may heal. 
 

Those who decide upon a course, and declare their intention, saying, “we will go free the prisoner and redeem the captive,” the Holy One provides them with the opportunity, and they go and do it. Those who merely think in their hearts and don’t declare their intention, the Holy One affords no opportunity.
— Avot de-Rabbi Natan 8:5

Tonight, we gather to tell a story—a story from the narrow place.          

It is a story about us. It is a story about all of us. It is a story as ancient as stories themselves. It is a story that is not finished yet. It’s a familiar story, a story that we have been told before. It’s a story worth telling, and worth telling again. It’s a sad story. It’s a beautiful story. It’s the only story. But most of all, it’s our story. We get to tell it. And we deserve to be told. 

We were slaves in Mitzrayim, ‘the narrow place,’ where our hopes were slim and our options were few. It was impossible for us to see the possibility of leaving. Our lives were bitter, our spirits were crushed by hard labor, and all we could do was pray to a God we didn’t believe in. We are Yisra’el, the people who ‘wrestle with God,’ who struggle to make meaning out of ancient words and sense of the violence we’ve endured. Then the miracle happened: our prayers were heard.

The great Chassidic teacher Rabbi Nachman of Breslov wrote that “prayer is the Jew’s main weapon. Prayer is the weapon with which to win the war.” Some might be uncomfortable with this framing. If we dream of beating our swords into plowshares, shouldn’t we beat our prayers into divine submission? We are advised to “carry a shovel amongst your weaponry” (Deuteronomy 23:14) to dig deep inside our souls. We might be surprised by some of the things that we find. 

The history of the Jewish people is one of survival, above all else. For millennia, our ancestors have survived slavery, captivity, exile, imperialism, crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, disputations, libel, displacement, second- class citizenship, poverty, discrimination, violence, genocide. The rituals that have been handed down to us are powerful spiritual weapons, used in self-defense against a world that not only wants us dead, but wants us to want to die. Too often, we see these old traditions as relics of a bygone time, artifacts from a violent past, not worth our time. 

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are still in the narrow place. Some of us might be lulled into thinking our dying days are over, and the world is safer now. The resurgence of fascism in mainstream politics and the expansion of a paramilitary police force should be enough to dispel that idea. More and more Jews have been feeling nervous about the state of anti-Semitism in America. White supremacist attacks on our shuls, Nazi graffiti, disturbing conspiracy theories—these things don’t bode well for our people. Now might be the time to start looking to tradition to unearth the radical weapons our grandparents left us, just in case a time should come when we need them to survive.

But these weapons aren’t for us alone. We can use them to fight for what is right. One of the most important weapons they’ve left us is found in the seder. By challenging us to view the Exodus not as a mere Bible story, but part of our own personal narrative, our ancestors teach us the use of radical empathy, not just walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, but leaving Mitzrayim with them. We must carry on the work of our ancestors, radically empathizing with all who are oppressed today, and fighting for them as we would fight for ourselves. 
Slavery did not die out when we left Egypt, and it didn’t die out after the Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment says clear as day that there are slaves in the United States being punished for their ‘crimes.’ Prisons are disproportionately and overwhelmingly filled with Black people and other marginalized groups. The police, today’s taskmasters, roam city streets looking for people to arrest to meet the ever increasing demand for slave labor, and they kill with impunity anyone who dares to defy their orders.

Judaism is an abolitionist religion. Our people’s founding myth is of liberation from slavery. The Tanach has dozens of verses about Hashem (and people) setting captives free and our liturgy is full of references to Hashem releasing prisoners. The rabbis of the Talmud forbade the use of incarceration as a punishment for sin. They considered imprisonment a fate worse than death, and declared that pidyon shvuyim, freeing the captive, is a great mitzvah. Maimonides went so far as to claim it’s most important mitzvah. The Torah forbids returning a runaway slave to their master, and our Sages forbade reporting people to the authorities, even if they’re doing wrong, saying that doing so is tantamount to murder. Every single morning, as we wake up, we bless Hashem for freeing prisoners. As we state our intention to free the prisoner and redeem the captive, we make this same bracha, in hopes that we will wake up. 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, מַתִּירָה אֲסוּרִים

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, matira asurim.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, matir asurim

Blessed are You, who frees prisoners. 

❉ What are your intentions coming into this seder? What do you want to get out of it? What have your experiences with seders been, and what have you found meaningful about them?  

Leftist haggadot are nothing new. The ‘theme seder’ is something of a contemporary tradition. In a couple google searches you can find Pesach rituals themed around everything from Palestinian liberation to food justice, celebrating everything from labor unions to the Stonewall riots, catering to everyone from earthy-crunchy hippies to leatherdykes. Some Jews complain that leftist haggadot stray from traditional Jewish values by ‘politicizing’ Passover. Some people think 80’s feminist innovations like Miriam’s cup and an orange on the seder plate were the start of Pesach politics. Others see Arthur Waskow’s groundbreaking 1969 ‘Freedom Seder’ as the real culprit. Still others think the Bund’s 1919 socialist haggadah laid the groundwork for a century of lefty Pesach rituals. But the truth is, the seder has always been political. 

Many traditionalists object to the juxtaposition of ancient stories with contemporary issues. They argue that through doing so we lose sight of the miracle of the Exodus itself. What they fail to realize is that the traditional Haggadah grew out of the exact same process of appropriating the ancient Exodus story for political ends. In the wake of our ancestors’ colonization and exile, a powerful new idea emerged in Jewish thought, one which dreamt of casting off the yoke of oppression: the Moshiach.

References to the Moshiach were late additions to the Hebrew Bible, and they don’t particularly resemble the Christian idea of the Messiah. The Tanach doesn’t describe the Moshiach as a meek god who will die for our sins, but as a righteous human, a fierce political leader who with Hashem’s help will lead our people to freedom—a new Moses. Our ancestors developed the seder as we know to compare their struggle for liberation with their ancestors’ liberation. Ancient traditions like saying “this year we are slaves, next year we will be free” on a night celebrating our freedom were subversive political statements. As new generations of Jews add their own experiences of oppression, loss, and hope to its telling, the seder only gets richer. Each year the story takes on a new meaning, but the hope stays the same: that a better world is possible.   

For many of us, it can be difficult to talk about the Moshiach without rolling our eyes or feeling a bit uncomfortable. The term ‘Messiah’ has long been linked with Christianity, and the word messianic has mostly been ruined by, who else, those pesky Messianic ‘Jews.’ It’s practically impossible to search for Jews’ thoughts on the Moshiach without Christian proselytizing sites coming up. While belief in the Moshiach is standard in many forms of Judaism (it’s one of Maimonides’ thirteen articles of faith after all) and prayers for his arrival are ubiquitous in our people’s liturgy, in practice, most Jews are pretty ambivalent about, skeptical of, or downright hostile to the idea of a Moshiach. 

For good reason too! While some of the traditional messianic prophecies are beautiful descriptions of “beating swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4) and a world free from war, death, and hunger, others speak of holy war, the return of a theocratic monarchy, the mass Jewish settlement of Palestine, and the reinstatement of animal sacrifice in Jerusalem. To left-leaning Jews, this world sounds less like paradise and more like a dystopia. Religious Zionists (Orthodox Jews who see the state of Israel as setting the stage for the fulfillment of messianic prophecies) and Evangelical Christians (who lobby for Zionism in hopes of bringing about the Second Coming) use the messianic narrative to justify genocidal violence in occupied Palestine. 

But it would be a mistake to give up hope of the World to Come because conservatives have appropriated its vision for their own warped purposes. The belief that life does not have to be miserable, that the oppressors don’t always have to win has sustained generations of our ancestors through millennia of oppression and violence. It was this messianic hope that inspired 300,000 second-century Jews to fight and die alongside Shimon Bar Kochba in his failed revolution against Roman colonization. More recently, as Jews in the Treblinka concentration camp marched into the gas chambers to die, many of them sang ani ma’amin, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Moshiach, and though he may tarry, I wait for him every day.” 

One thing that sets the Jewish vision of the Moshiach apart from the Christian concept of the Messiah is the idea of tikkun olam, the repair of the world. In Christian eschatology, Jesus will return to cast people into Hell when humanity is at its worst—our sinful nature guarantees that his coming is inevitable, so apart from seeking individual salvation, all we can do is sit back, relax, and wait for the world to end. Our tradition could not be more different. We believe the Moshiach will only come when we repair the world, through prayer, action, and struggle. 

According to Jewish tradition, at any given moment in history there have been at least 36 hidden tzaddikim, righteous pursuers of justice, for the sake of whom Hashem preserves the world. Any of these people could become the Moshiach if the world is ready for them to reveal themself. No one knows who these hidden tzaddikim are, not even the tzaddikim themselves, so each one of us should act as if we are one of them, as if we are responsible for the fate of the world. This idea can be expanded to our communities as a whole: instead of trusting that future generations will bring about the changes we want to see in the world, we must fight for the world we deserve now. As the historian and prophet Walter Benjamin wrote, “like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak messianic power.” We have the potential to bring about the World to Come through revolution.

Though our generation has boundless revolutionary potential, we are in no way guaranteed to succeed. In reality, the odds are against us, and the powers that be will always have the upper hand. But this does not excuse us from our obligation to fight. As Rabbi Tarfon once said, “you do not need to finish the task, but you are not free to give it up.” 

Judaism is a spiritual system based in the here and now. There is no consensus among Jews about what comes after death—some believe in reincarnation, some believe in bodily resurrection in the World to Come, some think nothing is waiting for us on the other side. Judaism isn’t particularly concerned with these questions. It is interested in figuring out how to make the most of our short, precious lives on Earth. One thing our tradition is sure about the World to Come is that it will be on Earth, not in the heavens. This means we already have all the raw materials we need to make the World to Come a reality, physically and spiritually. There is nothing stopping us from igniting a revolution in the present.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai taught that if we happen to be holding a sapling in our hand when someone announces that the Moshiach has arrived, “first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Moshiach.” Some have interpreted this to mean we should be skeptical of messianic claims and revolutionary hopes. But perhaps planting saplings is our way of greeting the Moshiach. Perhaps by building a better and more beautiful world, we welcome our own revolutionary potential.

הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזוּמָּן \ מוּכָנָה וּמְזַמֶּנֶת \ מוּכָנֶה וּמְזוּמָּנֶת
לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת הַכָּרָת רִבּוֹנוּת הָאָרֶץ לְשֵׁם יִחוּד

Hinneni (Masc:) muchan um’zuman (Fem:) muchana um’zamenet (NB:) muchaneh u-m’zumanet
lekayem mitzvat ha-karat ribonut ha-aretz le-shem yichud. 

Here I am, ready to fulfill the mitzvah of acknowledging the sovereignty of the land, for the sake of unification.* 

This seder is taking place on stolen land. The land we are gathering upon is the ancestral home of the ______________ people(s) who have been displaced by settler colonialism. The first slaves in these so-called United States were indigenous people, and a disproportionate number of their descendents are enslaved in prisons today. As Jews, we have also suffered from displacement and know its bitterness. We acknowledge the ways in which we, as non-indigenous people in this land, have benefited from colonialism and the oppression of indigenous peoples. We ask for their forgiveness and for the honor of fighting alongside them for the land they love, and pray that Hashem “will plant them on their land, so they will no longer be removed from the land Hashem has given them.” (Amos 9:15)

* This text was adapted from Dr. Aurora Mendelsohn's Mendelsohn/Kalikow Family Haggadah (2020) 

אַשְׁרֵי הַגַפְרוּר שֶׁנִשְׂרַף וְהִצִית לֶהָבוֹת
.אַשְׁרֵי הַלְהָבָה שֶׁבָּעֲרָה בְּסִתְרֵי לְבָבוֹת
...אַשְׁרֵי הַלְבָבוֹת שֶׁיָדְעוּ לַחְדוֹל בְּכָבוֹד
.אַשְׁרֵי הַגַפְרוּר שֶׁנִשְׂרַף וְהִצִית לֶהָבוֹת
Ashrey ha-gafrur she-neesraf ve-heetzeet lehavot,
Ashrey ha-l’hava she-ba’arah be-sitrey levavot.
Ashrey ha-levavot sheyadu lachdol be-kavod…
Ashrey ha-gafrur sheneeshraf ve-heetzeet lehavot.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame,
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret places of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake…
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame.

cw: violence, SA

This poem was written by Hannah Szenes, a Jewish resistance member who fought the Nazis during World War II. She volunteered to parachute into Yugoslavia, to aid the resistance and attempt to rescue Jews who had been deported for Auschwitz.

Trying to cross the border into German occupied Hungary, Hannah was arrested by Hungarian police. In their custody, she was stripped, tied to a chair, and brutally beaten for three days. She lost several teeth as a result. Transferred to a prison in Budapest, the police repeatedly tortured and interrogated her in order to get her to give up information about her mission and help them trap her comrades. Even when they arrested and threatened to kill Hannah’s mother, she refused to cooperate.

Ultimately, she was tried for treason by a Hungarian court and convicted. Hannah was executed by firing squad on November 7, 1944. She was just 23 years old at the time of her death. Throughout her short life and her time in prison, up until the day of her death, she kept a diary. Remembered equally for her heroism and her poetry, Hannah Szenes’ timeless words continue to give the world inspiration.

A year before her death, Hannah wrote to her brother: “I am starting something new. Perhaps it’s madness. Perhaps it’s fantastic. Perhaps it is dangerous… I wonder, will you understand? Will you believe that it is more than a childish wish for adventure? There are times when one is commanded to do something, even at the price of one’s life.”
 

(Add the words in parentheses on Friday nights. Light the candles and say:)

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם,
אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁתּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֵיהָ, וְצִוָתְנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר (שֶל שַׁבָּת וְ)שֶל יוֹם טוֹב

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, 
asher kidshatnu be-mitzvoteyha ve-tzivatnu lehadlik ner (shel Shabbat ve-)shel Yom Tov.

בָּרוּך אַתָּה יי אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם
.אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר (שֶל שַׁבָּת וְ)שֶל יוֹם טוֹב

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, 
asher kidshanu be-mitzvotav ve-tzivanu lehadlik ner (shel Shabbat ve-)shel Yom Tov.

Blessed are You, who makes us holy with your mitzvot,
and teaches us to light (Shabbat and) holiday candles.
 

We sit here together in darkness, preparing to begin our seder [by lighting the candles.] In doing so, we are stepping into a familiar ritual: telling the story of our going out from Egypt. But tonight we are stepping into the unknown as well, for we are taking the risk of telling new stories and of finding old stories that were lost. We are inviting ourselves into a tradition which is our own and yet has not always made us feel welcome, and we are inviting Judaism to have a place in our lives.

— A Women’s Haggadah

(Light the candles and say:)

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
 וואָס גיט אונדז די טראַדיציע פֿון אָנצינדן יום-טובֿ ליכט,
 צו שײַנין אויף אונדזער וועג צו אַ שענערער און בעסערער וועלט.
Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos git endz di traditziya fin untzinden yontiff licht,
tzu shainen off endzer veg tzu a shenerer un beserer velt. 
We rejoice in our heritage, 
which gives us the tradition of lighting yontiff candles, 
to light our way to a better and more beautiful world.

— Rabbi Judith Seid
 

(On Friday nights, some people add this song:)

שָלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָׁרֵת מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן
מִמֶלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְלָכִים הַקָדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא

…בּוֹאֲכֶם לְשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן, מִמֶלֶךְ

…בָּרְכוּנִי לְשָלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן, מִמֶלֶךְ

…צֵאתְכֶם לְשָלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָׁלוֹם מַלְאֲכֵי עֶלְיוֹן, מִמֶלֶךְ

Shalom aleichem, malachey ha-sharet, malachey elyon
mi-Melech Malachey ha-M’lachim, ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu

 Bo’achem le-shalom, malachey ha-shalom, malachey elyon, mi-Melech…

 Barchuni le-shalom, malachey ha-shalom, malachey elyon, mi-Melech…

 Tzeitchem le-shalom, malachey ha-shalom, malachey elyon, mi-Melech…

Peace be with you, ministering angels, messengers of the One
messengers of the Source of Blessing

Come in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the One…

Bless me with peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the One…

Go in peace, messengers of peace, messengers of the One… 
 

Alcohol plays an important role in nearly every special occasion in Jewish life, from Friday night kiddush to Purim revelry, from bris ceremonies to weddings. Wine in particular is used to celebrate because it “gladdens the hearts of men,” (Psalm 104:15) and therefore allows us to fulfill the mitzvah to rejoice in Shabbat and the holidays Hashem has given us.

For some of us, however, drinking wine or other alcoholic beverages isn’t an expression of joy, but of desperation. For some Jews who struggle with alcohol use, drinking four cups of wine at the seder could be as dangerous as someone in recovery from an eating disorder attempting to fast on Yom Kippur. Many Jews, whatever their relationship to alcohol, choose to replace Passover wine with grape juice or some other beverage for their health, safety, or sobriety, or because they simply don’t like wine.

The Shulchan Aruch, the first definitive code of Jewish law, writes that “one who doesn’t drink wine because it hurts him, or because he hates it, must force himself to drink in order to fulfill the mitzvah.” Not only is this halacha in violation of piku’ach nefesh, the principle that saving a life or preventing harm takes precedence over nearly all other mitzvot, it completely misses the point of the ritual. The four cups of wine are symbols of our liberation. To force someone to drink when they can’t or don’t want to is to deny their body autonomy. This halacha desecrates a symbol of freedom by turning it into a tool of oppression. 

If alcohol use is a Jew’s personal Mitzrayim, we must help them free themselves by providing a supportive environment where they can participate in the seder on their own terms without judgment. To pressure them into drinking is to put a stumbling block before them on their road to liberation. For those of us who do consume alcohol, let us drink the four cups of wine not merely out of obligation, but because we want to drink. And for those of us who don’t drink, let us rejoice in not drinking. 

We are obligated to gladden all the members of our households on Pesach, but not all of them will benefit from wine. The rabbis of the Talmud understood that the four cups are not necessary for those who don’t enjoy them. The sages originally taught that men, women and children are all obligated to drink wine. Rabbi Yehuda disputed this. “Why give children wine?” he asked, “they do not enjoy it.”

Instead, the Talmud recommends we follow in the footsteps of Rabbi Akiva, who gave children nuts and toasted grains to nosh on at the seder, to increase their joy, to keep them awake, and to stimulate their curiosity. These practices of joy, consciousness, and curiosity have revolutionary potential. If we are to abolish prisons and police, we must unlearn what we think we know about harm and justice and be willing to listen with curiosity, observe mindfully, and joyfully envision a better world.

For this reason, people who struggle with alcohol may want to nosh on nuts, candy, and other tasty snacks throughout the seder in addition to drinking four cups of grape juice. Some might understandably resent being treated like children and find this idea patronizing. Others might take comfort in the fact that on Pesach it is as if we are all children, for even if all of us were ‘wise, understanding elders’ we’d still be required to ask the four questions and tell the story anew. In a very real way, the seder is supposed to fill us all with childlike wonder, the same wonder the Children of Israel felt when they left Mitzrayim. So if mindfully snacking whets your appetite for learning, aderaba, by all means do so. 

If no one at your seder has a nut allergy (please check beforehand) you might want to put out a bowl of nuts for people to nosh on. Eat these with the kavanah of joyful curiosity, and consider meditating on the verse, “I went down to the nut garden, to look at the sprouts in the valley, to see if the vine had budded, if the pomegranates were in bloom.” (Song of Songs 6:11) Even if things seem hopeless and recovery feels out of reach, it’s worth checking every once in a while to see if possibility is in bloom.

(Before eating walnuts say:)
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָעֵץ.
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-eytz.
Blessed are You, creator of the fruits of the tree.

Another text to meditate on is this line by Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabriel, an 11th century precursor to the Serenity Prayer: “The beginning of understanding is knowing the difference between what is and what cannot be, then consoling ourselves of what is not in our control.” When the task of abolition feels impossible, may we be granted the wisdom of knowing what is and is not within our control, and console ourselves by always doing what is possible.  
 

Over the course of the seder, we drink four cups of wine. Each cup symbolizes one of the four promises Hashem made to B’ney Yisra’el at the beginning of their journey out of slavery. (Exodus 6:6-7) 

1. I will take you out of oppression in Mitzrayim.  
2. I will free you from slavery.
3. I will redeem you.
4. I will make you a people.

Tonight, we make these same promises of abolition, liberation, transformation, and community to each other and to everyone who is enslaved in prisons or oppressed by police today.
 

Kabbalah teaches that Hashem had to contract their infinite light in order to create the universe. This contraction, called tzimtzum, made space for our world, but it also resulted in cosmic disaster: the shattering of the divine vessels into millions of sparks of holiness, which humanity has been tasked with putting back together. Sometimes, something needs to be destroyed in order to make room for something new. We cannot vote away prisons or reform the police. Only revolutionary action can end the carceral state. A better world is possible but it can only be created from the ashes of the old. People often expect abolitionists to have a complete vision of the systems that will replace incarceration and policing. We don’t need all the answers to see that the carceral state is fundamentally violent and oppressive, and to say NO to police and prisons. The Zapatistas teach “one no, many yeses.” The possibilities of a post-carceral world are endless, but they all start from the same point: abolition. 

✧ What does saying no make possible?

The leader asks "?סַבְרִי מָרָנָן"  "Savri Maranan?"     
Everyone else responds "!לְחַיִּים" "L'chayim!"  

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt p’ree ha-gafen.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, who creates the fruits of the vine.

Savri maranan literally means, “Have you decided, my masters?” These words first appear in a midrash about capital trials carried out in ancient Israel. The court would ask the jury for a verdict by saying, “Savri maranan?” And the jury would either say “l’mavet,” to death, or “l’chayim,” to life. According to the midrash, the court would bring those condemned to death “a good but strong wine, and give it to him to drink so that he would not suffer pain from the stoning.” Over the years, the custom emerged to ask “Savri maranan?” over kiddush wine, to ask if we’re drinking from the cup of the condemned or from the cup of life, if we’re numbing our pain or celebrating life’s blessings. May the answer always be a resounding L’chayim!

(On Saturday nights, add Havdalah then continue here:) 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָתְנוּ וְקִיְמָתְנוּ וְהִגִיעָתְנוּ לַזְמָן הַזֶה

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, shehecheyatnu, ve-kiyematnu, ve-higiyatnu la-zman hazeh.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְמָנוּ וְהִגִיעָנוּ לַזְמָן הַזֶה

(Masc:) Barukh atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, shehecheyanu, ve-kiyimanu, ve-higiyanu la-zman hazeh.

Blessed are You, who has kept us alive and sustained us, and enabled us to reach this moment.

Lean to the left and drink the first cup of wine or grape juice. 

Most of the seder is spent reliving the past and dreaming of the future, yet we begin by sanctifying the present day and offering thanks for reaching the present moment. Shehecheyanu is a blessing of renewal, a way of expressing gratitude not only for life but for the cycles we find ourselves part of within it. Instead of drawing our attention to the ways in which we grow old, Shehecheyanu reminds us of the ways in which we become new again. 

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
.וואָס גיט אונדז די טראַדיציע פֿון אַ כוס פֿול מיט פֿרייד

Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos git endz di traditziya fin a koys ful mit freyd.

We rejoice in our heritage, 
which gives us the tradition of a cup filled with joy.

— Rabbi Judith Seid

(On Saturday nights, we light the Havdalah candle and say:)

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת מְאוֹרֵי הָאֵשׁ.

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt me’orey ha-eysh.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא מְאוֹרֵי הָאֵשׁ

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, borey me’orey ha-eysh.

Blessed are You, who creates the fire’s light.

,בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, הַמַּבְדִילָה בֵּין קוֹדֶשׁ לְחוֹל
.בֵּין אוֹר לְחוֹשֶׁךְ, בֵּין יוֹם הַשְׁבִיעִי לְשֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי הַמַעֲשֶׂה
.בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, הַמַּבְדִילָה בֵּין קֹדֶשׁ לְקֹדֶשׁ

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, ha-mavdilah beyn kodesh le-chol, 
beyn or le-choshech, beyn yom ha-shvee’ee le-sheshet yamim ha-ma’aseh. 
Brucha at Shechinah, ha-mavdilah beyn kodesh le-kodesh.

,בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, הַמַבְדִיל בֵּין קֹדֶשׁ לְחוֹל
.בֵּין אוֹר לְחוֹשֶׁךְ, בֵּין יוֹם הַשְׁבִיעִי לְשֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי הַמַעֲשֶׂה
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַמַבְדִיל בֵּין קֹדֶשׁ לְקֹדֶשׁ

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, ha-mavdil beyn kodesh le-chol,
beyn or le-choshech, eyn yom ha-shvee’ee le-sheshet yamim ha-ma’aseh.
Baruch atah Adonai ha-mavdil beyn kodesh le-kodesh.

Blessed are You, who distinguishes between holy and mundane, 
between light and darkness, between Shabbat and weekdays. 
Blessed are You, who distinguishes between holy and holy.

Why is this havdalah different from all other havdalah ceremonies? On all other Saturday nights, we smell fragrant spices and we bless Hashem for distinguishing between holy and mundane, not holy and holy!
The reason we smell spices during havdalah in the first place has to do with the idea that on Shabbat each of us is given a neshama yetera, an additional soul. When the extra soul departs, our everyday souls mourn their companions’ loss. We must revive them with strong smells, like waking someone up with smelling salts. This isn’t necessary tonight because we are not leaving sacred time. 
Havdalah is a bittersweet ritual that marks the beginning of a new week and the end of Shabbat. Normally, when Shabbat ends we find ourselves in ordinary time, no more spiritually significant than any other weekday. Tonight, as we leave Shabbat we immediately enter another sacred time, Pesach. Therefore it would be inappropriate to bless Hashem for distinguishing between holy and mundane, as the Pesach seder is anything but an ordinary meal.
What does it mean, though, to distinguish between holy and holy? The simple answer is that Shabbat and Pesach are considered to be different ‘levels’ of holy. In fact, Jews believe the most sacred day of the year comes once a week. Even the highest of holidays, Yom Kippur, is a distant second. But here’s a better way of thinking about this difference in holiness: Jewish holidays are all sacred glimpses of our people’s past, but Shabbat is a rare vision of our future, a taste of the world to come. Both our history and our destiny are sacred, but only one of them is ours to choose.   

alternative havdalah blessing

ברוכה את שעוזרת לנו לפשוט פחד
 ונותנת לנו כוח לתקן טעויות
שמלמדת אותנו איך להבדיל
 ומאפשרת לנו ליצור קשרים

Brucha at she-ozeret lanu leefshot pachad
Ve-notenet lanu ko’ach litaken ta’ooyot
She-melamedet otanu eych le-havdil
Ve-mi’afsheret lanu le-yotzer kesharim.

Blessed are You who helps us to discard fears 
and gives us strength to repair mistakes
who teaches us how to make distinctions 
and enables us to make connections.

— the Oberlin Women’s Haggadah

Jewish tradition has long seen handwashing as vital to physical and spiritual health. Though the Torah never explicitly commands us to wash our hands, the rabbis of the Talmud considered it a duty sacred enough to be incorporated into halacha. They found an asmachta, a biblical hint that implies its importance: “All who [a ritually impure person] touches, without having rinsed their hands in water, shall be impure until evening.”  (Leviticus 15:11) Handwashing isn’t described as a way of cleansing oneself, but as a way of preventing the spread of ritual impurity. Handwashing isn’t an act of individual hygiene, but a practice of mutual protection.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clearer than ever that our personal wellbeing is inextricably tied to the health of our communities. Measures like wearing masks and getting vaccinated do more than benefit one’s individual health: they prevent the spread of virus. Before facemasks were widely available and the vaccines had been developed, the best tools we had to curb COVID transmission were handwashing and quarantine. In retrospect, these preventative measures feel ancient, almost Levitical. The complex laws of ritual purity offer rich insight into early attempts at safeguarding public health. They also explain why Jews fared better than their Christian neighbors during the Black Death; halacha instructed them to wash their hands before eating and after using the bathroom, bathe at least once a week, avoid sewage, and take swift action to bury corpses. Jewish mortality rates during the bubonic plague were far lower than Christian communities, which tragically led to sweeping anti-Semitic massacres across Europe, due to lies that Jews were poisoning wells. 

Since well before the Black Death, people have claimed that certain diseases and ailments are divine punishment. But divine punishment isn’t enough for some people; the carceral state has been called in to punish sick people too. As of 2022, the World Health Organization says there are two active global pandemics: HIV and COVID-19. In most US states, transmission of HIV is a crime. Hundreds of drug users, sex workers, and queer people have been successfully prosecuted and incarcerated for knowingly or unknowingly infecting others with the AIDS virus. In recent years there have also been logic-defying cases where violating COVID restrictions has gotten people sent to overcrowded prisons where the virus runs rampant and inmates are denied basic sanitary supplies and medical care. Instead of being given the resources they des- perately need, housing insecure people have been met with increasingly draconian laws in a misguided attempt to slow COVID’s spread.

The criminalization of sickness is a disturbing trend that reveals one of carceral ideology’s articles of faith: that isolated individuals, and not state institutions, structural oppression, or society at large, are responsible for all our problems. The idea that a HIV+ sex worker should be locked up for transmitting the AIDS virus instead of the Evangelical politicians who fought to keep the government from researching cures for “the gay plague,” or that a homeless person should be arrested for violating COVID restrictions while pharmaceutical CEOs insist on maintaining patent rights for their vaccines at the expense of millions of lives is absurd and abhorrant. Being sick does not make one impure, unclean, immoral, or criminal. The transmission of a virus is neither a divine punishment nor a reckless crime. But the reality is that all of our lives and wellbeings are inextricably linked, so what do we owe each other? 

The concept of public health is still unfamiliar to many living in highly individualistic US society. The capitalist American ideal of ‘liberty’ is individuals having the right to do whatever they please, without any obligations to anyone else. This noxious ideology has informed millions of Americans’ decisions regarding the vaccine. Anti-vaxxers say, “I’m healthy, the virus won’t hurt me, why should I get vaccinated?” Those who refuse to get vaccinated because they don’t see the personal benefit cut themselves off from the collective and remove themselves from their communities. They fail to see their responsibility to their fellow human beings. When they end up on ventilators because of their arrogance, we should be saddened (because after all, they are human beings too, who deserve to heal from the terrible viruses of COVID and capitalism) but not surprised. The Talmud warned us thousands of years ago: chevruta o meytuta, community or death.

Jews have long understood the importance of public health. When an epidemic of typhus spread through the Warsaw Ghetto, the Nazis did nothing to slow its spread, so the Jews had to take matters into their own hands. Despite cramped conditions and a starvation diet of 200 calories per day, the Jews organized highly effective autonomous public health campaigns, including courses on public hygiene attended by 900 people at a time, large-scale sanitization efforts, and an underground school that secretly trained medical students and conducted research on the epidemic. Through these mutual aid efforts the Jews of Warsaw were able to bring the typhus outbreak to a stop. No wonder over 85% of American Jews are vaccinated against COVID, more than any other religious group.
The same individualist sentiment that’s defined America’s lackluster COVID response is responsible for apathetic indifference to carceral violence. Most white people, if they are concerned about police brutality and overcrowded prisons at all, see these things as “Black issues” that don’t affect them. They say, “I’ve never been to prison. The police don’t harass me. I am not a ‘criminal.’ Why should I fight for abolition?” 

The great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer was not speaking rhet- orically when she said, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Neither was Jewish poet and activist Emma Lazarus when she wrote, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free. We ignore and repudiate our unhappy brethren as having no part or share in their misfortunes—until the cup of anguish is held also to our own lips.” These women knew that systemic oppression is all-consuming. It targets everyone, albeit in different ways at different times. The carceral state will not be sated with the slaughter of Black people today, because it seeks total control over everyone and everything. The virus may come for the vulnerable today, but it will come for the ‘healthy’ tomorrow. As prophet and beautiful soul James Baldwin wrote in a letter to Angela Davis upon her incarceration in 1970: 

As long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness… they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into [surrendering] themselves to what they will think of as a racial war… Only a handful of the millions of people in this vast place are aware that the fate intended for you, Sister Angela, and for George Jackson, and for the numberless prisoners in our concentration camps—for that is what they are—is a fate which is about to engulf them, too. White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than black ones, as many a student is discovering, as the white American corpses in Vietnam prove… 
We know that a man is not a thing…. We know that air and water belong to all mankind and not merely to industrialists. We know that a baby does not come into the world merely to be the instrument of someone else’s profit… We know that we, the Blacks, and not only we, the Blacks, are the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit… And we know that, for the perpetuation of this system, we have all been mercilessly brutalized… If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

The Exodus was not individual departure from slavery but a collective liberation. Let us heed the words of Hillel the Elder: don’t cut yourself off from the collective. To do so is to choose death, but to strive for communal wellness and liberation is to choose life. As we wash our hands tonight, let us remember that our lives are in each others’ hands.
 

Spring is the season of rebirth, regrowth, and renewal. After months of lying dormant, almost dead, the Earth goes through a period of rapid change. The nights get shorter, the days grow warmer, and flowers begin to bud. The choice to set the Exodus story during the early spring must have been deliberate: watching the Earth come back to life after the barren winter can be enough to convince us of the possibility of miracles. 

The very first mitzvah that Hashem gave B’ney Yisra’el, before they even left Mitzrayim, was to treat the month of Nisan as “the beginning of months, the first month of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:2) The Torah doesn’t call the month when the Exodus took place ‘Nisan’ though, but Aviv, which in modern Hebrew simply means ‘spring.’ The name Nisan wasn’t adopted until the times of Babylonian captivity. It is closely related to nitzan, a Hebrew word meaning ‘blossom’ which only appears once in the Tanach: “Blossoms are seen on the land, the time of singing has begun, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.” (Song of Songs 2:12)

The Zohar, Kabbalah’s mystical core text traditionally attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, begins with an interpretation of the verse above. “In the beginning,” Rabbi Shimon opens, “the blossoms appeared on earth.” In these blossoms, he saw the whole of creation. Commenting on the verse’s strange repetition of the word eretz (meaning ‘land’) he says the first usage refers to the third day of the creation narrative, when the waters were parted to make room for dry land, so plants could grow, while the second refers obliquely to Shabbat. First we read ‘the land,’ then ‘our land.’ Which land is this? Eretz ha-Chayim, the Land of Life—another name for the World to Come. We see two great redemptions in this verse: the parting of the Red Sea so our ancestors could cross on dry land, and the coming redemption of the revolution. 

The Sages taught that it was in the month of Nisan when our ancestors were redeemed from Mitzrayim, and it will be in Nisan when we are redeemed again. All moments are charged with revolutionary potential, but maybe there’s something in the spring air that makes that potential feel more real. Tonight, let’s allow the presence of that potential to rest among us. Now that the “winter is past, and the rains are over and gone,” (Song of Songs 2:11) let us remember to look for the nitzanim, the possibilities that are blossoming all around us. 
 

cw: sexual assault

The origins of the word karpas are elusive. While etymologists think it most likely derives from the Persian word karafs, meaning ‘celery,’ there’s another interesting connection to be made. The word karpas makes a single mysterious appearance in the Tanach, in an unexpected place. The book of Esther states that there were “hangings of white karpas” (Esther 1:6) in a king’s palace, referring to fine wool. The great medieval Torah commentator Rashi connected this meaning of karpas to the Yosef narrative in the book of Genesis.

When we first meet Yosef, they are seventeen years old, helping their brothers tend to their father Ya’akov’s flocks. Despite being one of Ya’akov’s youngest children, Yosef is his clear favorite. He gives Yosef a special garment called a ketonet pasim , the meaning of which is notoriously difficult to pin down. The familiar ‘coat of many colors’ translation is just one of many guesses: everything from a ‘striped robe’ to a ‘long-sleeved tunic’ has been suggested. One thing we do know about the ketonet pasim from the only other time the phrase is used in the Tanach is that “princesses were customarily dressed in such garments.” (II Samuel 13:18) 

The Torah describes Yosef in explicitly feminine terms. We are told that Yosef’s mother, Ya’akov’s beloved wife Rachel, was yefat to’ar vi-yefat mareh “shapely and beautiful.” (Genesis 29:17) The Torah uses the exact same language for Yosef— yefah to’ar vi-yefah mareh —though this usually gets translated into English as “well-built and handsome.” Not only was Yosef shapely and beautiful, but according to midrash, they put on eye makeup, wore heels, and curled their hair. If Yosef lived today, it’s very likely that they would describe themself as trans or nonbinary. Yosef’s ketonet pasim (which Rashi tells us was made from karpas, fine wool) was their princess dress. It affirmed their gender and made them feel special. 

Because of Ya’akov’s blatant favoritism, Yosef’s brothers grew bitterly jealous of them. They saw Yosef as an effeminate dreamer, a goody- two-shoes who thought themself better than them. One day, Yosef went to meet them in the fields and they saw their opportunity to get revenge. In a transphobic attack with strange sexual overtones, Yosef’s brothers stripped them naked and cast them into a pit. Initially, they planned on killing them outright, but when some merchants happened to pass by, they decided to sell Yosef into slavery instead. So Yosef was carried off to Mitzrayim, becoming the first Israelite enslaved there. Meanwhile, their brothers took their princess dress, tore it, slaughtered a kid, and dipped it in the kid’s blood. They brought the torn and bloodied garment to Ya’akov to inspect it. He wailed and rent his clothes in grief, believing that his beloved child Yosef had been torn apart by a wild animal. 

Yosef was brought down to Mitzrayim. The Talmud specifically tells us that the slave traders intended to sell them into sexual slavery. A royal official named Potiphar bought Yosef for this purpose, but according to midrash, the angel Gabriel stopped this from happening. Potiphar liked Yosef very much, and soon they rose through the ranks in his household. Potiphar eventually put Yosef in charge of everything he owned. But the surprising success Yosef found in slavery was short-lived. Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Yosef. She repeatedly sexually harrassed them, trying to get them to sleep with her. Yosef refused every time, until one day she asked Yosef to lie with her and tore their robe off. Trying to escape, Yosef ran outside without it while she screamed that Yosef had tried to sexually assault her. Furious, Potiphar had Yosef thrown in prison. 

Even in prison, Hashem was with Yosef and they found success in everything they did. The warden took a liking to Yosef and gave them special privileges and responsibilities in prison. But when a prisoner they had helped was due to be released, Yosef begged him, “Please do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh, and bringing me out from this place, for I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews, and I have not done anything here that they should have put me in this pit.” (Genesis 40:14-15) 

Though the Torah tells us Yosef was incarcerated in beyt ha-sohar, the prison-house, the term Yosef uses to describe their experience is ha-bor, the pit. Despite Yosef’s relatively comfortable position, they saw prison as being identical to the pit their brothers threw them into. Incarceration was a continuation of the violence that brought them to Mitzrayim in the first place. No matter how ‘good’ the conditions of prison might be, no matter how many opportunities for advancement a prisoner might have, prison is intrinsically violent and degrading to the human spirit. 

Prisons don’t rehabilitate people because they are traumatic in and of themselves. Despite being grossly underdiagnosed due to lack of adequate medical and psychological care, over 25% of people in men’s prisons and 40% of people in women’s prisons have confirmed cases of post- traumatic stress disorder. However, in places like prison where trauma is systematic, “there is no post, ” as Palestinian psychiatrist Samah Jabr argues, “because the trauma is repetitive, ongoing, and continuous.” PTSD is something that happens after a single traumatic event, like a car accident, when a fragment of one’s consciousness is stuck in the past because the mind wasn’t able to register the traumatic event as a memory. Jabr says that something different is at play “after bombardment or being labeled as a person against the law and having a relationship with prison like a revolving door. The effect is more profound. It changes the personality, it changes the belief system” through learned helplessness. Prison teaches people to stop viewing themselves as capable of change. It convinces them that no matter what they do, violence is inevitable. 

Eventually, Yosef was brought out of the prison to appear before Pharaoh. The Torah tells us that the very first thing Yosef did upon release was shave and change their clothes. Like so many trans prisoners, Yosef had been forced to live as the gender they were assigned at birth throughout their years in ‘the pit.’ Only after they left this violent environment were they able to be their authentic self. Prisons are very dangerous places for everyone in them, but incarcerated queer and trans people are especially at risk for violence. Because they are usually incarcerated in men’s prisons, incarcerated trans women are in extreme danger of getting sexually assaulted, beaten up, and killed. Prison officials routinely harass, misgender, and humiliate them, deny them essential medical care, and torture them by putting them in solitary confinement for months, even years at a time, “for their own protection.” Trans prisoners attempt suicide at epidemic rates and all too often die completely preventable deaths. 

Things worked out pretty well for Yosef when they were finally freed from slavery and prison. Yosef became Pharaoh’s chief advisor, correctly predicting that a great famine would follow seven years of abundance. Under their supervision, Mitzrayim stored up massive reserves of grain which saved the world from starvation. During this famine, Yosef’s brothers came to Mitzrayim seeking grain. Yosef was ultimately reunited with their brothers and their father. Their brothers feared that Yosef would want revenge for being sold into slavery, but instead Yosef forgave them, saying, “What you intended for evil, Hashem intended for good.” (Genesis 50:20) Pharaoh invited Ya’akov and his whole family to move to Mitzrayim and ‘live off the fat of the land.’ Yosef and their family lived there peacefully for the rest of their lives. For generations, Ya’akov’s descendents dwelled in Mitzrayim as free people, until a new Pharaoh came to power, one who “did not remember Yosef.” (Exodus 1:8)

Tonight, we remember Yosef because Pharaoh didn’t. We remember Yosef because they were the first one of our ancestors to be enslaved in Mitzrayim, and the first one to be set free. We remember Yosef because their femininity is usually forgotten, because trans people’s stories are all too often erased. We remember Yosef and all incarcerated trans people, whose lives are in danger. We remember Yosef who, having experienced slavery and prison firsthand, decided not to punish their brothers for what they’d done, instead finding the courage to forgive them when they learned from their mistakes. As we dip the karpas in salt water tonight to remember our ancestors’ tears, we remember how Yosef’s brothers dipped their beautiful coat of many colors in blood. We remember the act of transphobic violence that led to our ancestors being enslaved in Mitzrayim, and we refuse to let this kind of violence happen again.

(Some have the tradition of dipping the karpas into red wine vinegar instead of salt water in memory of Yosef ’s brothers dipping their coat of many colors into blood. Others choose to pour red wine into salt water before dipping.)

Long before the struggle upward begins,
there is tremor in the seed.
Self-protection cracks,
Roots reach down and grab hold.
The seed swells, and tender shoots
push up toward light.
This is karpas: spring awakening growth.
A force so tough it can break stone.

Why do we dip karpas into salt water?
To remember our ancestors’ sweat and tears.

Why should salt water be touched by karpas?
To remind us that tears stop. Spring comes.
And with it the potential for change.

— adapted from “Karpas” by Ronnie M. Horn

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt p’ree ha-adamah.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-adamah.

Blessed are You, who creates the fruits of the earth.

Dip and eat the karpas. 
 

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
.וואָס לערנט אונדז אַז ענדערונג איז מעגלעך

Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos lernt endz az enderung iz meglech.

We rejoice in our heritage, 
which teaches us that change is possible.
 

Anyone who has ever handled matzah knows that it’s extremely fragile. Often enough when we open a box of matzah, some of the sheets are already broken. Sometimes when biting into it, pieces fly everywhere. Anyone who’s ever attempted shmearing cream cheese or jelly on matzah knows it doesn’t usually end well. It’s a good thing we don’t have to search for matzah after Pesach is over, or we’d be looking for crumbs all night. So why does the seder ask us to break the middle matzah tonight?

The Torah calls matzah lechem oni, “the bread of poverty.” The Rabbis of the Talmud interpret this to mean that we should recite the Pesach story over a broken piece of matzah, not a whole sheet, because poor people in their times often couldn’t afford to buy a whole loaf of bread, only pieces. By breaking the middle matzah and hiding away the bigger half, we truly make the smaller half the bread of poverty.

But what about the two other sheets of matzah? And what about the bigger half of the broken matzah, the mysterious afikomen ? Some say the three matzot we start the seder with represent the patriarchs—Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya’akov—others say they represent the three castes of Jews from the times of the Temple—Cohanim, Levi’im, and Yisra’el—but neither of these answers are particularly satisfying.

Perhaps the three matzot represent the past, present, and future, times that we move through fluidly tonight. The seder is largely set in the past, asking us not to merely recall our ancestors’ slavery but to relive it. But through its constant invitation to envision the World to Come, the seder also shows us glimmers of the future. The present moment practically ceases to exist during the seder, or more accurately, it becomes intimately intertwined with the past and the future in a way we don’t often see in daily life. By breaking the middle matzah, we divide the present up between the future and the past. The lechem oni symbolizes the part of the seder we spend in slavery, but the afikomen— the bigger, better half of the matzah that we are about to hide away—is the redemption that awaited our ancestors, and awaits us in the World to Come. 

Yachatz forces us to contend with our own brokenness and with the brokenness of our world. Though the afikomen reminds us that redemption will eventually come, the irreparable damage left by mass communal tragedies like genocide, incarceration, and police violence may never truly go away. Once the middle matzah is broken, it can never be fully repaired, but we can pick up the pieces and do our best to try to put them back together again. This is the redemptive hope of tikkun olam.
 

We did not weep
when we were leaving-
for we had neither
time nor tears,
and there was no farewell.
We did not know
at the moment of parting
that it was a parting,
so where would our weeping
have come from?

We did not stay
awake all night
(and did not doze)
the night of our leaving.
That night we had
neither night nor light,
and no moon rose.
That night we lost our star,
our lamp misled us;
we didn't receive our share

of sleeplessness-
so where
would wakefulness have come from?

— Taha Muhammad Ali

As we break the middle matzah tonight, we remember the break in Palestinian life that happened when the State of Israel was established in 1948. That year, Israeli settlers did irreparable damage to the Palestinian people. Haganah, the militia that would later become the Israeli Defense Force, attempted to force Palestine’s rightful inhabitants out of their homeland. Israeli settlers destroyed hundreds of villages, leaving 15,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people displaced in an event known to the Palestinian people as the Nakba, the catastrophe. 

On April 21, 1948—the first night of Pesach—Haganah and the Irgun (another Zionist paramilitary group) commenced Operation Bi’ur Chametz. Its name bi’ur chametz, means “burning the leaven,” a sickening reference to the Jewish ritual of eliminating all traces of chametz from the home before Passover. With incendiary bombs, gunfire, and psychological warfare, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian citizens from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and the surrounding areas. Historian Ilan Pappe recounts:

Israeli loudspeakers urged the Palestinian women and children to leave before it was too late. The orders were plain and simple: ‘Kill any Arab you encounter; torch all inflammable objects and force doors open with explosives’. When these orders were executed promptly within the 1.5 square kilometres where thousands of Haifa’s defenceless Palestinians were still residing, the shock and terror were such that, without packing any of their belongings or even knowing what they were doing, people began leaving en masse… as soon as they had fled, Jewish troops broke into and looted their homes. When Golda Meir visited Haifa a few days later, she at first found it hard to suppress a feeling of horror when she entered homes where cooked food still stood on the tables, children had left toys and books on the floor, and life appeared to have frozen in an instant. In the early hours of April 22, people began streaming to the harbor. We can learn what happened next from the horrifying recollections of some of the survivors: “Men stepped on their friends and women on their own children. The boats in the port were soon filled with living cargo. The overcrowding in them was horrible. Many turned over and sank with all their passengers.”

The effects of the Nakba are still felt in Palestinian communities. The occupation of Palestine continues to this day, as does Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing. In the apardheit state of Israel, Palestinians are second-class citizens, subject to perpetual violence. In addition to military operations, bombings, Israeli settler terrorism and vigilante killings, Israeli police and prisons are weaponized against them.

There is an epidemic of mass incarceration among Palestinian people, especially Palestinian youth. Israel is the only country in the world where children are tried in adult military courts. Since 2000, more than 12,000 Palestinian children have been imprisoned, mostly for throwing stones, an offense punishable by 20 years incarceration. One in five Palestinian people have been incarcerated. Israeli police also regularly kill unarmed Palestinian people, mistaking them for ‘terrorists.’ During the George Floyd riots in June 2020, Israeli police killed an autistic Palestianian man named Iyad Halaq. Palestinian protesters compared his death with Floyd’s and stood in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

As we break the middle matzah tonight, let us recognize the finality of death. The precious lives stolen by carceral states can never be replaced. Yizkor, the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead said on Passover and other major holidays, teaches those in mourning to honor those we’ve lost by “binding their souls up in the binding of life” through practicing tzedakah in their names. By redistributing resources to those in need and building a better world, the dead live on through us, and their lives become intertwined with our own and the lives of those we’ve touched.  

cw: sexual assault

As we break the middle matzah tonight, we remember the break in Jewish life that happened during World War II. The Nazis did irreperable damage to our people, killing six million of us—two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. Jews call this genocide the Sho’ah, the catastrophe. 

It’s difficult to try to sum up an atrocity of such horrific magnitude as the Sho’ah. The scale of human suffering is beyond comprehension. Quantifying the Sho’ah is hard enough—it’s hard to wrap our heads around numbers like six million. Attempting to truly appreciate the diversity of experiences victims of the Sho’ah went through is all but impossible. We tend to focus on the deaths alone, without thinking about the ordeals victims went through before they died. 

Millions of Jews were incarcerated in concentration camps, where they were dehumanized and forced to do backbreaking labor and live in deplorably unsanitary conditions. Diseases like typhus ran rampant, and prisoners regularly collapsed from hunger. Upon arriving at these camps, Jews would generally be stripped, have their heads shaved and be assigned a number which was tattooed on their arm. Many Jews were tortured, used for medical experimentation, or sexually assaulted. The Jews who survived these concentration camps were left with permanent trauma from witnessing the deaths of their loved ones and fellow prisoners. 

Some Jews have criticized comparing ICE detention centers and American prisons to Nazi concentration camps. They say that doing so diminishes the Holocaust’s legacy, but this is ahistorical for many reasons. What they fail to understand about Hitler’s concentration camps is that they were not a new innovation or an anomaly unique only to Nazi Germany—they were prisons. That’s not to say there aren’t significant differences between contemporary American prisons and extermination camps like Auschwitz. American prisons aren’t killing prisoners en masse, and unlike Auschwitz’s prisoners, most American prisoners have been duly convicted of a crime, albeit through a corrupt justice system. But in most other respects, American prisons and German concentration camps work the same way for the same goal: maintaining white supremacy.

The conditions of American prisons are comparable to concentration camps in many ways. Hunger and malnutrition due to inedible or insufficient food are widespread issues in American prisons. Prisons are extremely unsanitary places with deplorable living conditions—often infested with rats, mice and other pests, insufficiently heated, cramped and over-crowded with facilities that have fallen into disrepair where diseases and sexually transmitted infections run rampant. Despite having little access to adequate medical care, incarcerated people in the US have 

historically been used as test subjects for medical experimentation and clinical drug trials, a practice which continues to this day. 
Like Nazi concentration camps, virtually all American prisons force incarcerated people into slave labor, often dangerous and exhausting work. For instance, in California, some incarcerated people work 24-hour shifts risking their lives fighting wildfires, for which they are paid $2 a day. Ironically, spots at these Conservation Fire Camps are considered highly coveted among California prisoners, simply because the conditions of regular institutions are so dangerous and poor. Prisoners are subjected to a wide spectrum of extrajudicial punishment by correctional officers, including (but not limited to) beatings, waterboarding, chemical weapons, starvation, torture, denial of essential medications, and placement in solitary confinement for weeks, months, or years at a time. Guards also often sexually assault and murder prisoners, with no repurcussions. 

Some might concede that American prisons are cruel, but disagree with comparing them with concentration camps because they don’t share the Nazi camps’ genocidal purpose. What they fail to consider is the long history of institutional eugenics in the United States, which continues to this day. From 2006 to 2010, California illegally sterilized 150 incarcerated prisoners; in 2020, ICE forcibly sterilized several detainees by giving them unwanted hysterectomies. Seven US states chemically castrate people on their sex offender lists. Some US judges offer reduced prison sentences to all criminals (not just those classified as sex offenders) if they are willing to undergo a sterilization procedure. Blatant eugenics in the American justice system may be a surprise to some people, but in fact it’s nothing new. In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that forcible sterilization of the ‘unfit’ (a catchall term for mentally ill and disabled people, as well as incarcerated people) was constitutional. This case, Buck v. Bell (which has not been overtuned) was used by Nazis at the Nuremburg Trials as part of their defense for ‘euthanizing’ disabled people at the beginning of the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler himself based his “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” on American eugenics legislation. 

In addition to the six million Jews murdered during the Shoah, the Nazis killed five million non-Jews in their concentration camps. Among those killed were: Polish people, Ukrainians, Serbs, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and disabled people. In recent years, greater attention has been shown to the thousands of gay men who died in concentration camps. The pink triangle that they were forced to wear on their uniforms has been reclaimed as a symbol of  gay pride. Few people realize that after the war, most gays who survived the Sho’ah were prosecuted and incarcerated for their ‘crimes’ under Paragraph 175, a Nazi-era law criminalizing homosexual acts that “offended the general sense of shame” which wasn’t repealed after World War II.  

But there were other victims of the Holocaust who are almost never mentioned in conversations about this great atrocity. In addition to the pink triangles worn by gay men, there were also red triangle prisoners—  anarchists, socialists, communists, and people who joined the resistance against fascism, as well as non-Jews who hid Jews or helped them escape Nazi Europe. There were also black triangle prisoners—people who were deemed ‘asocial’ or ‘work-shy’ including mentally ill and developmentally disabled people, alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless people, unemployed people, sex workers, people with diabetes (considered to be a “Jewish disease”) and lesbians. Then there were green triangle prisoners, who were sent to the concentration camps for the same reason most American prisoners are incarcerated today: they had committed a crime. 

One of the reasons the Sho’ah is popularly imagined by many as the “ultimate evil,” the epitome of injustice is that the six million Jews who died were killed so senselessly. They weren’t guilty of any crime. But there were gay Jews in the concentration camps, as well as leftist Jews and Jews who were political prisoners. Among the six million there were Jews who developmentally disabled and mentally ill, there were alcoholic Jews and Jews who were addicted to drugs, there were Jewish sex workers and antifascist resistance members, there were homeless Jews, unemployed Jews, lesbian Jews, and yes, there were Jewish ‘criminals.’ They wore the pink, red, black, and green triangles too—superimposed on top of the yellow stars sewn into their uniforms. Their deaths are just as tragic as the deaths of the Jews who were ‘innocent,’ their stories are just as important. Even the criminals among them did not deserve to be treated like cattle, dehumanized and stripped of their identity, forced into slave labor, turned into walking skeletons by malnutrition, made to live in squalor, exposed to deadly diseases and used for medical experimentation, forcibly sterilized, beaten, raped, or killed. Neither do the people incarcerated in prisons today. During the Sho’ah, Jews and ‘criminals’ faced a common enemy, and they met a common fate. Tonight, we are all criminals. 

The generations of Jews who’ve grown up in the wake of the Sho’ah have been given a 614th mitzvah: never again. It seems even the most secular of Jews accept this commandment as binding, and understand its gravity. The Jewish people is obligated to ensure that the horrors of the Sho’ah are never repeated. But frankly, we have failed to fulfill this commandment. Only three years after the Sho’ah ended, the Nakba began. Israel is still occupying Palestinian land and carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign. And American Jews are all too often silent about ICE’s concentration camps, the police’s mass murder of Black people, and human rights abuses in prisons. With the recent rise of blatant fascism in the United States, we can no longer afford to be silent about the genocides being perpetuated in our name.
 

Some do not get the chance to rise and spread out like golden loaves of challah, filled with sweet raisins and crowned with shiny braids.
Rushed, neglected, not kneaded by caring hands, we grow up afraid that any touch may cause a break. There are some ingredients we never receive.
Tonight, let us bless our cracked surfaces and sharp edges, unafraid to see our brittleness and brave enough to see our beauty.
Reaching for wholeness, let us piece together the parts of ourselves we have found, and honor all that is still hidden. 

— Tamara Cohen
 

Break the middle matzah. Put the smaller half back between the two whole matzot. Hide the bigger half or put it aside. Some try to break the matzah into the shape of a dalet and a yud, to spell dai, די, “enough” and yad, יד, “hand.”
 

Jews from various Mizrachi traditions have the tradition of reenacting the Exodus at this part of the seder through a traditional ‘conversation’ between someone pretending to be an Israelite leaving Mitzrayim and the other seder guests. Some families send the 'Israelite’ outside to knock on the door. Others have the tradition of having each one of the seder guests taking turns being the Israelite, starting with the youngest and ending with the oldest. Whoever is reading the Israelite's lines should have the afikomen slung over their left shoulder.

מִשְׁאֲרֹתָם צְרֻרֹת בְּשִׂמְלֹתָם, עַל-שִׁכְמָם. וּבְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשׂוּ כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה.

Misharotam tzerurot be-simlotam, al shichmam. U-v’ney Yisra’el asu kidvar Moshe.

With their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks upon their shoulders, B’ney Yisra’el did as Moshe said. 

Min weyn jaiyeh? Where are you coming from?

Mi-Mitzrayim. From Mitzrayim.

Lawen Rayech? Where are you going?

Lirushalayim. To Jerusalem.

Ishu Zawatak? What are you taking with you?

Matzah u-maror. Matzah and maror.

B’agala oobi-z’man kariv! Speedily and very soon!

❉ If you met an Israelite who had left Mitzrayim, what questions would you ask them?

“I’m going to Yerushalayim. I’m going to Ir Shalem, the city of wholeness. I’m going to Ir Shalom, the city of peace. Maybe I’m going to a place, maybe I’m going to a state of mind. Maybe it’s the journey that defines me.” — The Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat

(Lift up the smaller half of the middle matzah and say:)

.הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם
 .כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי וְיִפְסַח
.הָשַׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל
.הָשַׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין 

Ha lachma anya dee achaloo ahavtanah be-arah de-Mitzrayim. 
Kol deechfeen yeytey ve-yeychol, kol deetzreech yeytey ve-yipsach. 
Ha-shata hacha, le-shana ha-ba’ah be-arah de-Yisra’el. 
Ha-shata avdey, le-shana ha-ba’ah beney choreen.

This is the bread of poverty that our ancestors ate in Mitzrayim. 
All who are hungry may come and eat, all who need may join us.
 This year we are here, but next year we will be in the world to come. 
This year we are slaves, but next year we will be free.

Pesach is called z’man cheruteinu, the time of our freedom. The basic mitzvah of the holiday is to celebrate our liberation from slavery. So why do we begin telling the story of the exodus with the declaration that “this year we are slaves?” 

The seder collapses the past, present and future into a single moment. It asks us to travel back in time to witness the bitterness of slavery and the miracle of liberation firsthand, and it compels us to imagine a better tomorrow. So much of the seder is spent in the distant past or the not-so-distant future, it’s easy to forget that some of its most poignant moments happen whole-heartedly in the present. 

We begin our retelling of the exodus with our feet firmly planted in the present, not by quoting Torah or asking grand philosophical questions, but by offering our meager bread to anyone who is hungry. Why are we slaves this year? Because there are people who are hungry, rejected, and alone this Pesach, we are not yet free. As it is written: “The stranger shall come and eat and be satisfied, so that all the work of your hands may be blessed.” (Deuteronomy 14:29)  

This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges,
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year that those
who swim the border's undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side.

If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorium,
then this is the year;

So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.

— Martín Espada, adapted from “Imagine the Angels of Bread”

?מַה נִשְׁתַּנָה הַלַיְלָה הַזֶה מִכָּל הַלֵילוֹת
Ma nishtana ha-laila hazeh meekol ha-laylot?
What is different about this night from all other nights?

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָה, הַלַיְלָה הַזֶה, כֻּלוֹ מַצָה
Shebechol ha-laylot anoo ochleen chametz oo-matzah, chametz oo-matzah,
ha-laila hazeh, ha-laila hazeh, coolo matzah? 
On all other nights we eat chametz and matzah. 
Tonight, we only eat matzah?

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת, הַלַיְלָה הַזֶה, מָרוֹר?
Shebechol ha-laylot anoo ochleen she’ar yerakot, she’ar yerakot
ha-laila hazeh, ha-laila hazeh, maror? 
On all other nights we eat all sorts of vegetables. 
Tonight, bitter herbs?

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵילוֹת אֵין אָנוּ מַטְבִּילִין אֲפִילוּ פַּעַם אֶחָת, הַלַיְלָה הַזֶה, שְׁתֵּי פְעָמִים?
Shebechol ha-laylot eyn anoo matbeeleen afeeloo pa’am echat, afeeloo pa’am echat
ha-laila hazeh, ha-laila hazeh, shtey feyameem? 
On all other nights we don’t even dip vegetables once. 
Tonight, twice?

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְׁבִין וּבֵין מְסֻבִּין, הַלַיְלָה הַזֶה, כֻּלָנוּ מְסֻבִּין?
Shebechol ha-laylot anoo ochleen beyn yoshveen oo-veyn mesubeen, beyn yoshveen oo-veyn mesubeen,
ha-laila hazeh, ha-laila hazeh, coolanoo mesubeen? 
On all other nights we eat sitting or reclining. 
Tonight, all of us recline?

❉ Add some questions of your own to the traditional four. 

These questions have traditionally been asked by the youngest person at the seder, often a child. The seder is designed to stimulate children’s curiosity. It is an educational ritual, in a way that is alien to capitalist schooling. It asks us to learn from experience, from our ancestors, and from each other. Its pedagogy is believing everyone has wisdom to share, but questioning everything. The uninitiated may find the Haggadah’s repetition of Torah and Talmud stories to be dogmatic and irrelevant to modern-day radical study, but if we fulfill our commandment to see the Exodus as our own personal narrative, these stories become revolutionary. As Paulo Freire said, “The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.” 

.עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ — עַתָּה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין
Avadim hayinu — atah beney chorin.
Once we were slaves — now we are free.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim, but we were taken out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. If our ancestors had not been taken out from Mitzrayim, we and our children and our children’s children would still be enslaved there today. Even if all of us were wise, understanding elders, knowledgeable about the Torah, it would still be our duty to tell the Exodus story. Anyone who adds to the telling of the Exodus is praiseworthy.

“We were slaves to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim, but Hashem our God took us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. ” (Deuteronomy 6:21)

A strong hand, what does this mean? 
Through justice our hands are strengthened. 
“I, Hashem, have called you to justice, and strengthened your hand. I made you a people of a covenant, and appointed you as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring prisoners out of prison, those who sit in darkness out of jail.” (Isaiah 42:6-7)

An outstretched arm, what does this mean? 
With a mighty arm those sentenced to death are redeemed.
“Let prisoners’ cries reach You. With Your great arm, save those who are condemned to death.” (Psalm 79:11)

“It happened once that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were reclining in Bnei Brak and telling the story of the Exodus that whole night, until their students came and said, ‘Rabbis, it’s time to say the morning Shema!’”

This strange little story doesn’t appear anywhere in the Mishnah or the Talmud, only in the traditional Haggadah. At first glance, these rabbis appear to be at a seder, but modern commentaries call that assumption into question. Because of the mitzvah to tell the Exodus story to the next generation, it’s unlikely the sages would have a seder together without their families or students present.

Instead, many suggest that they were gathering to plan a revolt against the Romans who were colonizing Palestine and that their students (who were serving as lookouts) interrupted to warn them of danger. Rabbi Akiva was the spiritual leader of the Bar Kochba revolt, a valiant but doomed revolutionary effort to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression. He was so enthralled with Shimon Bar Kochba, the rebellion’s leader, that he declared him the Moshiach. Akiva paid dearly for his revolutionary activities and messianic fervor, being brutally martyred by the Roman state. But the Romans never killed the Jewish people’s revolutionary spirit. 

Perhaps there is another revolutionary lesson here. How could five of the wisest rabbis of all time not have the common sense to look out the window and see the sunrise? Even if we believe that the students’ line about the morning Shema is referring to approaching danger, why were they up so late? This is a story about losing track of time. In order to harness the revolutionary potential of the moment, we must live in it fully. Ironically, through doing so, we live simultaneously in every other revolutionary moment, past, present, and future. 
 

בָּרוּךְ הַמָקוֹם, בָּרוּךְ הוּא, בָּרוּךְ שֶׁנָתַן תּוֹרָה לְעַמוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּרוּךְ הוּא

Baruch ha-makom, baruch hu. Baruch she-natan Torah le-amo Yisra’el, baruch hu.

Blessed is the Place, bless Him. Blessed is the Giver of Torah to His people Yisra’el, bless Him.

:כְּנֶגֶד אַרְבָּעָה בָנִים דִבְּרָה תוֹרָה
.אֶחָד חָכָם, וְאֶחָד רָשָׁע, וְאֶחָד תָּם, וְאֶחָד שֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ לִשְׁאוֹל

Keneged arba’ah vanim dibra Torah:
echad chacham, ve-echad rasha, ve-echad tam, ve-echad she-eyno yodeya lishol.

The Torah speaks of four children:
one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who doesn’t know how to ask.

.חָכָם מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? מָה הָעֵדוֹת וְהַחֻקִים וְהַמִשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר צִוָה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ אֶתְכֶם? וְאַף אַתָּה אֱמוֹר לוֹ כְּהִלְכוֹת הַפֶּסַח: אֵין מַפְטִירִין אַחַר הַפֶּסַח אֲפִיקוֹמָן

Chacham, ma hu omer? “Ma ha-eydot veha-chookim veha-mishpatim ashem tziva Adonai eloheinu etchem?” Ve-af ata emor lo ke-hilchot ha-Pesach: “Ein maftirin achar ha-Pesach afikoman.”

The wise child, what does she say? “What are the decrees, rules, and laws that Hashem our God has commanded you?” (Deuteronomy 6:20) So you will tell her the halachot of Pesach: “We may not add afikoman after the Paschal sacrifice.”
 
The original context of the wise child’s question: “For your children will ask you in time, ‘What are the decrees, rules, and laws that Hashem our God has commanded you?’ You shall say to your children, ‘Avadim hayinu, we were slaves to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim, but Hashem our God took us out from there…’” (Deuteronomy 6:20-21) 
Instead of giving the wise child the answer prescribed by the Torah, the Haggadah uses this verse to introduce the Passover story to all of us. In this way, it treats all of us as wise, and nurtures our curiosity. It gives the wise child a line from the Mishnah and says, “go deeper.”

רָשָׁע מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? מָה הָעֲבוֹדָה הַזאֹת לָכֶם? לָכֶם – וְלֹא לוֹ. וּלְפִי שֶׁהוֹצִיא אֶת עַצְמוֹ מִן הַכְּלָל כָּפַר בְּעִקָר. וְאַף אַתָּה הַקְהֵה אֶת שִׁנָיו וֶאֱמוֹר לוֹ: בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יי לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִצְרָיִם. לִי וְלֹא־לוֹ. אִלוּ הָיָה שָׁם, לֹא הָיָה נִגְאָל:

Rasha, ma hu omer? “Ma ha-avodah ha-zot lachem?” Lachem, ve-lo lo. 
Oo-lefi she-hotzi et atzmo min ha-klal, kafar be-ikar. 
Ve-af ata hak’he et shinav ve-emor lo, “Ba’avur zeh asah Adonai li be-tzeiti mi-Mitzrayim.” Li, ve-lo lo. Eelu haya sham, lo haya nigal.  

The wicked child, what does he say? “What is this worship to you?” (Exodus 12:26) ‘To you, ’ and not to him. Since he brought himself out of the collective, he denied his roots. You shall blunt his teeth and say to him: “For the sake of this [worship,] Hashem did what He did for me when I was brought out of Mitzrayim.” (Exodus 13:8) ‘Did for me, ’ and not for him. If he was there, he would not have been redeemed.   

Again, the Haggadah gives the child a different answer than the Torah prescribes. “When your children ask you, ‘What is this worship to you?’ you shall say to them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to Hashem, who passed over the Israelites’ houses in Mitzrayim when striking the Egyptians.’” (Exodus 12:26-27) This verse later appears in the section describing Rabban Gamliel’s three things. 

.תָּם מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? מַה זאֹת? וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ יי מִמִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים

Tam, ma hu omer? “Mah zot?” Ve-amarta elav “be-chozek yad hotzi’anu Adonai mi-Mitzrayim mi-beyt avadim.”

The simple child, what do they say? “What is this?” (Exodus 13:14) And you will say to them, “with the strength of His hand, Hashem brought us out of Mitzrayim, from the house of slavery.” (Exodus 13:14) 

Jewish tradition holds that even though B’ney Yisra’el practiced idolatry in Mitzrayim and didn’t deserve redemption, Hashem used a “strong hand” to overrule strict justice to redeem us. The Lubavitcher Rebbe said in his commentary on the Haggadah: “Just as God used a strong hand to ‘overcome’ the attribute of justice, we too must use a strong hand to overcome those aspects of our personalities that impede our spiritual growth. We then experience a spiritual liberation from our personal enslavements.”   

וְשֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ לִשְׁאוֹל – אַתְּ פְּתַח לוֹ, שֶׁנֶאֱמַר, וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יי לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִצְרָיִם

Ve-she’eyno yodeya lishol—aht petach lo, she-ne’emar:
“Ve-higadta levincha bayom ha-hu leymor: ‘Ba’avur zeh asah Adonai li be-tzeiti mi-Mitzrayim.'

As for the one who doesn’t know how to ask a question—you open for them, as it is written, “And you will tell your child on that day, ‘For the sake of this, Hashem did what He did for me when I was brought out of Mitzrayim.’” (Exodus 13:8) 

Hebrew is a very gendered language. The text of the first three children is addressed to fathers: “ata emor lo” and “ata hak’he et shinav” both use the masculine you and the Torah quote “ve-amarta alav” uses the male form of the verb. But concerning the child who doesn’t know how to ask, the text uses the feminine you: “at petach lo.” Some explain that this is because a child’s mother is their first teacher. 

Others say “at petach lo” doesn’t mean “you open for them” but “you open yourself for them.” In other words, you enter the feminine part of yourself to care for them. Opening ourselves completely so that others may learn from our experiences, even our traumatic experiences with the violence of oppression, takes tremendous strength and radical vulnerability. 

The verse starting with “for the sake of this” takes on a radical new meaning with this in mind: for the sake of this moment, for the sake of teaching the next generation the lessons of the past, I survived and made it out of slavery. My personal freedom isn’t an end unto itself, it’s a means to collective liberation. This verse appears four times in the Haggadah, first with the wicked child, where it’s used to exclude, then here, where it’s used to transmit intergenerational wisdom. 

❉ Which of the four children do you relate to the most? Why? 
 

The wicked child is one of the most perplexing parts of the Haggadah, and perhaps one of the most troubling. Many have questioned whether or not the Haggadah’s harsh response to him is justified or just abusive. Is the wicked child really so wicked that he deserves to be hit in the teeth, or told that Hashem wouldn’t have saved him from slavery? Let’s take a closer look at the text to get some answers.

?רָשָׁע מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר
Rasha, ma hu omer?
The wicked child, what does he say?

For clarity, we typically translate rasha into English as ‘the wicked child,’ but that’s not what it literally means. Rasha is a noun, not an adjective. It means ‘villain’ or ‘criminal.’ This is even more troubling than calling the child “wicked,” because it implies they are incapable of change. 

?מָה הָעֲבוֹדָה הַזאֹת לָכֶם
“Ma ha-avodah ha-zot lachem?”
“What is this worship to you?”

One of the reasons why Haggadah’s treatment of the wicked child feels so cruel and bizarre is that it doesn’t seem like he’s doing anything wrong. Simply by being present at the seder, he’s fulfilling a mitzvah, and better yet he is asking questions, engaging with the ritual. Why does the Haggadah condemn his curiosity? 

One of the most important aspects of his question is his usage of the word avodah . In this context, it clearly means ‘worship’ or ‘service,’ in the religious sense of that word. But avodah also means ‘labor’ and it’s connected to the word for slavery. The wicked child’s question compares the ritual of the seder to the slavery we’re supposed to be celebrating our liberation from. On the surface this seems like a ridiculous comparison— how could a festive dinner filled with joyous singing, delicious food, and ample wine be oppressive? 

What the wicked child is arguing is that our seder is a form of mental slavery if we are doing it merely out of religious obligation. He’s asking us to seriously ask ourselves why we’re performing these strange rituals. How can we call ourselves free if the answer is merely ‘because God said so’ or if we have no answer at all? He might quote the Good Book and ask how we can celebrate freedom if our liberator said, “B’ney Yisra’el are slaves to me, they are my slaves who I brought out of Mitzrayim.” (Leviticus 25:55) In other words, the wicked child asks us to prove that our avodah is not avodah zara, a Hebrew phrase meaning idolatry, literally ‘strange worship.’ If we are not being intentional with our prayers, our rituals, our traditions, how are they any different than the idol worship our ancestors were warned against? Whether or not what he’s arguing is true, his question is very important for us to answer honestly, which makes the Haggadah’s response to him all the more frustrating.   

 .לָכֶם – וְלֹא לוֹ
Lachem, ve-lo lo.
‘To you,’ and not to him.

The Haggadah does not comment on the wicked child’s use of the word avodah. It doesn’t even answer his question. Instead, it decries his usage of the second person in his question. What’s strange though is that the wise child asked their question in the second person too. “What are the rules that Hashem our God commanded you?” You, and not them. The typical explanation is that though the wise child doesn’t include themself in the moment the laws were given, by saying Eloheinu, our God, they include themself in law itself, i.e. they accept the responsibility of the mitzvot.

But why are they allowed to get away with the second person here? Why doesn’t the Haggadah berate them for failing to understand that the Torah doesn’t merely apply to them, it was written about them? If we are all obligated to see ourselves as if we personally left Mitzrayim, surely the wise child should believe that they were there when the laws of Pesach were given. The true difference between the wise and wicked children’s questions is that the wise child unquestioningly accepts that their parents have all the answers, while the wicked child doesn’t trust that they know what they’re doing any more than he does. 

.וּלְפִי שֶׁהוֹצִיא אֶת עַצְמוֹ מִן הַכְּלָל כָּפַר בְּעִקָר
Oo-lefi she-hotzi’a et atzmo min ha-klal, kafar be-ikar.
Since he brought himself out of the collective, he denied his roots. 

The language the Haggadah uses to describe what the wicked son is doing is very interesting. Why say that the wicked son “brought himself” out of the collective? Why not say he separated himself, or simply left the collective? The Haggadah is subtly mocking his ‘trust no one’ attitude by using the word hotzi'a to describe his leaving the collective, comparing it to how Hashem has hotzianu, brought us out of Mitzrayim. By questioning the value of the seder, he embarks on a grand Exodus of his own, leaving the table to go sit and sulk. 

The last two words of this sentence are difficult to translate and to understand. Some might recognize that the word kafar contains the same root as kippur, the Hebrew word for atonement. The root essentially means to wipe something out. Kippur means to wipe away one’s sins; kafar means to wipe away something’s meaning, through denial. In its many forms as a verb, ikar means something similar: to uproot. But the root ikar itself means ‘root.’ By extension, the ikar mentioned in the Haggadah means something to the effect of ‘the principle.’ The word ikar can also mean ‘the main thing,’ which is what the wicked child is missing. 

Through questioning the value of the seder itself, he misses the point. The strange rituals, the arcane texts, the contradictions of the Haggadah, the reversals of everyday life: all of these things are designed to confuse, to get us to ask questions we wouldn’t normally ask and come to conclusions we wouldn’t normally come to. The wicked child acts intellectually superior by assuming the seder is a dusty old ritual devoid of meaning for modern-day Jews and irrelevant to contemporary life. Instead of trying to make sense of the strange, ancient texts he throws them away, assuming they’re broken because they are old. His edgelord reddit mindset leaves him lonely and spiritually unsatisfied. He thinks he is clever because he doesn’t believe in miracles, but really he’s just too foolish to let them happen to him.
Finally, the Haggadah’s tirade against the wicked child starts to make a little more sense. His closed mind and hardened heart cut him off from the people who love him. By questioning the value of these traditions, passed down from generation to generation through millennia of violence and oppression, he is being ungrateful to the ones who came before him, who lived so he could survive. 

But is that necessarily true? Is there a way one could show reverence for one’s ancestors and their traditions, and still ask questions about them? After all, isn’t questioning things a bona fide Jewish value, or at least a time-honored Jewish tradition in its own right? And on this night of all nights, this night of far more than four questions, shouldn’t his questions be received with welcome arms and open minds?

וְאַף אַתָּה הַקְהֵה אֶת שִׁנָיו
Ve-af ata hak’he et shinav
You shall blunt his teeth

Any credibility the Haggadah has made in its proof of the wicked child’s wickedness has just gone out the window. How are we supposed to react to this violence? What does blunting someone’s teeth even mean? Socking him in the jaw? Surely that’s no way to respond to the wicked child’s question, even if it is wicked. Advocating for this violence only goes to show that the wicked child is no more wicked than his father.  

Except, as always, there’s a hidden meaning here. The translation of hak’he is notoriously tricky, but the basic consensus is that it doesn’t mean to hit, but to make something dull. Some say that the wicked child needs to be defanged, have his biting remarks softened somewhat. But this explanation is disappointing in its own right. 

Hidden in every רשע, rasha, villain, there is a צדיק, tzaddik, righteous person. But how do we find the tzaddik in the rasha? To find the answer, we need to use gematria, traditional Jewish numerology. The numerical value of רשע is 570, the value of צדיק is 204. We need to remove 366 to find the tzaddik. It just so happens that the gematria of shinav, שניו, ‘his teeth’ is 366. By rearranging the letters of שניו, we get an additional insight into the situation: inside every one of us, no matter how wicked we seem, is the potential for שנוי, shinu’i, change. And another word that has the numerical value of 366? Kippurim, כיפורים, atonements, from the same root as kafar , to deny. Why ‘atonements,’ plural? Just as the wicked child needs to learn how to accept love, we too need to learn how to give it to those who test our patience. As it is written, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” (Leviticus 24:20) 

.וֶאֱמוֹר לוֹ: בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יי לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִצְרָיִם. לִי וְלֹא־לוֹ
Ve-emor lo, “Ba’avur zeh asah Adonai li be-tzeiti mi-Mitzrayim.” Li, ve-lo lo.
Say to him: “For the sake of this Hashem did what they did for me when I was brought out of Mitzrayim.” ‘Did for me, ’ and not for him.  

This is the first of four times that the traditional Haggadah quotes this verse. The second time it is used, it’s said to the child who doesn’t know how to ask a question. Why should the same verse be used to denounce the wicked child, but to ‘open’ a conversation with the silent child? 

The relationship between the wicked child and the child who does not know how to ask is interesting. It’s easy to think that the Haggadah is contrasting the wise and wicked children, but actually the simple child is intended to be juxtaposed with the wicked. In some early versions of the Haggadah, they’re called the ‘foolish’ child. So what’s the connection between the wicked and silent children? A popular interpretation of the wicked child’s question is that it’s a non-question. It’s rhetorical at best, mere mockery at worst. So neither of these children have asked a real question; maybe neither of them are able to. 

The child who doesn’t know how to ask has traditionally been viewed as a toddler, or an infant. They don’t know how to ask because they are not yet able to put words together. Others see this child as a child who’s been silenced—whose questions are so dangerous that a repressive state or system has censored them. But what if this child really does know how to ask, and no one is stopping them, it’s just that they’d prefer to be quiet and listen? What if they want to learn not from questions and answers, but through stories and private meditation? 

The first time the “for the sake of this” verse is used, it’s to exclude the wicked child from redemption. The second time, it’s used to pass on wisdom. We have to wonder what ‘this’ is—what was so important that Hashem chose to defy the laws of nature over and over to save a group of lowly humans from slavery? It was for the sake of ‘this’ telling, for the sake of this oral tradition handed down between generations that our ancestors were redeemed from Mitzrayim. Which means that both the wicked and the silent children are the reason why the Exodus happened, whether they realize it or not. Their willingness to listen, and their questions, no matter how sarcastic, are so precious to Hashem that mountains were moved just to bring them into existence.

.אִלוּ הָיָה שָׁם, לֹא הָיָה נִגְאָל
Eelu haya sham, lo haya nigal. 
If he was there, he would not have been redeemed.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe reframed this sentence in an extraordinary way. If he had been there, he wouldn’t have been saved. But he is not there—he is here. Here, the wicked child would be saved. Why? What has changed between then and now? We have been given the Torah. We have been taught to pursue justice, taught to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We have been shown unconditional love, and challenged to show others that kind of love is possible. There, in Mitzrayim, we would have given up on him. But here, as we await for the next Exodus, for the arrival of the World to Come—of course the wicked child will be saved.  

The real key to understanding the difference between the wicked child’s question and their siblings’ questions is frustratingly absent from the Haggadah. We have to look to the Torah for the original context in which these questions were asked. All three of them come directly from Hashem. The wise child’s question comes from the verse “ Ki yishalecha vincha machar, when your child asks you in the future, ‘What are the decrees, rules, and laws that Hashem our God has commanded you?” (Deuteronomy 6:20) The simple child’s question comes from the verse, “ Ki yishalecha vincha machar, when your child asks you in the future, ‘What is this?’” (Exodus 13:14) But the wicked child’s question is posed differently. Hashem says, “ Ki yomru aleichem beneichem, when your children say to you, ‘What is this worship to you?’” (Exodus 12:26) The writers of the Haggadah picked up on this difference and determined that his question is merely rhetorical, that his mockery doesn’t dignify an answer.  

But is that really so? If that were true, why would Hashem give the wicked child a straightforward answer? Hashem tells us to say, “It is the Passover sacrifice for Hashem, who passed over B’ney Yisra’el’s houses in Mitzrayim when striking the Egyptians.” (Exodus 12:27) Does that mean the Haggadah is encouraging us to, chas ve-shalom, violate a mitzvah?

There are two other significant differences in the way Hashem frames the wicked child’s question compared to his siblings’ questions. The text tells us that the wise and simple questions will be asked of us machar, in the future. The text doesn’t specify when the wicked child’s question will come. The simple explanation for this has to do with when these mitzvot were given—Hashem told Moshe the wise and simple children’s questions after the Israelites had left Mitzrayim, but the wicked child’s question was given before the slaying of the firstborn. The other important difference between the questions is who will be asking them: your child will come to ask the wise and simple questions, but your children, or more specifically, y’all’s children, will ask the wicked child’s question. So who are beneichem, the children who are asking “What is this worship to you?” None other than B’ney Yisra’el, the Jewish people as a whole.

This teaches that the wise and simple children’s questions have been relegated to individuals in the future, but the wicked child’s question is one we must all collectively ask and answer, in every generation’s present. How do we know this? Because Hashem said about the wicked child’s question, “You shall keep this thing forever, you and your children.” (Exodus 12:24) That’s not to say that the other questions don’t have value. The wise child’s question comes from a love of learning, and teaches us to cultivate our curiosity. The simple child’s question comes from a desire to know what is, to sharpen our sense of observation. But the wicked child’s question is central to the Jewish experience: trying to understand what our elders’ and ancestors’ traditions meant to them, and deciding what those traditions will mean to us.

The Haggadah’s answer to the wicked child is just another one of its tricks, the red herrings it puts on the seder table just so we ask “what is this?” We are meant to question the text, we are meant to rail against it and call it cruel, because through doing so we learn something surprising: there are no wicked children, no bad people, only tzaddikim waiting to be found. The Talmud teaches that “there has never been a stubborn and rebellious son and there never will be.” So why talk about the wicked child at all? Because through doing so, we learn how to love our jaded, imperfect selves. 

❉ What does this ritual mean to you? Do you find the seder as a whole meaningful? Why, or why not? 

cw: child sexual abuse

What does the ‘perfect’ child ask?
What are the rules and how can I follow them?
This child needs love. They are living with fear. 
Fear that they will say the wrong thing. Fear that they will be beaten again. Fear that they will not be able to provide for their family. Fear that there won’t be enough food. Fear that if their parents find out they’re gay, they will be out on the street. Fear that they will bring their family shame. Fear that they will be abandoned. Fear that they’ll never be good enough. 
Tell them I love you. 

What does the ‘problem’ child ask?
What do these rules mean to you? (To you, and not to them. ) 
This child needs love. They are living with anger. 
Anger that the rules are so arbitrary. Anger that their classmates make fun of their worn-out clothing. Anger that well-intentioned white teachers humiliate them in class. Anger that they are powerless to stop him from hurting her. Anger that the police took him away, but left her hurt. Anger that they are being punished for someone else’s mistakes.
Tell them I love you.

What does the ‘special’ child ask?
What’s this?
This child needs love. They are living with shame.
Shame because they can’t be normal. Shame because they have needs. Shame because they believe they’re broken. Shame because their father is in prison. Shame because he touched them. Shame that they need help. Shame that they want to die, and surely that’s a sin. 
Tell them I love you. 

What should we say to the silent child?
This child needs love. 
Tell them I love you. 
 

The Exodus story has long been a source of inspiration across cultural lines. It held special significance for Black people living under slavery in the antebellum South. There were obvious parallels between their plight and B’ney Yisra’el’s journey out of Mitzrayim. The spiritual “Go Down Moses,” which draws on this connection, has commonly been sung at Pesach seders since the 1960s. Sometimes, white Jews use it in an attempt to appropriate Blackness. That is unacceptable. We sing this song tonight not to co-opt the Black struggle, but to attempt to understand what slavery was (and is) like through our own lived experiences, just as the writers of “Go Down Moses” understood the Exodus through their own experiences. 

When Israel was in Egypt land — let my people go
Oppressed so hard they could not stand — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”

“Thus saith the Lord,” bold Moses said — let my people go
“Or else I’ll smite your firstborn dead”  — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”

We need not always weep and mourn — let my people go
And wear these slavery chains forlorn — let my people go

      Go down Moses, way down to Egypt land
      Tell ol’ Pharaoh “let my people go”
 

The word Haggadah means “telling.” The central mitzvah of the seder is to tell the Exodus story. So why doesn’t the traditional Haggadah contain a straightforward telling of the human story of the Exodus? Moshe, the protagonist of the Exodus narrative, only appears in the Haggadah as a passing mention. Some have said that this is so we aren’t tempted to deify Moshe, others say it emphasizes our collective liberation. I think that maybe Moshe is missing because we’re supposed to find him, to piece the Exodus story together for ourselves. 

Many non-traditional haggadot fill in these gaps by providing their own account of the story. I’ve refrained from doing this because I think it would be more valuable for each seder to find their own creative way of telling the story. A few suggestions:

A scripted play read by the seder guests
Text study of Torah verses
A STTRPG (seder table top role playing game) 
A shadow puppet play
Watching the Rugrats’ Pesach episode
Singalongs of song parodies that tell the Exodus story
Getting competitive with a trivia contest (Jewpardy anyone?)
Having guests dress up as characters from the story and ‘interviewing’ them
 

Pesach is a joyous time for the Jewish people. We celebrate our ancestors’ liberation and our own lives’ blessings by gathering with loved ones, eating special foods, and, for some of us, by drinking wine. Wine has long been a symbol of joy in Judaism. The Bible praises it for “gladdening the hearts of men” (Psalm 104:15) “making life merry.” (Ecclesiastes 10:19) Wine is already a fairly ubiquitous part of Jewish life—at least twice a week, we make kiddush over it. It’s only natural that it should play a major role in an experience as joyous as the seder.  

One of the seder’s most poignant rituals is designed to temper our joy a bit though. We remove drops of wine and grape juice from our glasses at this point in the seder, to symbolically diminish our joy. The seder asks us to remember that our joy is incomplete. Though tonight we rejoice in our freedom, because the World to Come has not yet come to be we must remember that there are still people who are not yet free. 

That is the standard interpretation of the ten plagues ritual in leftist haggadot, anyways. One of the nearly ubiquitous features of theme seders is a listicle of “ten modern plagues” that the haggadah’s authors want to draw our attention to. The problem with listicles like these is that they fail to grapple with the original context of the biblical plagues. The text of Exodus makes sure to tell us that the Israelites were not afflicted by the plagues, only the Egyptians, so why should our haggadot list the plagues that affect our communities, or worse, compare others’ oppression with the plagues Hashem smote Mitzrayim with? 

The traditional meaning of the ten plagues ritual is a little harder to grapple with, but ultimately, far more radical. We symbolically diminish our joy to honor the Egyptians who died by Hashem’s hand during the plagues. At first brush it might seem counterintuitive, even reactionary to mourn our Egyptian oppressors. Why should we show compassion to people who, at the very least, were complicit in our slavery and attempted genocide? Isn’t it sacrilegious to mourn the people Hashem killed for us? 

The scope of devastation that the ten plagues wrought is clearest with the plague of the firstborn. Torah tells us that, “At midnight, Hashem struck down all the firstborn males in the land of Mitzrayim, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the jailhouse.” (Exodus 12:29) How could a prisoner, a fellow target of Pharaoh’s oppression, have deserved to be killed? One has to wonder if Hashem killing the firstborn—among whom there were surely children, babies even—was any less cruel than Pharaoh’s order to drown all the male Jewish babies in the Nile.

It would be nice to tell a sanitized and simplified Exodus narrative where every Egyptian was hard-hearted Pharaoh, totally deserving of divine retribution, but that simply was not the case. The price of our ancestors’ freedom was steep—many innocent lives were taken, because of the powerful elite’s arrogance and stubbornness. 

With this in mind, it makes sense that the tradition arose to diminish from our joy during the recounting of the ten plagues, to honor the innocent lives that were lost. But what about the not-so innocent lives? Should we let the deaths of Pharaoh, his soldiers and brutal taskmasters sadden us tonight? Is it right to take pleasure in our enemies’ deaths? The Bible certainly thinks so, as it is written, “the righteous will rejoice when they see revenge.” (Psalm 58:11) Liberals and conservatives alike call leftists ‘heartless’ when we celebrate the deaths of fascists and war criminals. Christians especially cite this kind of behavior as an example of leftists’ ‘godlessness.’ Judaism, on the other hand, encourages such behavior, making a wild carnival out of the deaths of genocidal dictators like Haman in the Book of Esther. 

Does this mean Jews are less compassionate than Christians? Perhaps it isn’t that our compassion is deficient, but that our understanding of what it means to practice compassion is more flexible, responsible, and expansive. If a powerful politician who’s killed countless people through their policies gets sick, should we pray for their recovery? Most Christians would say yes, but many Jews would disagree. We have to ask ourselves if praying for perpetrators of genocide and carceral violence to live is truly compassionate, or if in doing so we dishonor the memories of the people they’ve killed, close off our hearts to the people they are oppressing. 
An alternative to praying for their lives and praying for their deaths is praying for their transformations. This is the view of Bruriah, wife of Rabbi Meir and a brilliant Torah sage in her own right. One time she heard her husband praying for Hashem to kill some troublemakers in his neighborhood who had been harassing him. She refuted the ambiguous verse he justified his prayer with: יִתַּמוּ חַטָּאִים מִן־הָאָרֶץ וּרְשָׁעִים עוֹד אֵינָם, yitamu chata’im min ha-aretz u-rasha’im od einam, traditionally translated as “may sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.” (Psalm 104:35) The ambiguity lies in the word חטאים, chata’im, which could mean either ‘sins’ or ‘sinners.’ She said, “If the verse is praying for sinners to die, then how would it be possible for them to then stop being wicked? Rather, pray for Hashem to have compassion for them, so they will make teshuva.” Bruriah suggests that death puts an end to our ability to change, so if we want to put an end to a person’s wickedness, we have to pray for Hashem to have compassion on them, so they can be transformed.
There is a famous midrash about the angels’ reaction to the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Sea. Overjoyed that B’ney Yisra’el were finally free, they started singing songs of praise. Furious, Hashem said to them, “My creations are drowning and you are singing?!” At the same time, Jewish tradition has long seen the song Miriam, Moshe, and B’ney Yisra’el sang on the banks of the Red Sea as one of the holiest parts of the Torah. How do we reconcile Hashem’s harsh disapproval of the angels’ song with the sanctity of the Song of the Sea? 

For Hashem, each death is a terrible tragedy, because each human life is infinitely valuable and each one of us has the potential for transformation. The Talmud answers that Hashem does not rejoice at the downfall of the wicked, but Hashem does cause humans to rejoice. But why should Hashem do this? Why is Pesach a joyful holiday at all, and not a solemn commemoration of our oppressors’ tragic deaths? 

Perhaps rejoicing in the death of oppressors is not incompatible with compassion. Allowing others to rejoice in their oppressors’ demise without judging them is an act of compassion, because after all, it’s only human to do so. Allowing ourselves to rejoice in the deaths of those who seek to kill us is self-compassion—it is the recognition that we are not God, so we can’t always see the world through the eyes of the divine. If we did, there would be no holidays, and there would be no victory. So, of course we should rejoice in our liberation, even if that liberation was not complete. But, our joy cannot be complete either, not until the World to Come. So, we spill ten drops from our glasses, to remember those who died—the innocent and the guilty alike. Our ancestors instituted this ritual to teach us that it is possible to rejoice in victories that aren’t whole, because if we can’t do that we will never see the “day that is all good.” Tonight, let us remember the dead, embrace the living, and pray for transformation.

❉ Why did Hashem choose to bring B’ney Yisra’el out of Mitzrayim violently?  

Many Ashkenazim dip their fingers into the glass and spill the drops on a napkin or plate. Some have each person spill their drops one at a time into a special bowl, which is saved and poured out outside during the “pour out thy wrath” section later on. Others have only the seder leader pour large drops of wine directly from their glass into a bowl, with someone else simultaneously pouring water into the bowl; everyone else avoids looking at the bowl for fear of “being contaminated” by the “plague waters,” which are rushed to the toilet and poured out right away. Iraqi Jews often cover the table with a special second tablecloth while saying the ten plagues to protect the food. Some Indian Jews have only the leader pour wine out from a large, special “Pharaoh’s cup” and then rush to wash their hands to avoid contamination. In Libya, however, the “plague wine” is considered a powerful segula or good luck charm, and single girls who are looking to get married bathe their feet in everyone’s spilled wine, in hopes of finding a good match in the coming year.

Everyone removes a drop of wine or grape juice from their glasses as each plague is read. 

  דָם
dahm
blood

צְפַרְדֵעַ
tz’fardeya
frogs

כִּנִים  
keeneem
lice

עָרוֹב
                                                                                                                        arov
                                                                                                                      beasts

דֶבֶר
dever
pestilence

שְׁחִין
sh’cheen
boils

  בָּרָד  
                                                                                                                   barad
fiery hail

אַרְבֶּה
arbeh
locusts

חשֶׁךְ
choshech
darkness

מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת

makat bechorot 

slaying of the firstborn
 

Persian and Iraqi Jews have the delightful and slightly sadomasochistic tradition of playfully whipping each other with scallions, leeks, or green onions during the singing of Dayenu. This is done primarily to remember the brutal taskmasters who oppressed our ancestors, but it carries another meaning too: when B’ney Yisra’el were wandering the desert for forty years, they grew tired of the miraculous manna that Hashem provided them, and kvetched about missing the food that they ate in Mitzrayim. “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Mitzrayim, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic! Now our spirits are dried up, and there is nothing at all but manna to look forward to!” (Numbers 11:4-5) 

In doing so, they not only rejected the miraculous sustenance they’d been provided, but they disparaged the greatest miracle of all: their liberation from Mitzrayim. But perhaps we should have some compassion for the Israelites’ suffering in the desert. They were struggling to free their minds from Mitzrayim long after they crossed the Red Sea. Though slavery was miserable for them, it was the only life they’d known for generations. Hashem could provide them with all their physical needs in the desert, but not immediately heal them from the trauma of slavery and genocide. Their bodies were freed from slavery’s chains, but like us, the Israelites needed to liberate their own minds. It might be difficult for us to let go of some of the comforts we find in our oppression, to take a leap of faith from the devil we know to the vast unknown. But it might just be worth it.

(If you’re brave and have onions on hand, start whipping each other during the first chorus:)

.אִלוּ הוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִצְרָיִם, דַיֵנוּ
.אִלוּ קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת־הַיָּם, דַּיֵּנוּ
.אִלוּ הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת־הַמָּן, דַּיֵּנוּ
.אִלוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַשָׁבָּת, דַיֵנוּ
.אִלוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה, דַיֵנוּ

Eelu hotzi’anu mi-Mitzrayim, dayenu.
Eelu kara lanu et ha-yam, dayenu.
Eelu he’echilanu et ha-man, dayenu.
Eelu natan lanu et ha-Shabbat, dayenu.
Eelu natan lanu et ha-Torah, dayenu.

If we’d been brought out of Mitzrayim, it would have been enough.
If the sea had split for us, it would have been enough.
If we’d been fed manna, it would have been enough.
If we’d been given Shabbat, it would have been enough.
If we’d been given the Torah, it would have been enough.
 

If we believed that Black Lives Matter,
   but didn’t protest when we were able to — lo dayenu.  
      It would not have been enough.

If we yelled ‘Black Lives Matter!’ in the streets until our voices went hoarse,
   but couldn’t hear Black people when they spoke — lo dayenu.

If we learned to listen for the still, small voices,
   but got defensive when those voices grew angry — lo dayenu.  

If we overcame our defensiveness and fear, 
   but couldn’t find empathy for those who are hurting — lo dayenu. 

If we radically empathized with all who are oppressed,
   but never reflected on our role in that oppression— lo dayenu. 

If we understood our position in white supremacy,
   but didn’t work to oppose it — lo dayenu. 

If we tried to dismantle white supremacy,
   but only fought social prejudice, not state violence  — lo dayenu.

If we started to fight the carceral state by demanding reform
   but couldn’t believe in the possibility of abolition — lo dayenu.

If we came to see that abolition is possible
   but couldn’t imagine what it might look like — lo dayenu.

If we started envisioning a world without prisons,
   but didn’t challenge our own carceral thinking — lo dayenu.

If we unlearned our carceral thought patterns,
   but didn’t learn about transformative justice — lo dayenu.

If we opened our minds to a justice that heals instead of punishes,
   but didn’t take accountability for our own actions — lo dayenu.

If we held ourselves accountable,
   but didn’t practice self-compassion — lo dayenu.

If we showed compassion to ourselves and all others,
   but didn’t love each other with all of our hearts, 
      and all of our spirits,
         and all of our selves — lo dayenu.
            It would not have been enough. 
 

.וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ. שֶׁלא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָא שֶׁבְּכָל דוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ, וְהַקָדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִילֵנוּ מִיָדָם

Ve-hi she-amda la-avoteinu ve-lanu. Shelo echad bilvad amad aleinu le-chaloteinu, eleh she-b'chol dor va-dor omdim aleinu le-chaloteinu, veha-Kadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu mi-yadam.  

The same thing has stood for our ancestors and us. It wasn’t just once that they stood against us and tried to destroy us—in every generation they stand against us to try to destroy us, but we always survive their plans.
 

In every generation, each person must see themself as if they personally left Mitzrayim. As it is written: “And you shall tell your child on that day, ‘For the sake of this, Hashem did what Hashem did for me when I was brought out of Mitzrayim.’” (Exodus 13:8) Our ancestors were not redeemed alone during the Exodus; rather, we were redeemed together with them.

For the sake of this, the sake of this telling, this reliving, this embodiment, this revolutionary moment, we were brought out of slavery. We personally were freed once before, in order to learn how to free ourselves again, and to know that liberation is possible. Some Jews believe we’ve been tasked with keeping the Pesach story alive. Actually, it keeps us alive. The Haggadah finally gives us a straightforward answer as to why tonight is different from all other nights: because tonight, we go free. 

The line beginning “in every generation” is one of the best-known passages of the entire Haggadah, and rightfully so: it is the climax of the seder, the ‘thesis statement’ of this entire ritual. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most misunderstood parts of the Haggadah. The word ke-ilu,  meaning “as if” softens the line’s impact significantly. When taken out of context it’s easy to read it as “one is required to imagine themself leaving Egypt.” But when we read it in conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, it becomes clear that that’s not what it means. The text explicitly says, “we were redeemed together with our ancestors.” The haggadah is not asking us for an exercise in imagination or metaphor, it is asking us to incorporate the Exodus story into our personal narrative, to believe we were literally there and remember it as our own liberation.

Not only must we remember leaving Egypt, we are compelled to remember slavery as well. “ Avadim hayinu, ” the Haggadah says, we were slaves. Why is it neccesary to remember slavery, instead of just imagining what it was like? Because some of the Torah’s most important mitzvot are explicitly based on remembering our experience of slavery. We are commanded not to “oppress a stranger, for you know the stranger’s soul, having been strangers yourselves in the land of Mitzrayim.” (Exodus 23:9) We are commanded to draw on our personal experience of oppression as a source of radical empathy. We must remember slavery so we can know ‘the stranger’s soul,’ the soul of everyone who is oppressed today, the soul of the voiceless, the downtrodden, the enslaved. 

Not only are we forbidden to contribute to their oppression, we are commanded to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Mitzrayim.” (Deuteronomy 10:19) The Mishnah tells us all love that depends on something external is doomed to fall apart. Compassion for the oppressed that comes from a desire to ‘be a good ally’ (or simply to look like a good ally) or even from a generic desire to pursue justice will not amount to meaningful change, but radical empathy for the oppressed that draws on our personal experiences of oppression, both in this life and in Mitzrayim, might just be able to. Through radical empathy, we embrace solidarity, not allyship, and cast in our lots with the oppressed, because we know that fighting for them is fighting for ourselves, and in order to love ourselves, we must love the stranger. 
 

In the narrows of this carceral world, our choices seem few and our hopes seem slim, and too often we fail to see any way out. Hagar, Abraham’s Egyptian slave whose mistreatment foreshadowed B’ney Yisrael’s oppression in Mitzrayim, knew this despair all too well when she was cast out into the desert with her son. Dying of thirst, she averted her eyes towards her child, saying, “Let me not watch the child die,” (Genesis 21:16) and wept bitterly. Then an angel appeared, and “opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.” (Genesis 21:19) The answer to her prayers was there all along, all she had to do was recognize it. As tempting as it can be to look away from the suffering of those enslaved in prisons and murdered by police, if we keep our eyes open, we might see a way out of the narrow place into the wide expanse of possibility. 

✧ What does it mean to be free? 

(Raise the cup and say:)

.בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, גָאֲלָה יִשְׂרָאֵל

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ga’ala Yisra’el.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, גָאַל יִשְׂרָאֵל

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, ga’al Yisra’el.

Blessed are You, who redeems the Jewish people.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt p’ree ha-gafen.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, who creates the fruits of the vine.

Lean to the left and drink the wine or grape juice. 
 

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
.וואָס גיט אונדז די טראַדיציע פֿון אַ כוס פֿול מיט פֿרייד

Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos git endz di traditziya fin a koys ful mit freyd.

We rejoice in our heritage, 
which gives us the tradition of a cup filled with joy.

— Rabbi Judith Seid
 

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free
I wish I could break all the chains holding me
I wish I could say all the things that I should say
Say 'em loud, say 'em clear, for the whole round world to hear

I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart
Remove all the bars that keep us apart
I wish you could know what it means to be me
Then you’d see and agree that every man should be free

I wish I could give all I’m longing to give
I wish I could live like I’m longing to live
I wish that I could do all the things that I can do
Though I’m way overdue, I’d be starting anew

— Billy Taylor, “I Wish I Knew” as performed by Nina Simone

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם,
אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁתּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֵיהָ, וְצִוָתְנוּ עַל נְטִילַת יָדַיִם

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, 
asher kidshatnu be-mitzvoteyha ve-tzivatnu al netilat yadayim.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם
אֲשֶׁר קִדְשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ עַל נְטִילַת יָדַיִם

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, 
asher kidshanu be-mitzvotav ve-tzivanu al netilat yadayim.

Blessed are You, who makes us holy with your mitzvot,
and teaches us to wash our hands. 

Wash each other’s hands.
 

Adored are you, for reminding us again and again of the holiness that is our fluid essence, and of our ability to be reminded of that holy essence merely by touching our hands to each other and to water.

— adapted from Love + Justice in Times of War Haggadah

Rabban Gamliel used to say, “anyone who has not spoken of these three things on Pesach has not fulfilled his obligation: the Paschal sacrifice, matzah, and maror.”

(Point to the z’roa on the seder plate and say:)

The Paschal sacrifice our ancestors used to eat when the Temple stood, what was its significance? It commemorated the Holy One passing over the Israelites’ homes on the night the firstborn Egyptians were slain. 

(Point to the matzah and say:)

This matzah that we are eating, what is its significance? It commem- orates our ancestors’ dough not having time to rise before they had to leave Mitzrayim when the Holy One redeemed them. 
 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, הַמוֹצִיאָה לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ.

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, ha-motzi’a lechem min ha-aretz.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ

(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz.

Blessed are You, who brings forth bread from the land.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁתּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֵיהָ, וְצִוָתְנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מַצָה

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, asher kidshatnu be-mitzvoteyha ve-tzivatnu al achilat matzah.  

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מַצָה 

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu be-mitzvotav, ve-tzivanu al achilat matzah. 

Blessed are You, who makes us holy with your mitzvot, and teaches us to eat matzah.

(Lean to the left and eat pieces of the top and middle matzot.)
 

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
וואָס לערנט אונדז ליב האָבן אונדזער ערד
.און צו האָבן רעספּעקט פֿאַר די אַרבעט וואָס מאכט ברויט

Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos lernt endz leeb habin endzer erd
en tzu habin respekt far di arbet vos macht broyt.  

We rejoice in our heritage
which teaches us to love our earth
and to have respect for the labor that brings forth bread.

— adapted from Rabbi Judith Seid

So the dough isn’t ready. So your heart 
isn’t ready. You haven’t said goodbye 
to the places where you hid as a child, 
to the friends who aren’t interested in the journey,
to the graves you’ve tended. 

But if you wait until you feel fully ready 
you may never take the leap at all 
and Infinity is calling you forth 
out of this birth canal 
and into the future’s wide expanse. 

Learn to improvise flat cakes without yeast. 
Learn to read new alphabets. 
Wear God like a cloak 
and stride forth with confidence. 
You won’t know where you’re going 

but you have the words of our sages, 
the songs of our mothers, the inspiration 
wrapped in your kneading bowl. Trust 
that what you carry will sustain you 
and take the first step out the door. 

— from “Ready” by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

This maror we are eating, what is its significance?
It commemorates the Egyptians embittering the lives of our ancestors in Mitzrayim. 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם
אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁתּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֵיהָ, וְצִוָתְנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מָרוֹר

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, 
asher kidshatnu be-mitzvoteyha ve-tzivatnu al achilat maror. 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,
אֲשֶׁר קִדְשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מָרוֹר. 

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, 
asher kid’shanu be-mitzvotav, ve-tzivanu al achilat maror. 

Blessed are You, who makes us holy with your mitzvot, and teaches us to eat maror.

Dip the maror in charoset and eat it without reclining.
 

Passover is a joyful holiday. It is a time for celebrating our redemption, not reveling in the pain of the past. So why do we eat maror? The biblical mitzvah of maror is to eat it with the paschal lamb. Without a Temple to offer sacrifices, this mitzvah cannot be performed today. But the rabbinic mitzvah to eat maror still applies. Some say we eat maror nowadays to remember the Temple and the bitterness of its loss.

This teaches that eating maror is a meditation on our own lives’ bitterness, not the bitterness of slavery in Mitzrayim. So why should we dwell on that bitterness during this joyful holiday? Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady offers some deep insight in the classic Chasidic text, The Tanya. He draws a distinction between depression, atzvut (a word derived from a Hebrew root meaning ‘constriction’) and bitterness, merirut. Depression hardens our hearts, making them numb as stones and draining them of vitality. Bitterness, on the other hand, is a sign of life. By feeling bitter about something’s brokenness, we recognize its potential to be repaired. 

When we watch violent oppressors have free reign over the world, it’s natural for hopelessness to set in, which in turn leads to isolation, self-loathing, self-pity, and apathy. It’s easy to see all that is wrong in the world, sigh, and retreat into ourselves. But shutting out the world’s brokenness will only reveal the brokenness of our own hearts—and therein lies possibility for growth. The Tanya says that times of depression are opportune moments for cheshbon nefesh, “spiritual accounting.” First we search our souls for chametz, the things that block compassion, then for afikomen, the hidden shards of light that give us the power to change. 

Acknowledging our brokenness is the first step of transformation and the key to changing our depression to joy. This is why we dip maror in charoset: to show that through taking a long, hard look at the oppressive narratives we’ve internalized, we are able to unlearn and overcome them. Through bitter reflection, we can crack the protective shells we’ve made around our hearts and let love and joy in. And by refusing to turn away from the world’s violent brokenness, we find the power to act.

מיר פֿרייען זיך מיט אונדזער ירושה
וואָס לערנט אונדז פֿאַרוואָנדלען אונדזער כאָופּלאַסנאַס אין קאַמף.

Mir freyen zich mit endzer yerisha 
vos lernt endz farvundelen endzer chooplasnas in kampf.

We rejoice in our heritage
which teaches us to transform our hopelessness into struggle.  
 

On all other nights we don’t even dip vegetables once. Tonight, twice?

Why do we dip twice during the seder? We commemorate two biblical dipping that bookend the Exodus narrative. First, we dip the karpas into salt water to remember Yosef’s brothers dipping their coat of many colors in blood after their transphobic attack that led to the first Israelite being sold into slavery in Mitzrayim. The second dipping commemorates the Israelites dipping bunches of hyssop into the blood of the first Pesach offering, then painting their doorposts with the blood so Hashem would pass over their houses that night. The first dipping set into motion the Israelites’ descent into slavery, but the second dipping on the first Pesach, the first night of B’ney Yisra’el’s liberation, set into motion their redemption. 

But why did Hashem have them dip bunches of hyssop into the blood? First of all, Hashem wanted to make sure they didn’t use their hands to smear the blood onto their doorposts, as touching blood and dead things is generally a no-no in Judaism. The deeper reason is that hyssop would go on to be one of the tools the cohanim used for cleansing. Though it was a simple herb, a common weed that “grows out of walls” (1 Kings 4:33) hyssop was seen as something that could purify souls. After King David realized how much harm he had done by scheming to get the beautiful Bathsheba for himself, he wrote, “cleanse me with hyssop until I am pure.” (Psalm 51:9) 
In this same psalm, David laid the groundwork for Judaism after the fall of the Temple: “You do not want me to bring sacrifices. You do not desire burnt offerings. My sacrifice is a broken spirit—God will not reject a crushed and broken heart.” (Psalm 51:18-19) As Maimonides said, “[Now that there’s] no altar to atone for us, there is nothing else left but repentance. Repentance atones for all sins.”

Let us remember the wisdom of Hillel the Elder, the Mishnaic sage whose kinder, more compassionate understanding of the Torah has shaped Jewish law for centuries. Here are a few of his sayings:

In a place without humanity, strive to be human. 
Do not separate yourself from the community.
Do not judge your friend until you have arrived at their place. 
If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary. Go and study.

Sandwich maror and charoset between pieces of the bottom matzah and eat them together.
 

There is a common custom of beginning the Pesach meal by eating a hard-boiled egg. Many see the egg that’s on the seder plate as a symbol of the festival sacrifice our ancestors made in the days of the Temple, and the custom of eating a hard-boiled egg as a way of mourning the Temple’s destruction. 

The Hebrew word for egg—ביצה, beitzah —has the same gematria as the phrase בני אדם, b’ney adam, meaning ‘children of Adam,’ or more generally, ‘mortals.’ The tractate of the Talmud “Beitzah” begins with a discussion as to whether or not one is allowed to eat an egg that was laid on a holiday, when work is prohibited. The Gemara clarifies that we are allowed to eat an egg that was laid by a chicken set aside to be killed and eaten (which is merely a part of the chicken that has become detached) but not an egg laid by a chicken kept for laying eggs. What’s the difference? Our intentions. If we treat the chicken as dead from the start, its eggs are mere objects. If instead we truly believe the chicken is alive, its eggs cannot be eaten as they contain the potential for life. The egg on our plate can be a symbol of mourning or a symbol of rebirth. The choice is up to us. 
 

Something is missing. Without it, our seder cannot continue. Right before we started telling the story of the Exodus, we broke a piece of matzah. Half of it was hidden away in an unknown place. This missing piece, the afikomen, is the only matzah we have left, and though it’s just a broken shard, we cannot forget it or leave it behind. Contrary to what the wicked child’s father said, all of us were redeemed together in Mitzrayim, even those of us who chose to cut ourselves off from the community or were marginalized against our will. And when the revolution comes and prisons are abolished, we will find the compassion and the strength to give each and every prisoner the chance for redemption. So before we can continue on our journey tonight, we must stop and find the afikomen hidden inside all of us—the precious potential for greatness we carry on our way out of Mitzrayim.

Wholeness is the value dearest to the Jewish heart. Our word for peace, shalom, comes from shalem, a root meaning ‘whole.’ We are commanded to love “with our whole hearts, our whole spirits, and our whole selves.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) This desire for wholeness reflects our fascination with Hashem’s absolute Oneness. But even Hashem has been broken.
Kabbalah teaches that before the world was created, there was an infinite but formless, perfect but empty expanse of divine light. In order to make room for the physical world where we live, Hashem contracted His infinity and poured His light into divine vessels. But the finite vessels could not hold the infinite light, so they shattered, leaving countless sparks, shards of the divine scattered across the world. Humanity was put on earth to find these sparks of light and put them back together through the pursuit of justice, in a process called tikkun olam, repairing the world.
How can we reconcile the fundamental brokenness of the universe with Hashem’s wholeness? The Chasidic master, the Kotzker Rebbe has a cryptic answer: “there is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” One time a student asked him about a line of the Shema, “And these words which I am teaching you today shall be upon your heart.” (Deuteronomy 6:6) The student asked why the words should be “upon your heart” and not “in your heart.” The Kotzker Rebbe answered, “Our hearts are too hard to put anything inside of them. Instead, we place the words on top of them, so that when they break, the words can fall inside.” 
Heartbreak is more than a painful experience—it is the way we teach our hardened hearts to let love in. Receiving love is by no means an easy task when the world has told you that you don’t deserve it. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan said that bringing love to the lonely is as difficult as parting the Red Sea. Just as our ancestors needed the courage to walk into the sea before it parted, heartbreak challenges those of us who are used to denying ourselves love to take the leap of faith and let it in. The vulnerable and broken heart is willing to accept love and other miracles. 
This is not to say that suffering is good, or that reveling in heartbreak and bitterness will help us reach individual enlightenment. In fact, the Talmud teaches that the Shechinah does not rest upon a person in a state of sorrow, only upon those experiencing the joy of a mitzvah. Suffering is only useful insofar as it radicalizes us and brings us closer to our communities. As Rabbi Tirzah Firestone writes, “If your own suffering does not serve to unite you with the suffering of others, if your own imprisonment does not join you with others in prison, if you in your smallness remain alone, then your pain will have been for naught.” Suffering allows us to let divine love in, but joy is what brings us closer to Hashem. In other words, heartbreak is what allows us to be repaired, but the radical joy we find in resistance is what allows us to repair the world. In turn, resistance mends our broken hearts, as “bandaging the broken- hearted, and proclaiming freedom to the captives and liberation to the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1) go hand in hand. 
The Lubavitcher Rebbe said: “If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that has been left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong, then it is you yourself that needs repair.” Without a vision of what a world without prisons might look like, without a plan to overthrow the police, all we can learn from the carceral state is despair. If we cannot yet imagine a better world and how to go about building it, we need to prioritize our own healing and growth. Before we can liberate each other from this broken world, we must liberate ourselves from hopelessness. 

Eat the afikomen. Some say the following after eating it:

זֵכֶר לְקָרְבָּן פֶּסַח הָנֶאֱכַל עַל הָשוֹׁבַע
Zecher le-korban Pesach ha-ne’echal al ha-suva
In memory of the paschal sacrifice that was eaten until one was satisfied.
 

Forget your perfect offering!
Just ring the bells that still can ring.
There is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in.
 

Once, the great Talmudic sage Rav Yosef received a strange present from the mother of the king of Persia. She sent him a purse full of valuable coins and told him to use the money for a mitzvah rabbah, a great mitzvah. Wanting to make sure he used the funds appropriately, he sat and puzzled over what she meant. “What qualifies as a great mitzvah?” he wondered. Abaye, another great Talmudic sage, answered him, “redeeming prisoners is a great mitzvah.” The importance of pidyon shvuyim, the mitzvah of redeeming prisoners, is derived from Jerimiah 15:2, which says, “Those destined for death, [will go] to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; those destined for imprisonment, to imprisonment.” The Talmud explains that each fate listed here is worse than the last: a violent end worse is worse than merely dying, slowly dying of hunger is worse than being murdered, and captivity is worse than all the rest because it includes elements of all three. Prisoners are hungry, subjected to violence, and in danger of death, so setting them free saves them from a fate worse than death. 
Pidyon shvuyim is the only mitzvah rabbah the Talmud mentions, and as such it’s considered extremely important in Jewish law. Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote in the Shulchan Aruch, “every moment that one delays the freeing of a prisoner, it is as if he is shedding blood.” Maimonides wrote:

There is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of prisoners, for a prisoner is among those who are hungry and thirsty… and he is in mortal danger. He who averts his eyes from redeeming prisoners violates the commandments “[if there is a person in need among you,] do not harden your heart or close your hand [to them]” (Deuteronomy 15:7) “do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is being spilled,” (Leviticus 19:16) and “do not cruelly oppress [your brother.]” (Leviticus 25:53) He also fails to observe the commandments “you shall certainly open your hand to [your brother in need]” (Deuteronomy 15:8) “let [your brother in need] live by your side as your kin,” (Deuteronomy 19:18) “love your neighbor as yourself,” (Leviticus 19:18) and “if you refrained from rescuing those taken off to death, those condemned to be killed, even if you say, ‘we didn’t know about this,’ the One who weighs hearts will know what you did,” (Proverbs 24:11) and many other decrees of this nature. You cannot find a mitzvah greater than the redemption of prisoners.

To be clear, the ‘redemption’ we’re talking about here is mostly monetary, not spiritual. Pidyon shvuyim is considered the greatest use of tzedakah, a word often inaccurately translated as ‘charity’. The English word ‘charity’ refers to voluntary ‘good deeds’ performed occasionally by individuals who want to feel good about themselves. The word tzedakah, on the other hand, comes from tzedek, a Hebrew root meaning justice. Tzedakah is the pursuit of justice through the redistribution of resources. Far from being an occasional nicety in Jewish life, it is a perpetual, collective practice that all are expected to participate in. It is the part of repairing the world performed through reparations. Before B’ney Yisra’el left Mitzrayim, they took the Egyptians’ gold and silver as reparations for slavery. Descendents of antebellum slavery in the United States have not had the same luxury. Therefore, we must “open our hands” to our Black siblings in need, especially for the purposes of getting them out of jail.
Many families have the tradition of ‘ransoming’ the afikomen. The afikomen is considered to be so precious that it’s worth negotiating with kidnappers (who, in a delightful twist, are the kids) to get it back. We should show this same love to prisoners, whose lives are infinitely more precious than a piece of matzah. Setting up bail funds to spring protesters from jail and cover their legal fees is a great mitzvah, but we should be willing to share these funds with all prisoners, regardless of their crimes To be sure, paying the police their ransom will not bring about abolition. But until the revolution comes, we are obligated to practice pidyon shvuyim to save prisoners’ lives.  
 

שִׁיר הַמַעֲלוֹת: בְּשׁוּב יי אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיוֹן הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים
אָז יִמָלֵא שְׂחֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָה
אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגוֹיִם: הִגְדִיל יי לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶה
הִגְדִיל יי לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָנוּ הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים
שׁוּבָה יי אֶת־שְׁבִיתֵנוּ כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶגֶב
הַזֹרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָה יִקְצֹרוּ
הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ וּבָכֹה נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָרַע בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָה נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹתָיו

Shir ha-ma’alot: b’shuv Adonai et shivat Tzion hayinu ke-cholmim.
Az yemaleh s’chok pinu ul’shoneinu rina.
Az yomru ba-goyim, “Higdil Adonai la’asot im eleh.”
Higdil Adonai la’asot imanu, hayinu semeychim.
Shuva Adonai et sheviteinu ka-afikim ba-negev.
Ha-zorim be-dima be-rina yiktzoru. 
Haloch yelech u-vocha, nosey meshech ha-zara. Bo yavo be-rina, nosey alumotav.

A Song of Ascents: when Hashem returned the Jewish prisoners, we were like dreamers. Our mouths were full with laughter, our tongues with song. Even the goyim said, “Hashem has made them great.” Make us great, Hashem, then we will rejoice. Return our prisoners, Hashem, like streams in the desert. Those who plant their tears harvest joy. Though we weep as we go forward, we carry precious seeds, and we will return singing, bringing our sheaves. (Psalm 126)

The origins of  birkat hamazon can be traced to Deuteronomy 8:10, which instructs us to “eat and be satisfied, and bless Hashem your God for the goodness of the earth.” We traditionally say four brachot after eating bread: one over the food, one over the land, one praying for the messianic age to arrive, and one praising God “who is good and does good.” Some have commented that the four blessings ‘zoom out’ in scope. First, we thank God for fulfilling our individual, physical needs, then for sustaining our community’s land, then for promising to redeem the Jewish people, then for doing good for all of humanity. But feeding even one person is no easy feat. As Rabbi Elezar ben Azariah said, “The task of keeping a person fed is as difficult as parting the Red Sea."

The four blessings of birkat ha-mazon are connected to pardes (פרדס) a word meaning ‘orchard’ which shares the same root as the English word paradise. It is also a Hebrew acronym for the four ways of finding meaning in the Torah: פשט, p’shat, the literal surface meaning of a text, רמז, remez, the allegorical meaning the text hints at, דרש, d’rash, a text’s symbolic interpretation, and סוד, sod, the mystic secrets hidden deep in a text for us to uncover. In birkat ha-mazon we find four ways of understanding abolition.

The p’shat reason for abolition is that it will save lives. It’s not hard to see that the carceral state puts people in mortal danger. Even in cases where the state is not outright executing people or sentencing them to stay in prison until they die, incarcerated people die at epidemic rates from murder, suicide, disease, hunger, and incompetent medical care. And outside of prisons, the police murder with impunity. At its simplest, abolition is piku’ach nefesh—it saves precious lives. As we thank Hashem tonight for sustaining life, we accept our responsibility to do the same.

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, הַזָנָה אֶת הַכֹּל
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, hazana et ha-kol.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַזָן אֶת הַכֹּל
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, hazan et ha-kol. 

Blessed are You, who sustains everyone and everything.

Freeing bodies from prisons is not enough: we must also liberate minds. Together, we can help each other escape from our mental prisons and kill the cops in our heads. Hashem fulfilled their first promise to B’ney Yisra’el by bringing them out of Mitzrayim, but when the Egyptians started chasing them and they saw the sea in front of them, they cried out to Moshe, “Was it for want of graves in Mitzrayim that you brought us out to the desert to die?” (Exodus 14:11) Their bodies had been taken out of Mitzrayim but Hashem had not yet freed them from the slavery of fear. In spite of what Dayenu says, being brought out of Mitzrayim was not enough on its own. They needed to be brought out of the desert as well. The remez of abolition is liberation, which not only keeps us alive but gives us a reason to live. We bless Hashem tonight not only for sustaining life, but for giving it room to grow. 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל הַמָזוֹן
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, al ha-aretz ve-al ha-mazon
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל הַמָזוֹן.
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, al ha-aretz ve-al ha-mazon

Blessed are You, for the earth and for the sustenance.

The third bracha of birkat ha-mazon asks Hashem to rebuild Jerusalem. Many anti-Zionist Jews naturally have a hard time reconciling with liturgy like this, with its prophetic visions of Jews resettling Palestine and building a Third Temple. It’s important to consider the context in which liturgy like this was originally written, thousands of years before the modern Zionist movement existed. Its dream of a rebuilt Jerusalem is not of a colonialist apartheid state, but of the world to come—a better, kinder world where “nation shall not raise up sword against nation, and we will learn no more war” (Isaiah 2:4) and everyone, not just the Jewish people, will be free. In this revolutionary longing for the messianic world we find the drash of abolition: the possibility of transformation. 
It’s often been said that Hashem was able to take the Israelites out of Mitzrayim in just a few short days, but it took forty years to take Mitzrayim out of the Israelites.  Abolition does more than free one’s body from prison and one’s mind from internalized oppression: it allows us to become the people we need ourselves to be. Through a justice that transforms instead of punishes, we learn to take true accountability for ourselves. Then, we will be given “a new heart and a new spirit will be put inside of us.” (Ezekiel 36:26) In this bracha we ask Hashem to help us bring about an abolitionist world, so we can build ourselves anew. 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, בּוֹנָה בְרַחֲמֶיהָ יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, bonah be-rachameha Yerushalayim 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, בּוֹנֵה בְרַחֲמָיו יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, boneh be-rachamav Yerushalayim

Blessed are You, who builds Jerusalem with kindness.

The last bracha, ha-tov veha-meytiv, is said outside of birkat ha-mazon upon hearing good news. More specifically, this blessing is only said over good news that benefits an entire community. Community is the secret to abolition. If abolition is ever to come about, it will be through the tireless efforts of multiple communities working together. We need supportive, caring communities in order to do the hard, necessary work of transforming our hearts and freeing our minds. In the last bracha, we find the sod of abolition, the secret hiding in plain sight: our liberation must be collective. Community makes abolition possible, and in turn, abolition makes broken communities whole. 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, הַטוֹבָה וְהַמֵטִיבָה
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ha-tova ve-hameytiva  

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַטוֹב וְהַמֵטִיב
(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, ha-tov veha-meytiv

Blessed are You, who is good and does good. 

בְּרִיךְ רַחֲמָנָא מָלכַא דְעָלמַא מָרֵיה דהַאי פִּיתָּא
Brich rachamana, malka de-alma, marey de-hai pita. 
Blessed is the compassionate One, creator of this bread.

brich rachamana, malka de-alma, marey, marey, marey de-hai pita.
thank you, thank you,
thank you for this beautiful food,
may it nourish us to build a world that’s whole.
— Batya Levine, “Brich Rachmana (Aftermeal Blessing)”
 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא נְפָשׁוֹת רַבּוֹת וְחֶסְרוֹנָן עַל כָּל מַה שֶׁבָּרָאתָּ לְהַחֲיוֹת בָּהֶם נֶפֶשׁ כָּל חָי, בָּרוּךְ חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים.

Baruch ata Adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey nefashot rabot, ve-chesronan al kol ma shebarata le-hachaiyot bahem nefesh kol chai. Baruch chei ha-olamim.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, creator of many living souls and their needs, for all that You have created for them in order for all life to live. Blessed is the Life of the Worlds. 

“Blessed be You, Source of all Being, our God, Ruler of all space and time who creates many living souls, all of them having needs, for all You created. What comes alive through their needs is the soul of every life and all Life! Blessed be the Life of the Worlds.” 

— Rabbi David Seidenberg

הַזָן אֶת עוֹלָמוֹ, רוֹעֵנוּ אָבִינוּ        
אָכַלְנוּ אֶת לַחְמוֹ, וְיֵינוֹ שָׁתִינוּ       
עַל כֵּן נוֹדֶה לִשְׁמוֹ, וּנְהַלְּלוֹ בְּפִינוּ   
אָמַרְנוּ וְעָנִינוּ, אֵין קָדוֹשׁ כַּיי        

Hazan et olamo, ro’einu avinu
Achalnu et lachmo, ve-yeino shatinu
Al ken nodeh lishmo, un’halelo be-finu
Amarnu ve-aninu, ein kadosh ka-Adonai

Hashem, our parent and shepherd, feeds the world
We’ve eaten Hashem’s bread and drank Hashem’s wine
Therefore, let’s give thanks to their name, and put praises in our mouths
Saying and chanting, “There is no holiness like Hashem!” 

צוּר מִשֶׁלוֹ אָכַלְנוּ בָּרְכוּ אֱמוּנַי 
שָׂבַעְנוּ וְהוֹתַרְנוּ, כִּדְבַר יי        

Tzur mishelo achalnu, barechu emunai
Savanu ve-hotarnu, ki-d’var Adonai

Faithful ones, let us bless the Rock from who’ve we’ve eaten
As Hashem promised we have eaten our fill, with food left over

בְּשִׁיר וְקוֹל תּוֹדָה, נְבָרֵךְ לֵאלֹהֵינוּ       
עַל אֶרֶץ חֶמְדָה טוֹבָה, שֶׁהִנְחִיל לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ
מָזוֹן וְצֵדָה, הִשְׂבִּיעַ לְנַפְשֵׁנוּ        
חַסְדוֹ גָבַר עָלֵינוּ, וְאֱמֶת יי                    

Be-shir ve kol todah, nevarech l’eloheinu
Al eretz chemdah tova, she-hinchil la-avoteinu
Mazon u-tzeida, hisbiya le-nafsheinu
Chasdo gavar aleinu, ve-emet Adonai

With song and thankful voices, we will bless Hashem
In a good, desirable land, like our ancestors did
Food and sustenance will satisfy our spirits
Their kindness overwhelms us, for Hashem is truth

…צוּר מִשֶׁלוֹ אָכַלְנוּ
Tzur mishelo achalnu…  

Offer each other personal blessings. One way of doing this is for someone to choose another person at the table, tell them what they love and admire about them, and tell them specific things they want for that person to have or experience. Then that person chooses another guest and does the same, and this is repeated for everyone at the table. The last person then offers their blessing to the person who started the circle. Everyone then says the following:
 

יְבָרֶכְךָ יי וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
יָאֵר יי פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶךָּ
יִשָׂא יי פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם

Yevarechecha Adonai ve-yishmarecha.
Ya’er Adonai panav eilecha, vi-choonehka. 
Yisa Adonai panav eilecha, ve-yasem lecha shalom.

May the Presence bless you and watch over you.
May the Presence shine upon you and show you grace.
May the Presence lift you up and grant you peace. (Numbers 6:23–27)

In order for collective liberation to occur, we must all undergo a radical transformation. Oppression poisons us all with hopelessness that we must overcome and carceral thinking that we must unlearn. We are challenged to “make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31) by embracing teshuva, repentance, a word which literally means ‘return.’ Judaism believes that each one of us has a pure soul we can return to, a secret place inside ourselves we can find our way back to, where there is plenty of room for growth. Far from stigmatizing those who did wrong and then returned to what is right, the Talmud holds that “where those who make teshuva stand, not even the completely righteous can stand.” Put differently: by putting our broken hearts back together again, we make them more whole than they ever were before.

✧ What steps can we take to transform ourselves? 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת פְּרִי הַגָפֶן
(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt p’ree ha-gafen.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן
(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, who creates the fruits of the vine.

Lean to the left and drink the wine or grape juice.
 

In the traditional haggadah, the blessing over the third cup of wine is sandwiched between two very different quotes from the book of Psalms. The last line of the prayer before the third cup is “may Hashem bless us all with peace.” (Psalm 29:11) The first line of the passage that follows is (as rendered in the Maxwell House Haggadah’s ye olde English ) “pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen who will not acknowledge Thee, and upon the kingdoms who invoke not Thy name.” (Psalm 79:6) 

It is strange and somewhat disturbing that the haggadah should switch so rapidly between a prayer for peace and a cry for divine vengeance made up primarily of quotes from the imprecatory psalms (a set of poems from the book of psalms that call on Hashem to kill our enemies.) Even more troubling is the fact that this passage is meant to be recited while opening the front door for the prophet Elijah. In other words, the only part of the traditional haggadah that is meant to be shared with the outside world is a call for violence.

Understandably, many readers with contemporary sensibilities are shocked or offended by this section and omit it from their seder.
However, it is important to note that without divine violence, there would be no seder, no Exodus, no Torah. B’ney Yisra’el was not delivered from slavery through peaceful protest or civil disobedience, but through plagues that decimated a population, left a horrific path of destruction, and took countless innocent lives. Though the midrash tells us Hashem rebuked the angels for singing as the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, Jewish tradition has incorporated the joyful song that Miriam, Moses, and B’ney Yisra’el sang at the sea into our daily liturgy. If Hashem mourned the death of the Egyptians and shamed the angels for rejoicing at their death, why did they preserve the Israelites’ triumphant song in the Torah? And why choose to use violence during the Exodus instead of nonviolent means? This contradiction raises serious questions about the purpose and limitations of both human and divine compassion. 

Some attempt to reconcile ‘pour out thy wrath’ with their peaceful religion by saying we can’t judge these texts by modern standards, that just as animal sacrifice is no longer practiced in contemporary Judaism but we still read Torah passages about it, the imprecatory psalms are a reminder of Jewish history, a product of a more violent time with values alien from our own. This viewpoint is valid, but its naïve assumption that the age of violence is behind us is a dangerous supposition to make. 

Another approach is to accept this section’s bloody anger as a part of our heritage, an understandable, justifiable reaction to millenia of exile, oppression, and genocide. We find an obscure clue buried in the language of the text itself supporting this idea. Why does the psalmist say “pour out thy wrath” and not ‘release thy wrath,’ ‘show thy wrath,’ or ‘act on thy wrath?’ The vivid imagery compares anger to a rainstorm. Since the days of Noah, rain has been associated with divine anger. But in the agrarian society of ancient Israel, it was also considered a divine blessing for farmers who depended on it to survive. 

Nowhere is this dual idea of rain better exemplified than in the story of Honi the Circlemaker. During a time of drought, the Jews asked a righteous man named Honi to pray on their behalf for rain. He drew a circle in the dust and told Hashem he wasn’t leaving until Hashem sent rain. Hashem sent forth a gentle drizzle. Honi complained that this wouldn’t be enough for the crops to be saved. So Hashem sent forth torrential rain. Honi complained that the storm was flooding the city, and asked for moderate rain to fall. Hashem did as Honi asked. 
In addition to celebrating our Exodus from Mitzrayim, Pesach is one of Judaism’s three major agricultural holidays. Along with Sukkot, the autumn harvest festival, it is one terminus of a daily cycle of prayer for protection from drought. In keeping with ancient Israel’s dry and rainy seasons, from the first morning of Pesach until Sukkot, Jews ask Hashem to ‘let the dew fall,’ and from Sukkot until the first morning of Pesach, we pray for Hashem to ‘make the winds to blow and the rain to fall.’ The evening of the first seder is the last time we pray for rain until autumn. 

Special prayers for rain and dew are added to morning services of the first days of Sukkot and Pesach, respectively. Geshem, Sukkot’s prayer for rain, begins by telling us the angel of rain’s name: Af-Bree. The first part of the angel’s name, af, means ‘anger.’ The second part, bree, means ‘health.’ This name represents two ends of a spectrum of precipitation: a torrential downpour and a moderate shower. One possible translation of Af-Bree is “healthy anger.” Perhaps instead of praying for a downpour of violence, we can ask ourselves to pour out our wrath by letting it go. 

One of the most joyful rituals held in the days of the Temple was nisuch ha-mayim, the pouring of the water. Every morning of Sukkot, water would be drawn from the pool of Siloam and carried in an elaborate procession to the Temple for a libation ceremony. And every night, at the pool of Siloam, there was ecstatic revelry, joyful song, and dancing with lit torches. The Mishnah says, “He who has not seen the rejoicing where the water is drawn has never seen rejoicing in his life.”

In order to make room for this kind of transcendent joy in our life, we need to find healthy ways to pour out our anger. This is possible through jouissance, joy that goes beyond the distinction between pleasure and pain, past the boundaries of meaning, and, often, against the law. Jouissance is the ecstasy of a riot, the thrill of theft, the triumph of gay sex, the rapture of rupture, the bliss of filth, the drunken blurring of Haman and Mordechai on Purim, the young passion of the Song of Songs, the spontaneous, morally ambiguous rejoicing that broke out at the Red Sea.

With this kavanah of revolutionary joy, let’s return to the imprecatory psalms and allow ourselves to pour out our wrath without self-judgment. May we take pleasure in imagining our revenge on the police who do everything they can to crush our happiness. And when all our righteous anger is poured out, may we be left with a desire for abolition that comes not only from hating cops but from loving our fellow human beings. 

Pour out thy wrath, let your blazing anger consume them. (Psalm 69:25)
Let them be extinguished like a burning thornbush. (Psalm 118:12)
Let a blazing wind be their lot. (Psalm 11:6)
Let them wither like grass. (Psalm 37:2)
Let them be like chaff in the wind. (Psalm 35:5)
May their eyes grow dim, may their loins collapse continually. (Psalm 69:24)
Like a snail that melts away as it moves,
like a woman’s stillbirth, may they never see the sun! (Psalm 58:9)

Strike the face of my enemies. (Psalm 3:8)
Smash their teeth in their mouths, shatter their lion’s fangs. (Psalm 58:7)
May they be clothed in a curse like a garment, 
may it enter their entrails like water, their bones like oil. (Psalm 109:18)
May they be clothed in disgrace, 
may they be wrapped in shame like a robe. (Psalm 109:29)
Let the net they hid capture them, 
let them fall into it when disaster strikes. (Psalm 35:8)

May no one show them mercy. (Psalm 109:12)
May their days be few. (Psalm 109:8)
May they be frustrated and terrified, disgraced and doomed forever. (Psalm 83:18)
Let burning coals fall upon them. 
Cast them into deep pits that they may not rise again!0 (Psalm 140:11)
The righteous will rejoice when they see revenge,
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked (Psalm 58:11)
for you listen to the oppressed and do not forsake prisoners. (Psalm 69:34)

(Some people save the “plague waters” until this point in the seder, when they send a small group of people outside to pour it out away from the house. If you live near a police station, you might want to inconspicuously pour it out there. Yemenite Jews traditionally say, “May this go to all of our enemies and haters. May they create no suffering for us. Amen!” as they pour the “plague waters” out.)
 

One remarkable thing about the Exodus story is that despite its grand scope, it counts many normal, common people in its cast of characters. Among the larger-than-life personalities of the evil Pharaoh, the heroic Moshe, and God Himself at His most epic, we find ordinary women altering the course of history. The Talmud teaches that it was “through the merit of the righteous women of that generation that we were redeemed from Mitzrayim.” Two midwives, Shifra and Puah, risked their lives and defied Pharaoh’s order to kill all male Hebrew babies. Moshe Rabbeinu may have saved the Jewish people, but time and time again, the women in his life saved him. Moshe’s upbringing was anything but a conventional nuclear family. Moshe had two mommies, his biological mother and wet-nurse Yocheved, who taught him about his culture, and Pharaoh’s righteous daughter, Batya, who found him as a baby floating in a basket and decided to adopt him as her own. Years later, when Moshe was returning to Mitzrayim with his family, his wife Tziporah saved his life from Hashem’s wrath by circumcising their son.

But there was no greater woman in her generation than Miriam the Prophet. As a girl, Moshe’s older sister Miriam saved her brother’s life by putting him in a basket on the Nile and watching to make sure he was safe. When Pharaoh’s daughter decided to adopt Moshe, Miriam cleverly convinced her to allow Moshe’s mother Yocheved to be his wet-nurse. Years later, when her prayers were answered and B’ney Yisra’el was finally free, Miriam led the Israelites in the Song of the Sea, and “picked up a timbrel and all the women followed her dance.” (Exodus 15:20)

The name Miriam comes from the words mar yam, meaning “bitter sea.” Interestingly, the first place B’ney Yisra’el stopped after crossing the Red Sea was a place called Marah, which means “bitter.” The water they found there was too bitter to drink. Hashem instructed Moshe to cast a piece of wood into the well. When he did so, the water became sweet. Jewish tradition holds that while they wandered in the desert, B’ney Yisra’el drank from a miraculous well that followed Miriam wherever she went. But what if the well wasn’t following her? What if instead the well was already there wherever B’ney Yisra’el camped, and Miriam’s gift of prophetic vision allowed her, like Hagar before her, to simply open her eyes and see it?

Since the 1980s, Jewish feminists have placed a cup for Miriam on the seder table in addition to the cup traditionally left for Eliyahu. To honor the source of water she provided in the desert, many have adopted the custom of having each guest pour a little water from their own glass into her cup. Tonight, as we add our water to Miriam’s cup, we say the name of something that embitters our lives and makes us furious, so we may pour out our wrath and let go of it. Let the undrinkable waters of our bitter sea be made sweet, and quench our thirst. 

(Each person at the table pours some water from their glass into Miriam’s cup.)

וּשְׁאַבְתֶּם-מַיִם בְּשָׂשׂוֹן מִמַעַיְנֵי הַיְשׁוּעָה.
Oo-shavtem mayim be-sason mi-mainey ha-yeshu’a.
You shall draw water joyfully from the wells of redemption. (Isaiah 12:3)
 

Of course, not even a prophet is free of all wrongdoing. Towards the end of her life, Miriam was involved in one of the Torah’s most deeply personal episodes. Miriam and her brother, Aharon, were jealous of Moshe’s special relationship with Hashem. Though they were both great prophets, they didn’t have the same kind of intimacy with Hashem that Moshe had. In their resentment, they bad-mouthed Moshe for marrying a Cushite woman. The term “Cushite” refers to people from Nubia, the ancient kingdom south of Egypt where Sudan is today. In other words, Miriam judged her brother for marrying a Black woman. 

Miriam’s comment is not only racist, it comes off as extremely petty, as if she was grasping at straws to find a fault in Moshe’s character that would justify her jealousy. She couldn’t find an actual flaw of his to pick on, so she targeted his wife, and merely for her appearance. Hashem knew that this was ridiculous, later saying, “Can a Cushite change their skin?” (Jeremiah 13:23) Black people were created be-tzelem Elohim, in the image of the divine, just like everyone else. As Hashem said, “To me, o Israelites, you are just like the Cushites.” (Amos 9:7)

As punishment for her jealousy and her racist comments, Miriam was struck with leprosy.  The Torah tells us her skin became “as white as snow.” (Numbers 12:10) Aharon begged his brother to intercede for her. Despite Miriam’s jealousy and her prejudice against his wife, Moshe was moved to offer a simple, earnest prayer for her without hesitation. He said, “el na, refa na la—please God, please heal her.” (Numbers 12:13) 

Many of us would be hard pressed to do the same. There is no shame whatsoever in that. For many of us, praying for white supremacists, for oppressors, for abusers would be unhealthy, even self-destructive. Like Moshe, we are under no obligation to pray for those who harm us, let alone educate them, forgive them, or love them. Jews never lent too much credence to the Christian doctrine of “love your enemy.” There are those who would use that against us to say Judaism is a vindictive, backwards religion with a cruel “Old Testament God.” Considering our people’s history of oppression, it’s pretty obvious that the reason we never embraced “love your enemy” is that our ancestors feared that if we let our guard down we’d be exploited, exiled, or exterminated. 

“Love your enemy” is a pillar of faith in the religion of liberalism—Democrats “reach across the aisle” to appease Republicans who support domestic genocide, moderates push for more ‘sensitivity training’ for bloodthirsty cops, liberal Jews dream of “peace” in the state of Israel, longing for the day when colonized Palestinians and their colonizers can “just get along.” Today’s liberal Jews are less hypervigilant than their grandparents, so they assume violent oppressors will recognize the humanity of the oppressed through nonviolence (and ultimately, nonaction) alone. The liberal impulse to turn the other cheek, to forgive our oppressors and abusers ad infinitum, to avoid taking action and trust that everything will work itself out through vague symbolic gestures or the will of God is not saintly. It is reckless, and it opens the door for needless death, harm, and suffering. 

So no, we should not expect the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the abused to pray for the ones who cause them harm, and the Torah does not expect us to do so. After all, Moshe’s prayer was unsuccessful. Hashem determined that Miriam would have to bear her leprous skin and be quarantined for a week outside the camp like any other Israelite. But perhaps his prayer was successful in another way: perhaps his humility and compassion got through to Miriam, and her eyes were opened to the power of teshuva and transformation. Perhaps, though her sins were as scarlet, like her skin “they could turn white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:17) The Torah does not tell us what happened next, but it does offer this clue: “the people did not march on until Miriam was gathered in.” (Numbers 12:15) Perhaps some people are worth waiting for. 

Some of us may choose to follow Moshe tonight in praying for the disease of white supremacy to be lifted from bigoted skin, for oppressors to see the error of their ways and decide to do the difficult work of change: listening, unlearning, taking accountability for their actions and an active role in their own creation. These are practices we all must learn if we are ever to live in a world without prisons. By praying for everyone to have the chance to heal, even our oppressors, we place our trust in the infinite redemptive possibility of transformation.

אֵל נָא רְפָא נָא לָה
El na, refa na la.
Please, God, please heal her.
 

Mi shebeirach avoteinu, mekor ha-bracha le-imoteynu
May the Source of strength who blessed the ones before us
help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing, and let us say, amen.

(Say the names of people you want to be healed, then continue:)

Mi shebeirach imoteinu, mekor ha-bracha le-avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing with refuah shleimah
the renewal of body, the renewal of spirit, and let us say, amen.
 

מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב, שָׂרָה רִבְקָה רָחֵל וְלֵאָה, הוּא יְבָרֵךְ וְיִשְׁמֹר וְיִנְצֹר אֶת כָּל הַאֲסוּרִים בָּמָסְגֵרֵי הַגוֹיִם, הַנְתוּנִים בְּצָרָה וּבְשִׁבְיָה. הַקַדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא יִמָלֵא רַחֲמִים עֲלֵיהֶם, וְיוֹצִיאֵם מֵחֹשֶׁךְ וְצַלְמָוֶת, וּמוֹסְרוֹתֵיהֶם יְנַתֵּק, וּמִמְצוּקוֹתֵיהֶם יוֹשִׁיעֵם, וִישִׁיבֵם מְהֵרָה לְחֵיק קַהֲלֵיהֶם.

Mi shebeirach avoteinu Avraham, Yitzchak, ve-Ya’akov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel ve-Le’ah, hu yevarech ve-yishmor ve-yintzor et kol ha-asurim ba-masgerey ha-goyim, ha-netunim be-tzara oove-shivya. Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu yimaley rachamav aleihem, ve-yotzi’em me-choshech ve-tzalmavet, u-moseroteihem yenateik, u-mimtzukoteihem yoshi’em, vi-shivem meheira le-cheik kahaleihem.

May the One who blessed our ancestors Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah, bless and protect and preserve all of the prisoners in the prisons of the nations, those given over to oppression and captivity. May the Holy Blessed One have compassion for them and bring them out of darkness and the shadow of death. May their chains be broken, may they be saved from distress, and may they be returned quickly to the bosom of their communities. 

When making our guest list for the seder, among names of friends and family, bubbes and babies, in-laws and outlaws, there is one stranger on the list who we invite year after year. It’s unclear whether or not he ever shows up. We pour him a cup of wine, some of us even set him a place at the table, but when we open the door we don’t see anyone there. Maybe he’s a ghost? Maybe he’s a story made up to keep children entertained? Or maybe, just maybe, he’s been with us the whole time. 

Eliyahu is a fascinating character both in the Tanach and in Jewish tradition. In the Tanach he’s a fiery, often cruel prophet who curses the earth with a drought and kills idolaters. Naturally, this doesn’t make him very popular. The royal family puts a hit on him. Afraid for his life, he hides out in the desert, and prays for Hashem to kill him, “Enough! Now, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” (1 Kings 19:4) His prayer for death is striking. While it’s far from the first time a prophet has prayed to die, it’s disarming to see such a strong-willed and righteous person express suicidal thoughts. He’s dismayed that despite all of his passion he can’t get the Jewish people to listen, just like Moshe and the others who came before him, and he loses his will to live.

Hungry, tired, and miserable, Eliyahu falls asleep under a desert bush. Suddenly, an angel wakes him and says, “Arise and eat!” (1 Kings 19:5) He finds a hot cake and a jug of water next to him, so he eats and drinks and lies back down again. The angel wakes him up again, and says, “Arise and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” (1 Kings 19:7) So he eats and drinks and starts walking, and with the strength from that meal he doesn’t stop walking for 40 days, until he finds himself at Mount Sinai, becoming the first and only prophet since Moshe to return to the mountain. 

After spending the night in the cave where Hashem first appeared to Moshe, Eliyahu has his own intimate encounter with Hashem. A mighty wind comes and splits mountains, but Hashem is not in the wind. Then an earthquake comes and makes the ground tremble, but Hashem is not in the earthquake. A great fire starts burning, but Hashem is not in the fire. Finally, Hashem comes to Eliyahu in a still small voice, and asks him, “Why are you here?” (1 Kings 19:13) Eliyahu says, “I am zealous and jealous on Hashem’s behalf, because B’ney Yisra’el have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death by the sword! I am alone, and they want to kill me.” (1 Kings 19:14) 

According to Midrash, Eliyahu didn’t stop there. He asked Hashem to punish B’ney Yisra’el. Hashem says to Eliyahu, “They abandoned my covenant, not yours; they dismantled my altars, not yours; they killed my prophets, not yours. Why are you more jealous than I am?” Hashem is furious about Eliyahu’s lashon hara about B’ney Yisra’el and his lack of compassion for his fellow human beings. To give Eliyahu the chance to correct his mistake, Hashem tells him that “the mouth which testified that the Jewish people have abandoned my covenant will testify that they are keeping it.” In other words, Eliyahu will watch over the Jewish people forever to joyously report back to Hashem when we follow the mitzvot. This is why Eliyahu is called “the angel of the covenant.” (Malachi 3:1)

According to the Tanach, Eliyahu never died; he was carried away by a chariot of fire led by fiery horses. It was foretold that at the end of time, Eliyahu will announce the arrival of the Moshiach. The possibility that this wise old prophet is still out there, watching over us has ignited the Jewish imagination for millennia. A new Eliyahu has been born in his life after life. Eliyahu is said to wander the earth, often taking the form of a beggar (though he’s able to take any form he needs to) to see how people treat the poor. One common element in all the stories we find about him in the Talmud, the midrash, and Jewish folklore is his kindness. He is typically shown helping people in their times of need, giving them generous gifts or saving them from harm. But sometimes, the things he says and does raise eyebrows. 

One evening, the great Talmudic sage Rabbi Joshua ben Levi was busy studying when Eliyahu appeared at his door. This wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence, as the two had become good friends. That night, the rabbi asked Eliyahu to accompany him on his wanderings. Eliyahu agreed on the condition that Rabbi Joshua would not ask any questions. The two disguised themselves as beggars and wandered until they found a decrepit farmhouse. The elderly couple who lived there greeted them with open arms, inviting them in and sharing the little food they had with the men and letting them sleep in their own bed, while they themselves slept in the barn. The next morning after breakfast, Rabbi Joshua watched Eliyahu go into the barn and lay his hands on the couple’s only cow. Instantly, it fell to the ground dead. He wanted so badly to ask Eliyahu why he would do such a thing, but he remembered his promise not to ask any questions. 

They wandered all day, and that evening they came across a mansion. Eliyahu knocked on the door and a servant came to the door, took one look at them, and said, “I’m sorry, but you better go away, my master does not like beggars.” But Eliyahu insisted that they talk with him. The homeowner came downstairs and told them to go away, saying, “Lousy bums! Why don’t you get a job?” But Eliyahu was persistent, so he finally let the men stay in his barn. They slept on bales of hay with no blankets. The night was chilly and the barn was drafty because of a large hole in the wall. The next morning, the rabbi watched the prophet approach the rich homeowner. “What do you want now?” he snapped. To Rabbi Joshua’s surprise, Eliyahu said, “Only some tools to patch up the hole in your wall.” Grumbling, the man got them some tools and suspiciously watched as Eliyahu and Rabbi Joshua repaired his wall. When they finished, Rabbi Joshua couldn’t take it any longer and ordered Eliyahu to explain his actions. “In the poor couple’s home,” Eliyahu said, “I heard the wings of the Angel of Death rustling, so I snuck outside and talked to him. He had his heart set on killing the kind old woman, but I negotiated to spare her life in exchange for the cow’s.” Rabbi Joshua asked, “Well, why did you fix up the rich man’s wall?” Eliyahu laughed and said, “There was a priceless treasure hidden in the wall that nobody knew about. I patched it up so the miser would never find it.” 

Another time, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi found Elijah standing at the entrance of a cave. He asked Eliyahu, “Will I see the World to Come?” Eliyahu replied, “If this master wants it to be so.” Deliberately vague, his answer could mean ‘if Hashem wills it’ or ‘if you want it bad enough.’ So Rabbi Joshua asked him, “When will the Moshiach come?” Eliyahu said, “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?” Stunned, the Rabbi asked, “Well, where is he?” “He is by the entrance of Rome.” “How can I recognize him?” Eliyahu told him, “You will find him sitting among the poor who suffer from terrible illnesses. All of them untie their bandages all at once, but he unties them and ties them up again one at a time, because he has to be ready at a moment’s notice to redeem the world.” 

Immediately, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi left to go greet the Moshiach. After a long journey, he arrived at the entrance to Rome and watched the sick tie and untie their bandages. He identified the Moshiach, went up to him and said, “Peace be with you, my rabbi and my teacher.” “Peace be with you, Joshua,” the Moshiach responded. Rabbi Joshua asked, “When will you come to redeem us?” The Moshiach smiled and said, “Today.” But he never came. The next time Rabbi Joshua saw Eliyahu, he said bitterly, “The Moshiach lied to me.” “No, Joshua, this is what he said to you,” Eliyahu explained, “Today, if you listen to his voice.” (Psalm 95:7) 

Eliyahu says that the Moshiach is ready to come at a moment’s notice, and is willing to come today. But we have to be willing to let him come. We have to be willing to answer the call, not by sitting around and waiting for a great hero to deliver us, but by being our own salvation. If we want to find the Moshiach, we have to go out and find him in the harsh reality of poverty, illness, and oppression. He won’t be at the Western Wall or Harvard or Yale, and he sure as hell won’t be in Congress or the White House. He will be in a soup kitchen, a psych ward, a sweatshop, and a prison. If we want to find him, we have to go there ourselves and be him, feeding the hungry, comforting the disturbed, disturbing the comfort- able, organizing and fighting, learning and listening, creating and destroy- ing, welcoming strangers into our homes and burning down the prisons. If we open the door for Eliyahu and see a homeless man seeking shelter, that is our sign that the Moshiach is coming, if today we let him in.  

There are some questions so difficult that they can’t be answered with earthly wisdom alone. A beautiful word is said when this happens in the Talmud: תיקו, teiku. It denotes a stalemate, a situation where two or more people have made airtight cases for diverging opinions and no simple answer can be determined. According to popular legend, this word is an acronym for the phrase תִּשְׁבִּי יְתָרֵץ קוּשְׁיוֹת וּבְּעָיוֹת, Tishbi Yetaretz Kushiyot U-bayot, meaning ‘the Tishbite (i.e. Eliyahu) will solve these questions and puzzles.’ This is based in the popular belief that in the World to Come, everything will be “clarified beyond any shadow of a doubt, even those questions about which the great tzaddikim of the Talmud declared teiku.” 

The idea that Eliyahu will ‘repair’ these unanswerable questions has sparked the imaginations of many Kabbalists and mystics. The Zohar writes that teiku is a manifestation of our world’s lack of tikkun. In other words, our world’s unresolved questions and uncertainties are symptoms of its fundamental need for repair. The brilliant Chassidic teacher Reb Nachman of Breslov wrote that תיקו, teiku, is just the word תיקון, tikkun, missing the letter nun. But why is its nun missing? 

Psalm 145, recited three times a day by devout Jews as the core of the Ashrei prayer, is an acrostic poem. The first letters of its twenty-one lines spell out the Hebrew alphabet in order, with one notable exception: there is no line starting with נ, nun. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan offers us an explanation: the letter nun is a reminder of the Jewish people’s נפלה, nafla, ‘fall,’ citing the verse “the maiden of Yisra’el has fallen, nafla, and she will rise no more.” (Amos 5:2) Obviously, this sounds far-fetched, but her real proof is in Psalm 145 itself. The psalmist, King David, skips over nun and goes to the line beginning with samech: “סומך יי לכל הנופלים” somech Adonai le-kol ha-noflim, “Hashem lifts up all who have fallen.” (Psalm 145:14) In other words, David avoids invoking our downfall, and reminds Hashem of their promise to raise us up when we’ve been brought low. 

We are all noflim, people who have fallen. The fall we’re talking about is not The Fall of Christian theology—there is no original sin in Judaism. Our fall is the way this world degrades us and dehumanizes us. Capitalism commodifies our time, our labor, and ultimately our bodies. Through slave labor and institutional torture, prisons defile the worth of all human beings. And in this broken, oppressive world we do things we’re not proud of to survive. The Mishnah says that we should begin our story with disgrace, and end with glory. 

According to gematria, Jewish numerology, the word תיקון, tikkun, has a value of 566. It just so happens that נופלת, nofelet, “fallen” also has a gematria of 566. Hashem promises us “אקים את־סכת דויד הנופלת”  akeem et sukkat David ha-nofelet, “I will raise up David’s fallen sukkah.” (Amos 9:11) In the World to Come, Hashem will restore us to glory, and spread His canopy of peace over the world. This vision is comforting, but the question still stands: how do we bring this tikkun about? 

As Reb Nachman taught us, teiku is just tikkun missing its nun. The numerical value of the letter nun is 50. The Talmud tells us that there are fifty gates of understanding. Moshe, our greatest teacher, was only able to go through 49. There were questions even he couldn’t answer. When we’re stuck and see no way out of our fallen world, we have to go through a different set of gates: the fifty gates of teshuvah, repentance. Reb Nachman wrote, “There are fifty gates of teshuvah. 49 of these gates can be entered and attained by anyone. But the fiftieth gate is Hashem’s own concept of teshuvah.” This fiftieth gate is where Hashem comes to meet us, as it is written, “Return to me, and I will return to you.” (Malachi 3:7) 

The forty-nine gates that we can enter correspond with the days of the Omer, which we count from the second night of Pesach for seven weeks until Shavu’ot. On the night of Shavuot, the gates of heaven are said to be thrown open—many Jews have the tradition of staying up all night studying Torah, so that their prayers will be heard on this special occasion. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah at Sinai fifty days after B’ney Yisra’el left Mitzrayim. Each one of the forty-nine days of the Omer is another gate of teshuvah that we can enter. 

But even if we make it through the 50 gates of teshuvah, even if we transform our teiku into tikkun, won’t we still be נופלת, nofelet, fallen? There is a miraculous way of overcoming this too: we can become נפלאות, nifla’ot, wonders. The gematria of nifla’ot is one more than nofelet, so we need to pass through one more gate. On the second day of Shavuot (or isru chag) let us recite Psalm 51, David’s desperate plea for repentance after the prophet Natan admonished him for sending Uriah to his death to take Batsheva for himself. As Reb Nachman said, “The primary teaching of teshuvah came through King David, and the root of King David’s teshuvah was his psalms.” Then David’s fallen sukkah will be lifted up once again, and we will be returned to rejoicing in our deliverance.  

לַמְנַצֵחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד׃ בְּבוֹא־אֵלָיו נָתָן הַנָבִיא כַּאֲשֶׁר־בָּא אֶל־בַּת־שָׁבַע׃

חׇנֵנִי אֱלֹהִים כְּחַסְדֶךָ כְּרֹב רַחֲמֶיךָ מְחֵה פְשָׁעָי׃ הֶרֶב כַּבְּסֵנִי מֵעֲוֺנִי וּמֵחַטָאתִי טַהֲרֵנִי׃ כִּי־פְשָׁעַי אֲנִי אֵדָע וְחַטָאתִי נֶגְדִי תָמִיד׃ לְךָ לְבַדְךָ  חָטָאתִי וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי לְמַעַן תִּצְדַק בְּדׇבְרֶךָ תִּזְכֶּה בְשׇׁפְטֶךָ׃ הֵן־בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִי׃ הֵן־אֱמֶת חָפַצְתָּ בַטֻחוֹת וּבְסָתֻם חׇכְמָה תוֹדִיעֵנִי׃ תְּחַטְאֵנִי בְאֵזוֹב וְאֶטְהָר תְּכַבְּסֵנִי וּמִשֶׁלֶג אַלְבִּין׃ תַּשְׁמִיעֵנִי שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה תָּגֵלְנָה עֲצָמוֹת דִכִּיתָ׃ הַסְתֵּר פָּנֶיךָ מֵחֲטָאָי וְכׇל־עֲוֺנֹתַי מְחֵה׃ לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא־לִי אֱלֹהִים וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי׃ אַל־תַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי מִלְפָנֶיךָ וְרוּחַ קׇדְשְׁךָ אַל־תִּקׇח מִמֵנִי׃ הָשִׁיבָה לִי שְׂשׂוֹן יִשְׁעֶךָ וְרוּחַ נְדִיבָה תִסְמְכֵנִי׃ אֲלַמְדָה פֹשְׁעִים דְרָכֶיךָ וְחַטָאִים אֵלֶיךָ יָשׁוּבוּ׃ הַצִילֵנִי מִדָמִים  אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֵי תְּשׁוּעָתִי תְּרַנֵן לְשׁוֹנִי צִדְקָתֶךָ׃ אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח וּפִי יַגִיד תְּהִלָתֶךָ׃ כִּי  לֹא־תַחְפֹּץ זֶבַח וְאֶתֵּנָה עוֹלָה לֹא תִרְצֶה׃ זִבְחֵי אֱלֹהִים רוּחַ נִשְׁבָּרָה לֵב־נִשְׁבָּר וְנִדְכֶּה אֱלֹהִים לֹא תִבְזֶה׃

Lamnatzeach, mizmor le-David. Be-vo elav Natan ha-navi ka-asher ba el Batsheva. 

Chaneini elohim ke-chasdecha ke-rov rachamecha me-chey fesha’ai. Herev kabseini me-avoni, oome-chatati tahareini. Ki fesha’ai ani eyda ve-chatati negedi tamid. Lecha levadcha chatati veha-ra be-einecha asiti, lema’an titzdak be-davrecha tizkeh be-shaftecha. Hen be-avon cholalti oove-cheit yechematni ani. Hen emet chofatzta ba-tuchot oove-satoom chochma todi’eini. Techateini be-eizov ve-ethar, techabseini oomi-sheleg albin. Tashmi’eini sasson ve-simcha tageilna atzmot dikita. Hasteir panecha me-chata’ai ve-chol avonotai me-chey. Lev tahor bera li elohim ve-ru’ach nachon chadesh be-kirbi. Al tashlicheini mil-fanecha, ve-ru’ach kodshecha al tikach mi-meini. Hashiva li seson yishecha ve-ru’ach nediva tismecheini. Alamda foshim derachecha ve-chata’im eilecha yashuvu. Hatzileini mi-damim elohim elohai teshu’ati, teranein leshoni tzidkatecha. Adonai s’fatai tiftach, oo-fi yagid tehilatecha. Ki lo tachpotz zevach ve-eteina ola lo tirtzeh. Zivchei elohim ru’ach nishbara, lev nishbar ve-nidkeh Elohim lo tivzeh. 

To the director. A psalm of David, 
when Natan the prophet came to him after he came to Batsheva. 

Be gracious to me, God, as befits your kindness, in your expansive compassion blot out my wrongdoings. Thoroughly wash me of my transgressions, and purify me of my sins, for I know my wrongdoing and my mistakes are always on my mind. Alone, I have sinned and done what is evil in your eyes, therefore You are just in your decision and justified in your judgment. Yes, I was born to transgress, in sin I came to be. Indeed, you desire the truth of my innermost parts. Teach me wisdom about secret things. Cleanse me with hyssop until I am pure, wash me until I’m lighter than snow. Let me hear tidings of joy and jubilation, let my crushed bones rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, erase all of my mistakes. Create a pure heart for me, renew a steadfast spirit inside of me. Don’t cast me out of Your presence, and don’t take the spirit of holiness away from me. Return the joy of Your redemption to me, let a generous spirit lift me up. I will teach wrongdoers Your way and return the lost to you. Save me from bloodshed, my God, my salvation, so my mouth may sing of Your justice. Adonai, open my lips, and my mouth will speak Your praises. For You do not want me to bring sacrifices, You do not desire burnt offerings. My sacrifice is a broken spirit—God will not reject a crushed and broken heart.
 

On the Shabbat before Pesach, we read the very last prophecy from the book of the very last prophet, Malachi. Hashem promises us that He will send us the prophet Eliyahu at the end of time before the World to Come comes to be, to “return the hearts of ancestors to their descendents, and the hearts of descendents to their ancestors.” (Malachi 3:24) On one level, this means that he will make peace, healing old wounds, allowing families to reconcile. On a deeper level, this means that our hearts and the hearts of those who came before us will be reunited. 

Midrash tells us that every Jew who has ever lived, and every Jew who will ever live was at Mount Sinai for the giving of the Torah. The covenant was made with “those who are standing here with us today and those who are not with us here today.” (Deuteronomy 29:14) We all left Mitzrayim together, we all received the Torah together, and one day we will all dwell together in the World to Come. That’s why it’s so important to keep the memories of our ancestors alive. Instead of saying “may they rest in peace” about the dead, Jews say zichrono livracha, “may their memory be a blessing.” Instead of expressing our wishes for the ones we’ve lost to rest peacefully in heaven, we offer our hopes that they will live on in a different kind of afterlife: our people’s memory. 

On the first day of Pesach, we recite Yizkor, a special memorial prayer for the dead. In it, we promise to donate tzedakah on their behalf, in order to “bind their soul in the binding of life.” It’s curious that the liturgy puts the phrase צרור החיים, tzeror ha-chayim, the ‘binding of life’ in a positive light. Tzeror comes from the same root as Mitzrayim, a root meaning narrowness, oppression, strife. Perhaps a better translation of tzeror ha-chayim would be the ‘struggle of life.’ How should we honor the dead? How should we honor our ancestors, who lived so we could live? We should fight on their behalf, not only giving tzedakah but pursuing tzedek, justice, in their name. And we should let their memory bless and guide us in our struggle.

Belief in the World to Come is the twelfth of Maimonides’ 13 articles of faith. Belief in the resurrection of the dead is the thirteenth. Every day during the Amidah we say mechaiyey ha-meitim, thanking Hashem for bringing life to the dead. We recite this same blessing upon seeing a friend for the first time in a year. This teaches that being cut off from our community is equivalent to death. When people we love are locked inside of prisons for years at a time, it is as if they are dead, but when they are released, they are resurrected, perhaps even reborn. When Eliyahu comes and we burn down all the prisons, all the graves on earth will be deserted, and we will fulfill our faithfulness to those who sleep in the dust. 

(Some may choose to add the following prayer:)

מַשִׁיב הָרוּחַ וּמוֹרִיד הַגֶשֶׁם
מוֹרִיד הַטָל

On the first night say: Mashiv Ha-Ruach U-Morid Ha-Gashem (make the winds blow and the rains fall)
On all other nights of Pesach say: Morid Ha-Tal (let the dew fall)

מְכַלְכֵּל חַיִים בְּחֶסֶד מְחַיֵה מֵתִים בְּרַחֲמִים רַבִּים סוֹמֵךְ נוֹפְלִים וְרוֹפֵא חוֹלִים וּמַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים וּמְקַיֵם אֱמוּנָתוֹ לִישֵׁנֵי עָפָר, מִי כָמוֹךָ בַּעַל גֶבוּרוֹת וּמִי דוֹמֶה לָךְ מֶלֶךְ מֵמִית וּמְחַיֵה וּמַצְמִיחַ יְשׁוּעָה
וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי מְחַיֵה הַמֵתִים

Mechalkel chayim be-chesed, mechayey meitim be-rachamim rabim, somech noflim, u-rofeh cholim, u-matir asurim, u-mekayem emunato lisheney afar. Mi chamocha ba’al gevurot, u-mi domeh lach? Melech meymit u-mechayeh u-matzmiyach yeshu’a. 
Ve-ne’eman ata lechayot meytim. Baruch ata Adonai, mechayey ha-meitim. 

You sustain life with kindness, with great compassion You bring life to the dead, lifting up all who have fallen, healing all the sick, and freeing the prisoners, fulfilling Your faithfulness to those who sleep in the dust. Who is like You, harnesser of strength, who can be compared to You, King who brings death and restores life, and causes deliverance to grow. You are faithful in giving life to the dead. Blessed are You, who gives life to the dead.     

(Others continue here:)

According to Jewish legend, Elijah has already returned and he walks among us, disguising himself as a homeless person, wandering the earth, waiting for someone to treat him with kindness instead of fear or contempt so he can tell them the Moshiach is coming. This implies that the World to Come, a world without police or prisons, is always possible, and all we need to do is recognize the opportunity to bring it about. The opportunity to spark the revolution is always within grasp, hidden in plain sight. In the words of the historian and prophet Walter Benjamin: 

The past carries a secret index with it which is called resurrection. There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak messianic power. The myth of progress has made the working class forget both its righteous anger and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than by the ideal of liberated grandchildren. 
What characterizes the revolutionary class at their moment of action is the awareness that they are about to make the continuum of history explode. The Jews were prohibited from inquiring into the future; the Torah and the prayers instruct us in remembrance. This does not imply that for the Jews the future became homogeneous, empty time. For each second is the small gateway in time through which the Messiah might enter. There is no moment that doesn’t carry revolutionary possibility.

❉ What’s the difference between fighting for enslaved ancestors and fighting for liberated grandchildren? Which inspires you more?   

A ritual that you can perform at your seder: everyone sits down in silence, and thinks about what they would do if they opened the door and the prophet Eliyahu was on the other side. Would they be ready to accompany him, or to invite him inside? Everyone meditates on the doubts and fears that might prevent them from joining the revolution if it began tonight. Whenever each person feels ready, emotionally, to let those fears go, they stand up. The last person to stand opens the door for Eliyahu. 

Open the door for Eliyahu to let him in. 

.אֵלִיָהוּ הַנָבִיא, אֵלִיָהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּי, אֵלִיָהוּ הַגִלְעָדִי
בִּמְהֵרָה בּיָמֵנוּ, יָבוֹא אֵלֵינוּ עִם מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דַוִד
 
Eliyahu ha-Navi, Eliyahu ha-Tishbee, Eliyahu ha-Giladi
Bim’heira be-yameinu, yavo eleinu, im Moshiach ben Daveed.
 
Elijah the prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, Elijah the Gileadite.
Quickly, within our days, come to us with the Moshiach, son of David.
 

On the shore of the Red Sea, as the waters calmed and the gravity of what they had just witnessed sunk in, B’ney Yisra’el “had faith in Hashem and their servant Moshe. Then Moshe and B’ney Yisra’el sang.” (Exodus 14:31-15:1) For the Israelites, song was the ultimate expression of their faith. Music has always been central to Jewish religious practice. It’s rare to hear liturgy spoken in synagogues—every prayer has a tune, every verse of the Tanach has its trope. But all too often, these melodies become mere background noise. We either focus only on the words, or sing the familiar ditties mindlessly and without inspiration. 

To counter this, Chassidic Jews introduced a new type of song to the Jewish world: the nigun. Instead of setting prayers and passages from the Torah to music, nigunim are melodies with no words at all. Chassidim say these wordless songs allow the soul to communicate with the divine in a language beyond what words are capable of expressing. In the words of the Chassidic master, the Piazetsner Rebbe, “Sometimes, a person must build ladders to climb to the heavens. A nigun is one of these ladders, specifically when we sing after the joy of a mitzvah, with a heart broken open.” The Hebrew word for ladder, סולם, sulam, also means ‘musical scale.’ Its gematria is 136, the same as קול, kol, the Hebrew word for voice and להאמין, le-he’emin, ‘to believe’ or ‘to have faith.’ When we lift our voices in song, we also lift up our spirits to the divine expanse above us. Reb Nachman of Breslov said, “even one who doesn’t know how to play music can sing to the best of their ability and bring themself back to life through a nigun, for the ‘lift’ of a nigun cannot be measured.” 

In their song at the Red Sea, our ancestors made a promise: ashira, “I will sing.” We traditionally fulfill that promise at this point in the seder by reciting Hallel, a set of psalms to praise Hashem upon special occasions. Unlike most psalms, the songs of Hallel are anonymous. The Talmud tells us that Hallel was composed spontaneously by B’ney Yisra’el at the Sea for the Jewish people to recite in every time of trouble and after every redemption. The proof for this is that the same phrase is used in both the Song of the Sea and Hallel: “The Eternal is my strength and my song, she has become my deliverance.” (Exodus 15:2 ; Psalm 118:14) The Hebrew word zimrat (‘my song’) comes from the same root as zamar, which means to prune or pare away. Our song can pare away the kelipot, the hard shells which surround our souls. 

This verse from the Song of the Sea and from Hallel shows up one more time in the Tanach. The prophet Isaiah prophesized that when the World to Come arrives, we will say, “I give thanks to You, Hashem, for You comfort me. I am confident and unafraid, for the Eternal is my strength and my song, and she has become my deliverance.” (Isaiah 12:1-2) Why is this verse written down three separate times? In the Song of the Sea, it reveals our people’s past. It’s included in Hallel so we can bring it with us into the present, whenever we need it. And when we are redeemed in the World to Come, when we hurl our chains into the ocean and burn the prisons down, we will sing this ancient refrain, making it new again, and then sing a new song. In this way, we add our voices to an eternal chorus. With the Eternal as our song, we can pare away the shells of our hardened hearts. So let’s rise, beloveds, for “blossoms are seen on earth, and the time of singing has begun.” (Song of Songs 2:12)

Before reciting the Hallel, whisper:

הוֹצִיאָה מִמַסְגֵּר נַפְשִׁי לְהוֹדוֹת אֶת שְׁמֶךָ
Hotzi’a mi-masger nafshi, le-hodot et shemecha. 
Bring my soul out of prison, so I may give thanks to Your name. (Psalm 142:8)

?מִי כַּיי אֱלֹהֵינוּ, הַמַגְבִּיהִי לָשָׁבֶת, הַמַשְׁפִילִי לִרְאוֹת בַּשָׁמַיִם וּבָאָרֶץ
.מְקִימִי מֵעָפָר דָל, מֵאַשְׁפֹּת יָרִים אֶבְיוֹן, לְהוֹשִׁיבִי עִם־נְדִיבִים, עִם נְדִיבֵי עַמוֹ 

Mi k’Hashem eloheinu, ha-magevihi la-shavet, ha-mashpili lirot, ba-shamayim oova-aretz? Mekimi me-afar dal, me-ashpoht yarim evyon, le-hoshivi eem nedivim, eem nedivey amo.

Who is like Hashem? Who enthroned on high looks down from the sky to earth, to raise the poor from the dust, to lift up the oppressed from the dunghill to seat them with the powerful and the great? (Psalm 113:5-8)

בְּצֵאת יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִצְרַיִם, בֵּית יַעֲקֹב מֵעַם לֹעֵז
הָיְתָה יְהוּדָה לְקָדְשׁוֹ, יִשְׂרָאֵל מַמְשְׁלוֹתָיו
הַיָם רָאָה וַיַנֹס, הַיַרְדֵן יִסֹב לְאָחוֹר
הֶהָרִים רָקְדוּ כְאֵילִים, גְבַעוֹת כִּבְנֵי צֹאן

מַה לְךָ הַיָם כִּי תָנוּס                                  הַיַרְדֵן תִּסֹב לְאָחוֹר
 הֶהָרִים תִּרְקְדוּ כְאֵילִים                                גְבַעוֹת כִּבְנֵי־צֹאן
 מִלְפְנֵי אָדוֹן חוּלִי אָרֶץ                               מִלְפְנֵי אֱלוֹהַ יַעֲקֹב 
 הַהֹפְכִי הַצוּר אֲגַם־מָיִם                            חַלָמִיש לְמַעְיְנוֹ־מָיִם

Be-tzeyt Yisra’el mi-Mitzrayim, beyt Ya’akov meyam lo’ez.
Haita Yehudah le-kodsho, Yisra’el mamshelotav.
Ha-yam ra’ah va-yanos, ha-Yarden yeesov le-achor.
Heharim rakdu ke-eylim, geva’ot keev’ney tzon.
Ma lecha ha-yam       ki tanoos        hayarden         teesov le’achor
 He-harim          teerkedoo ke-eylim        geva’ot          keev’ney tzon
Milifeney adon          chooli aretz         milifney          Elo’a Ya’akov
 hahofchee ha-tzoor    agam mayim     chalamish    le-maino mayim

When Yisra’el left Mitzrayim, when the house of Ya’akov left foreign land, the Jewish people became Hashem’s sanctuary. The sea saw and fled, the Jordan flowed the other way. The mountains danced like goats, the hills like lambs. What’s up, sea, why do you flee? Jordan, why do you flow backwards? Mountains, why are you dancing like goats? Hills, why are you dancing like lambs? The earth trembles, in the presence of Hashem, who turned the rock into a pool of water,  the flint into a fountain! (Psalm 114) 

כִּי חִלַצְתָּ נַפְשִׁי מִמָוֶת, אֶת עֵינִי מִן דִמְעָה, אֶת רַגְלִי מִדֶחִי
אֶתְהַלֵךְ לִפְנֵי יי בְּאַרְצוֹת הַחַיִים

Ki chilatzta nafshi mi-mavet, et eyni min dima, et ragli mi-dechi. 
Ethalech lifney Adonai be-artzot ha-chayim.

My soul has been delivered from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I will walk before You in the land of living. (Psalm 116:8-9)

מִן-הַמֵצַר קָרָאתִי יָה, עָנָנִי בַמֶרְחַב יָה

Min ha-meitzar karati Yah, anani ba-merchav Yah.

I called out from the narrow place, and I was answered from the divine expanse. (Psalm 118:5)

?יי לִי, לֹא אִירָא – מַה יַעֲשֶׂה לִי אָדָם
.יי לִי בְּעֹזְרָי וַאֲנִי אֶרְאֶה בְּשׂנְאָי

Adonai li, lo eera — ma ya’aseh li adam?
Adonai li be-ozrai, va-ani ereh be-sonai. 

Hashem is with me, I shall not fear—what can men do to me? 
Hashem is with me at my side, I will stare down all who hate me. (Psalm 118:6-7)

.עָזִי וְזִמְרָת יָה וַיְהִי לִי לִישׁוּעָה

Ozi ve-zimrat Yah, va-yehi li lishu’a.

The Eternal is my strength and my song, 
and She has become my deliverance. (Psalm 118:14)

לֹא אָמוּת כִּי אֶחְיֶה, וַאֲסַפֵּר מַעֲשֵׂי יָה

Lo amut ki echeyeh, va-asapeir ma’asey Yah. 

I will not die, for I will live to tell eternal stories. (Psalm 118:17)

.פִּתְחוּ לִי שַׁעֲרֵי צֶדֶק, אָבֹא בָם, אוֹדֶה יָה
.זֶה הַשַׁעַר לַיי, צַדִיקִים יָבֹאוּ בוֹ

Pitchu li sha’arey tzedek, avo vam, odeh Yah. 
Zeh ha-sha’ar l’Adonai, tzadikim yavo bo.

Open the gates of justice for me so I may enter and give thanks.
This is the gate of Hashem—the righteous will enter through it. (Psalm 118:15-20) 

(The following lines are traditionally said twice.)

.אוֹדְךָ כִּי עֲנִיתָנִי וַתְּהִי לִי לִישׁוּעָה
.אֶבֶן מָאֲסוּ הַבּוֹנִים הָיְתָה לְראשׁ פִּנָה
.מֵאֵת יי הָיְתָה זאֹת, הִיא נִפְלָאת בְּעֵינֵינוּ
.זֶה הַיוֹם עָשָׂה יי נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ

Odecha ki anitani va-tehi li lishu’a.
Evehn ma’asu ha-bonim haita le-rosh pinah.
Me’et Adonai haita zoht, hi niflat be-eineinu.
Zeh ha-yom asa Adonai, nagila ve-nismecha bo.

I will thank You, because You answered me and became my deliverance. 
The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 
What Hashem has done, it is wondrous in our eyes. 
This is the day that Hashem made—let us celebrate and rejoice in it! (Psalm 118:21-24)
 

We rise, humbly hearted
Rise, won’t be divided
Rise, with spirit to guide us
Rise!

In hope, in prayer, we find ourselves here
In hope, in prayer, we’re right here (x2)

We rise, all of the children
Rise, elders with wisdom
Rise, ancestors surround us
Rise!

In hope, in prayer…

We rise, up from the wreckage
Rise, with tears and with courage
Rise, fighting for life
We rise!

In hope, in prayer…

We rise, humbly hearted
Rise, won’t be divided
Rise, with spirit to guide us
Rise!
 

— Batya Levine, "We Rise"

The counting of the Omer is a vestige of the grain offerings made at the Temple in ancient Israel. Jews were not allowed to eat of their barley crop until an offering of barley was brought to Jerusalem on the second day of Passover. Then they could eat new barley, but they still had to wait 49 days to bring the first fruits of their wheat harvest to the Temple before they could eat new wheat. The Talmud describes barley as inferior grain, more fit for animals than human consumption, but the Torah counts both wheat and barley as two of the seven special crops Eretz Yisra’el is blessed with. If barley was mere animal feed, why would Hashem ask for an offering of it on Passover?

The Torah doesn’t call the month of Pesach ‘Nisan’. Instead, Hashem says, “You depart today, in the month of Aviv.” (Exodus 13:4) The name Aviv is familiar to many Hebrew speakers as the word for spring. We read that during the seventh plague, burning hail, the Egyptians’ barley crop was ruined כִּי הַשְּׂעֹרָה אָבִיב, ki ha-se’orah aviv, “because the barley was in the ear.” (Exodus 9:31) In other words, it got destroyed because it was vulnerable while ripening. The next verse says that “the wheat and the emmer were not hurt, for they ripen late.” (Exodus 9:32) But these grains would not last long. Only a few days later, the plague of locusts “devoured all of the grasses of the field and all the fruit of the trees which survived the hail, so that nothing green was left.” (Exodus 10:15) 

Perhaps, there is a metaphor to be made here. Those of us ‘on the outside’ of prisons who feel comfortable around police might think that we are safe from the reach of the carceral state. In a world of neverending needless carceral violence, it is tempting to soothe our fears that we could be the next to be hurt by saying, “that couldn’t happen to me.” We might think that because we’re law-abiding citizens, because we live in a blue state, because we live quietly and don’t go out to dangerous protests that the police will pass us over—choose not to subject us to brutal beatings, use chemical weapons on us, kill our dogs, lock us up, choke us out or shoot us dead. For Jews who are white, it’s easy to say, “it’s terrible this is happening to Black people, but these things will never happen to me.” We might think that because we are small, because we are not yet ripe with radical politics, we will be spared from violence. But the plague of police is all-consuming. They can and do kill the innocent, the meek, and the respectable. And the plague of fascism that the police usher in will destroy all of us, if we let it. History shows that our mild manners, our lawfulness, our moderate politics, our assimilation into ‘normal’ society, even our conditional whiteness will not save us from those who want us dead. Our appeals to respectability do not protect us; all they do is justify carceral violence against ‘criminals.’ 

Some of us are stalks of barley, ripe for the police to ‘harvest’, because of things we cannot choose—like the color of our skin. Some of us are stalks of barley because we put ourselves in harm’s way, fighting in spite of the risks. It’s important to recognize that these experiences are in no way equivalent: those who choose to fight can always choose to shrink back to comfort—safe in our skin, for the time being at least. But white supremacists have insatiable appetites, and if white Jews do not fight for Black people today, who will fight for us when it’s our turn to die? The cops and the Nazis will come for us eventually. As James Baldwin wrote, “If they take you in the morning, they will come for us that night.” Our choice is clear: we can shrink away, cut ourselves down to a ‘respectable’ size while our brothers are being burned, or let ourselves grow, ripen with radical wisdom, and join the fight before it’s too late. 
 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם
.אַשֶׁר קִדְשָׁתּנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֵיהָ, וְצִוָתְנוּ לְהַדְלִיק עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, 
asher kidshatnu be-mitzvoteyha ve-tzivatnu al sefirat ha-Omer. 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם
.אֲשֶׁר קִדְשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, 
asher kidshanu be-mitzvotav ve-tzivanu al sefirat ha-Omer.

Blessed are You, who makes us holy with your mitzvot,
and teaches us to count the Omer. 

On the second night of Pesach say the following:

.הַיוֹם יוֹם אֶחָד בָּעֹמֶר
Hayom yom echad ba-Omer.
Today is the first day of the Omer. 

If you’re taking part in the beautiful emerging custom of having a seder on one of the nights of Pesach other than the first or second, say: 

הַיוֹם ____ יָמִים בָּעֹמֶר
Hayom (third night: shney / fourth night: shlosha / fifth night: arba’a  
sixth night: chamisha / seventh night: shisha / eighth night: shiva ) yamim ba-Omer.
Today is the ____ day of the Omer. 

The counting of the Omer is not just the act of watching time tick by. It is more than the rote calculation of days. In many ways, the antithesis of counting the Omer is a prisoner scratching tallies on their cell walls to keep track of the “empty, homogenous time” they are forced to spend behind bars. The seven weeks leading up to Shavu’ot are filled with eager anticipation of the ‘re-giving’ and renewal of the Torah. Counting the Omer is an act of spiritual preparation. As Moshe said, “Teach us to number our days, so we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) Let us open our eyes and see the revolutionary potential of each moment.
 

In Jewish tradition, there is a beautiful ritual for those who survive near- death experiences to perform. One who survives a dangerous brush with death makes a special bracha called birkat ha-gomel offering thanks for their survival. Typically, the blessing is said in shul, in front of the Torah and a whole congregation. Interestingly, the text of birkat ha-gomel doesn’t explicitly mention the danger we survived or Hashem’s life-saving power. Even Shehecheyanu, the bracha we make on everything from hearing good news to eating seasonal fruit thanks Hashem for keeping us alive and bringing us to the present moment. Instead, birkat ha-gomel thanks Hashem for “bestowing goodness upon the undeserving.”

What are we to make of this sentiment, that we are undeserving of goodness? So much of the work that we have to do involves unlearning the idea that we are unworthy of love, not affirming it. The typical Christian answer would be that we are undeserving of love because we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. One could back up this view with a plethora of biblical verses bemoaning our fundamental sinful nature and extolling the benevolent pity God takes on us. But this view only tells us part of the story. Of course there is no “righteous person on earth who does only good and doesn’t make mistakes.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) But Hashem wants it to be that way. Jewish tradition holds that Hashem wants to see us make mistakes, so we can overcome them. 

While Christianity says that we are all fundamentally wretched sinners, deserving of eternal punishment, Judaism affirms that all human beings are created with a pure spirit and can return to that spirit at any time, not by passively accepting a stranger’s gift but by actively repairing ourselves and the world around us. Despite its universal message, Christianity is all about individual salvation, being personally ‘saved.’ Even in birkat ha-gomel, as we thank God for literally saving us, our rituals emphasize community. Judaism has no concept of individual salvation, only collective liberation. This does not mean we can brush aside personal growth, and focus solely on bettering the world. On the contrary, tikkun olam begins with tikkun atzmi, repair of the self. 

How are we supposed to go about healing ourselves? Most of us aren’t doctors, therapists, or rabbis—how should we know how to heal our broken hearts and crushed spirits? Fortunately, we don’t need any special training to repair our souls. We are all capable of tikkun atzmi. We have all the tools inside of us already. This doesn’t mean we don’t need help along the way. In order to heal, we need a supportive community and loved ones who believe in us (and, yes, sometimes we do need therapeutic or spiritual guidance.) But the most important tool for healing we have, teshuva, is something each one of us was quite literally born with. 

The Talmud states that teshuva was created before creation itself. It derives this from Moshe’s only psalm: “Before You gave birth to the mountains, before the land and the world were born, from eternity to eternity You are Hashem who returns humanity to repentance, who says, ‘return to me, children of Adam.’” (Psalm 90:2-3) Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz says that this teaches us that “teshuva is a primordial phenomenon, embedded in the root structure of the world.” In other words, teshuva is part of the very fabric of the universe, a force as strong as gravity that any one of us can tap into to heal our broken hearts and alter the course of our lives. 

What does any of this have to do with birkat ha-gomel though? We don’t say birkat ha-gomel over making teshuva or healing ourselves, we say it after being miraculously saved from a life-threatening situation. To understand the connection, we need to look at birkat ha-gomel’s origins. The Talmud came up with the modern-day birkat ha-gomel blessing. When the question arose as to who was obligated to say birkat ha-gomel, the rabbis determined that “four must give thanks. They are: those who cross the sea, those who walk in the desert, one who was ill and recovered, and one who was incarcerated in prison and left.” 

At first glance this list seems somewhat arbitrary—why should sailors say birkat ha-gomel but not someone who survived a violent attack? The list is derived from Psalm 107, a poem which praises Hashem for rescuing people from danger. “Some lost their way in the desolate desert. They found no path to a city or settlement. Hungry and thirsty, their spirits grew faint.” (Psalm 107:4-5) The psalm goes on to describe how Hashem ‘showed them a direct path’ to safety. “Some lived in darkness, in the shadow of death, imprisoned in oppressive iron... their hearts were humbled by suffering, they stumbled and no one would help.” (Psalm 107:10-12) Hashem rescues them from prison, breaking their chains and cutting through iron bars. Some were “afflicted… and reached the gates of death.” (Psalm 107:17-18) Hashem heals them. “Some went down to the ocean to do their work… a mighty storm wind made the waves surge.” (Psalm 107:23-25) Hashem stills the waves and brings them safely ashore. 

The Shulchan Aruch gives a compelling mnemonic to remember the four groups of people obligated to say birkat ha-gomel: חיים, chayim, meaning ‘life’ or ‘the living ones,’ short for חולה, chola, the sick; יסורין, yesurin, incarcerated people; ים, yam, sea; and מדבר, midbar, desert. Psalm 107 goes on to say about these four groups of people, “Let them thank Hashem for His kindness… let them exalt Him in the community of their people.” (Psalm 107:31-32) Thus, the ritual of birkat ha-gomel was born. 

After reciting the blessing in shul, many have the tradition of hosting a seudat hoda’ah, a thanksgiving feast to share with loved ones. In many ways, the seder is a seudat hoda’ah—we celebrate our personal liberation from captivity in Mitzrayim, our miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, our journey through the desert, and our recovery from a very serious sickness which afflicts so many souls: hopelessness. The four who are obligated to say birkat ha-gomel represent our seder’s four themes. The prisoners who went free represent abolition, the ones who crossed the sea are our liberation, the sick who recovered are our transformation, and the desert wanderers who found their way to Mount Sinai represent our community. 

There is a fifth group of people mentioned in Psalm 107. “The desert is turned into pools, arid land into springs of water. The hungry settle there; they build a place to dwell. They sow fields and plant vineyards that yield a fruitful harvest. Hashem blesses them and they increase greatly, after they had been made few and crushed by oppression, misery, and sorrow.” (Psalm 107:35-39) These hungry people who have survived in spite of a world that tries to kill them, they are all of us, and they represent Hashem’s fifth promise to the Jewish people, the promise that has not yet been fulfilled: to bring us into the Promised Land— Eretz ha-Chayim, the Land of Life, the World to Come. We find the fifth theme of our seder in the fifth promise, among these hungry, downtrodden people who finally make their way home and reap their harvest: possibility. 

If we ever hope to abolish prisons and police, we must first recognize that abolition is possible. For some of us, this may sound easy, trivial. For others, this may feel impossible in and of itself. All too many of us fight for prisoners or show up to Black Lives Matter actions without truly believing abolition is possible. Some chant ‘defund the police’ instead of howling for abolition because they want to fight for something ‘realistic.’ Some of us advocate for prison reform instead of abolition because we would rather our work be ideologically unsound and make a difference, no matter how small, than ideologically pure with no impact at all. These tactics have their uses and their virtues—none can deny that lives have been saved through reform campaigns. But so many more lives have been lost through compromise. No matter how many reforms we pass and checks and balances we put into place, as long as police live and prisons stand, countless human lives will be destroyed and irretrievably lost.

Some might say, “Our movement is tiny! We can’t be expected to stop police violence and dismantle the prison industrial complex altogether! Abolition is a nice dream, but we should focus on harm reduction, saving the few lives we can.” It’s true, there is enormous value in materially improving prisoners’s lives and preventing a few police murders, because saving one life is like saving the entire world. But, conversely, when one life is destroyed, it’s as if the entire world has been destroyed. To those who say “I’m not the one killing people!” the Talmud would say “anyone who had the ability to protest injustice in the world but refrained from doing so, they are responsible for the sins of the whole world.” The Tanach holds a grim warning for those who fail to try saving prisoners: “If you refrained from rescuing those sentenced to death, those condemned to be killed, even if you say, ‘we didn’t know about this,’ the One who weighs hearts will know what you did.” (Proverbs 24:11-12) 

Here, we find the key to understanding birkat ha-gomel’s problematic phrase. Hashem bestows goodness on the ‘undeserving,’ not because we are all terrible sinners or lowly, worthless worms, but because every day we fail to fully appreciate the unfathomable value of a human life. And this is why tikkun atzmi is so crucial—our own lives are so precious that Hashem created the entire world so we personally could be born. If we don’t believe that we deserve healing, how can we believe that others do as well? As it is written, גמל נפשו אישׁ חסד, gomel nafsho ish chased, “the compassionate person bestows good upon themself.” (Proverbs 11:17) There is a lovely midrash that expounds upon this verse. Hillel’s students were following him after class one day, and he told them he was on his way to do a mitzvah. They asked which one, and he replied, “to bathe in the bathhouse.” Surprised, they asked him, “Is this really a mitzvah?” He took them to the circus and showed them a statue of the Roman emperor. He said, “Just as someone is appointed to scrub these statues and care for them, and he earns a living and gains status in the kingdom, I who have been created be-tzelem Elohim, in the divine image, all the more so!” 

In the context of birkat ha-gomel, the word חיבים, chayavim, is generally translated as ‘undeserving.’ But it also can mean ‘obligated’ or ‘responsible,’ as it does earlier in the Haggadah when we say, ‘ be-chol dor va-dor chayav adam… ’ “in every generation, each person is obligated to see themself as if they personally left Mitzrayim.” In order to fulfill our holy obligation to repair ourselves and the world around us, we need to understand what is truly at stake: human lives, something infinitely precious in the eyes of Hashem. If we are undeserving of the kindness Hashem shows us it’s because we fail to show this same kindness to ourselves and to others. By settling for anything less than full abolition, we degrade the value of human life by allowing injustice to reign. But Hashem doesn’t care if we deserve kindness! It’s given to us anyway, whether we’re ready to accept it or not. 

It often takes those who survive near-death experiences a long time to recover psychologically from the experience. These encounters can shake a person to their core. Often those who survive danger don’t feel ‘lucky’ at all—they feel exhausted, scared, and traumatized. For those who survive mass tragedies while others didn’t make it, this pain can be even more severe. Survivors’ guilt is a horrible psychological phenomenon where a person is tortured with grief over their own existence. People who live with survivors’ guilt often ask God “why me? Why did you leave me alive when so many others died?” All of us, to some extent, wrestle with these questions, because we are all perpetually forced to witness horrific state violence.

Some of us deal with this guilt by justifying the deaths of others—playing God and deciding that they are dying because they deserve to die. Others of us deal with this guilt by surrendering to helplessness, saying, “what can I do? I’m just one human being, I can’t stop this death machine.” Some of us never deal with this guilt at all, and let the full gravity of it destroy us. But there is a fourth way: accepting the radical possibility of abolition, and joining the fight. Through doing so, we show ourselves extraordinary kindness, for to accept that no human being deserves to be destroyed is to affirm that our own life has intrinsic value and purpose. 

In her close reading of the birkat ha-gomel ritual, author Ellen Frankel finds the real purpose of the “undeserving of goodness” line. The bracha is not meant to be recited alone—it is said in front of a community. In a unique twist, they then bless the survivor: “may the One who rewarded you with all goodness continue to reward you only with goodness! Selah!” This call-and-response format is designed to combat survivors’ guilt. The survivor is asked to do something extremely vulnerable: admit their doubt as to why Hashem chose to preserve them. Then the community does something remarkable: it corrects the survivor, affirming that their survival is nothing but a blessing for the whole world.  

With this kavanah, let us bless ourselves and each other for our survival. Let us affirm that human lives are worth fighting for. A better world is possible, a better self is possible! As long as we are alive, there is hope, no matter how broken we are, there is always the possibility of healing. As it is written, “All that your hand finds to do, do it with all your strength, for there is no doing in the grave.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10) 

(One person starts by saying the blessing, then everyone else responds with the response below. That person then chooses the next person to say the blessing, and so on.) 

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם
.הַגוֹמֶלֶת לְחַיָבִים טוֹבוֹת שֶׁגְמָלַנִי כֹּל טוֹב

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, 
ha-gomelet le-chayavim tovot, she-g’malani kol tov. 

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,
.הַגוֹמֵל לְחַיָבִים טוֹבוֹת שֶׁגְמָלַנִי כָּל טוֹב

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, 
ha-gomel le-chayavim tovot, she-g’malani kol tov. 

Blessed are You, who bestows good upon the undeserving,
and has bestowed all good upon me. 

אָמֵן! מִי שֶׁגְמָלְךָ\שֶׁגְמָלֵךְ\שֶׁגְמָלֵךֶ כָּל טוֹב
 !הוּא יִגְמָלְךָ\יִגְמְלֵךְ\יִגְמָלֵךֶ כָּל טוֹב, סֶלָה

Amen! Mi (Masc:) she-g’malecha (Fem:) she-g’malech (NB:) she-g’malecheh kol tov
Hu (Masc:) yig’malecha (Fem:) yig’malech (NB:) yig’malecheh kol tov, selah!

Amen! May the One who rewarded you with all goodness 
continue to reward you only with goodness! Selah!

(After this ritual is completed, all say:)

בְּרִיךְ רַחֲמָנָא דֶיַהֲבָךְ נִיהֲלַן וְלָא יַהֲבָךְ לְעַפְרָא
Brich rachamana de-yahavach nihalan ve-lo yahavach le-afra.
Blessed is the compassionate One who gave you to us and did not give you over to the dust.

Four entered the prison and watched people die: the wicked, the liberal, the vulnerable, and the abolitionist. A horrible guilt came over them all. The wicked laughed and played God, saying “those who are dying deserve to die.” About him it is written, “The fool’s lips swallow him up.” (Ecclesiastes 10:12) The liberal looked and said, “I’m just one person, I can’t stop this death machine!” and ran away. About her it is said, “when people are afraid of heights, and of obstacles on the way, when the grasshopper drags itself along and the libido is still, then they will go to their eternal home.” (Ecclesiastes 12:5) The vulnerable looked and died. About them it is written, “Don’t be too righteous or too wise—why destroy yourself?” (Ecclesiastes 7:16) The abolitionist entered in peace and left in peace, bringing the prisoners with them. About them it is written, “For whoever is bound to life, there is hope.” (Ecclesiastes 9:4)

Four promises were made to B’ney Yisra’el at the beginning of the Exodus: they would be taken out of Egypt, freed from slavery, redeemed and made a people. In the biblical narrative, the last promise only came true after the first three were fulfilled. B’ney Yisra’el had to be liberated before they could reach Sinai and become the Jewish people. Barring divine intervention, it is impossible for us to do the same. We will never truly be able to attain abolition, liberation, or transformation without a strong community fighting together. If we are to be free, we must free each other. No one else will save us. When B’ney Yisrael were trapped between the Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, Moshe cried out to Hashem for help. Instead of splitting the sea, Hashem responded, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the people to move forward.” (Exodus 14:15) The sea couldn’t part until the first step was taken.

✧ What might the first step be?

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵאת פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, boreyt p’ree ha-gafen.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Masc:) Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borey p’ree ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, who creates the fruits of the vine.

Lean to the left and drink the wine or grape juice.   After the entire glass of wine has been finished, say:

בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְׁכִינָה, רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Fem:) Brucha at Shechinah, ru’ach ha-olam, al ha-aretz ve-al pri ha-gafen

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל פְּרִי הַגָפֶן

(Masc:) Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, al ha-aretz ve-al pri ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, for the earth and for the fruit of the vine. 
 

The Haggadah doesn’t end with a dramatic crescendo or with a grand concluding statement. It ends with a short, cryptic acknowledgement that the seder has been completed properly. However, there is a line hidden in this passage with profound implications: “As we have been deemed worthy to prepare this seder, so may we be worthy to fulfill it.” If the seder is a reenactment of the Exodus, then its fulfillment is a new journey out of oppression. As we have been merited redemption from Mitzrayim tonight, so may we merit redemption from this carceral world. How do we merit this? Through fighting for it with all of our hearts, and all of our souls, and all of ourselves.

חֲסַל סִדוּר פֶּסַח כְּהִלְכָתוֹ
.כְּכָל מִשְׁפָּטוֹ וְחֻקָתוֹ
,כַּאֲשֶׁר זָכִינוּ לְסַדֵר אוֹתוֹ
.כֵּן נִזְכֶּה לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ
,זָךְ שׁוֹכֵן מְעוֹנָה
.קוֹמֵם קְהַל עֲדַת מִי מָנָה
,בְּקָרוֹב נַהֵל נִטְעֵי כַנָה
.פְּדוּיִם לְעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Chasal siddur Pesach ke-hilchato, 
ke-chol mishpato ve-chukato. 
Ka-asher zachinu le-sader oto, 
ken nizkeh la-asoto. 
Zach shochein me-ona, 
komeim kahal adat, mi mana? 
Be-karov naheil nitei chana
peduyim le-olam ha-ba.  

We have completed the seder of Pesach following all of its laws and rules. As we have been deemed worthy to prepare it, so may we be deemed worthy to fulfill it. May the Pure One who dwells among us lift up our community, which cannot be counted. Bring close the day when You will guide the redeemed plantlings of the sapling to the World to Come.

!לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין

L’shana haba’a b’ney choreen!

Next year in freedom!