Miryam's Space

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In the middle of all the cooking and preparing for the Holiday this year, I recognize, this year is different. Mah nishtanah ha Pesach HaZeh: How is this Passover different from all the others? What part of today’s world can we let the world in to our seder that won’t ruin this cherished family tradition? This year we are torn by events of the times, as was Joseph’s cloak, torn and dipped into the blood of a goat. The song at seder’s end, Khad gadya, or “one little goat” reminds us of that cruelty.“Do you recognize this coat? A wild beast must have torn Joseph,” the brothers lie to their heartbroken father. Is this cloak the broken, bloody remnant of our hopes? The karpas on the seder plate, reminding us of the greenery of the field also means “a woven cloak” in the Persian-speak of Purim. The prequel of the Exodus story is the story of parental favoritism, unequal treatment and near fratricide: Exodus begins with that reminder: a new King arose who did not know Joseph. Things go very wrong from here on: slavery, abuse, and the murder of the first-born male infants. In other words – tough times, like those we are in now, make up the first part of the seder. This story of despotic, cruel dictators with delusions of G8d-hood collides with current reality of being terrorized by power run amok.

Then come the plagues: When you throw infants into the river, of course it turns to blood, it is already bloodied! When you pour ten million tons of carbon dioxide per day into the atmosphere, of course there will be karma/ Divine consequence. And without these consequences, the status quo could never change. The plagues, awful as they are, are the turning point toward redemption. as the pogroms, and Cossack conscription, drove my grandparents across an ocean.

As the group of refugees makes their way to the wilderness, they bring the memory of that torn coat, and the slaughtered goat, with them: Joseph’s bones are exhumed from the Nile, and carried with them.

This Shabbat is called Shabbat HaGadol the “Great Sabbath”. We read of a day of justice and judgment, in the finale of the prophet Malachi, culminating in a great healing: “I will send Elijah the prophet… he will turn the heart of the parents to the children and children to their parents. Some in the generation of potential young parents are wondering if it’s ok to even bring children into the world. How heartbreaking! The apples of the charoset on the seder plate remind us of the merit of women who seduced their reluctant enslaved husbands under the apple trees, that brought children into a world of genocide in Exodus. Shabbat ends, and immediately Passover begins. Perhaps this year at the seder we can once again honor our tears with salt water, dip our torn hearts into it, and acknowledge the transformative nature of the Blessed Divine One. Then we can envision that kinder world, keeping it in our sights, and keeping our hearts turned to one another.

Resource: Dayenu’s guide, an insert for the Haggadah, with Climate change in mind.

Arthur Waskov 50 years of the Freedom seder

Make your own Hagaddah, featuring Ellen Bernstein’s Promise of the Land

PS I am now in the afterglow (and exhaustion) of seder, and cleaning up. Thesa are my addenda to my family seder this year Lion King Passover

This first song was so much fun: used for the Maggid section, from 613’s music video

1. Circle of life.                   Call out:

Mah nishtanah ha’layla hazeh, mikol halailot

(mah nishtanah, nishtanah ha’laya) repeat chant 4x

In the days we prepare for the seder

It seems like we’ll never be done

There’s more to clean than can ever be cleaned

Grab a candle and search for the crumbs

When the seder table is ready

And all the chametz has been found

Our family arrives, and the sun leaves the sky

At the table we’ll gather around

At the seder tonight, Passover retold

With our prayers of hope; .

And the seder plate; Helps us tell our story

At the seder , the seder tonight.

I JUST  CAN’T WAIT TO BE FREE

Now, Pharoah you’re a mighty king,

But I’m tellin’ you beware

(Pharoah) You’ve come into my palace making threats now don’t you dare

Your days of making us your slaves are done forever more

And if you challenge G8d, ten plagues will shake you to your core

I’m telling you, you’d best listen to me

It’s time to let my people go, you see

‘Cause we just can’t wait to be free!

From Rabbi Ebn Leider on Substack: As we witness the truly shocking events of our day: … the terrifying injustices coming from the highest levels of power, it is natural to be angry, fearful, shocked and devastated…. we can try to shift our perspective …Pesach is perhaps an opportunity to see a larger perspective and to vision together, not just a return to a more peaceful status quo, but a truly transformative change that is in the pangs of being born. ~R Ebn Leider             

This version of the four Children is by Rachel Barenblat’s, from the Bayit publication “The Broken Matzah”

All Four Children (are one)

Today the Four Children are a Zionist,

a Palestinian solidarity activist, a peacenik, and

one who doesn’t know what to even dream.

The Zionist, what does she say? Two thousand years

we dreamed of return. “Next year in Jerusalem”

is now, and hope is the beacon we steer by.

The solidarity activist, what do they say?

We know the heart of the stranger. To be oppressors

is unbearable. Uplift the downtrodden.

The peacenik, what does he say? We both love this land

and neither is leaving. We’re in this together.

Between the river and the sea two peoples must be free.

And the one who doesn’t know what to even dream:

feed that one sweet haroset, a reminder that

building a just future has always been our call.

All of us are wise. None of us is wicked….

We are one people, one family. Not only

because history’s flames never asked what kind

of Jew one might be, but because

the dream of collective liberation is our legacy.

We need each other in this wilderness.

Only together can we build redemption.

R. Rachel Barenblat