dd April 3rd, 2007
Last night we celebrated the first night of Passover with a Seder (which means “order”) at our home. The 50,000 foot view of the holiday is that it is the story of liberation from bondage and a journey to redemption.
I’ve always put a lot of effort into planning the service portion of the evening. Barbara has been responsible for the menu and most of the food preparation (and it was delicious). But, first we spent almost 2 hours telling the story, discussing it, raising and debating questions. One of the parts of the service involves asking (usually asked by the youngest child although we did not have anyone younger than 30 last night) 4 questions about how this night is different from all other nights. At some Seders, there is a 5th question that someone will invariably raise, “When do we eat?” At my Seders, participants know it will be a long haul before we get to the main meal.
This year I decided to incorporate readings and questions about Darfur, Sudan because people there are suffering an even worse fate than my ancestors did at the hands of the Egyptians. For example, we spent a long time talking about this question:
How can we carve out time and energy for faraway Darfur when we face struggles in our everyday lives that leave little space for it? On the other hand, didn’t people offer similar justifications for inaction when faced with evidence that the Holocaust was taking place?
Then, the discussion turned to what each of us can do as individuals and whether anything we do will make a difference to stopping this genocide in Darfur. Some thought it was up to our political leaders or media owners. I disagreed as I’ve done before on this blog. I offered two rejoinders:
- In my “youth”, my generation of college students effectively forced Lyndon Johnson and his failed Vietman policies out of office and brought an early end to the Vietnam War. We did this through bottom up grass roots protests.
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I read a part of a piece by Nicholas Kristof in the Feb. 23, 2005 NY Times:
So what can stop this genocide? At one level the answer is technical: sanctions against Sudan, a no-fly zone, a freeze of Sudanese officials’ assets, prosecution of the killers by the International Criminal Court, a team effort by African and Arab countries to pressure Sudan, and an international force of African troops with financing and logistical support from the West.
But that’s the narrow answer. What will really stop this genocide is indignation. Senator Paul Simon, who died in 2003, said after the Rwandan genocide, f every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different
At a later point in the Seder, I read this meditation from renowned Rabbi Harold Schulweis, who has been very vocal in protesting the situation in Darfur:
At Passover we celebrate z’man cheruteinu, the time of our liberation. We were enslaved, oppressed after hundreds of years of bondage in Egypt. “So we cried unto the God of our fathers…The Eternal heard our voice and saw our affliction, our burden, and our oppression” and brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand from the house of slavery
(from the Passover haggadah).
A great gift of freedom was given to us. This Passover, as we begin the telling of the story of our ancestors, let us open our hearts to all those for whom the Exodus has not yet occurred, as well as our ears to the silent cries of all those without a voice who still live in the shadow of darkness.
“…We Jews see with ancient eyes and attend with ancient ears.
We were not born yesterday.
Not long ago we swore over the cremated bodies of our fathers,
mothers and children a solemn oath. From the depths of our souls
we cried, “Never Again.” That oath carries the past into the
present and pledges to do today whatever is in our power to
prevent the perverse plots to extinguish the promise of life.
“Never Again” will we allow the world to dissemble, to pretend that
we are voiceless, soundless, without legs or hands.
Ours is a solemn oath in memory of those who were slaughtered
in deathly silence.
We are pledged to wake the world from the paralysis of will.
We are partners with God in protecting His Children.
We dare not shut our eyes or our mouths or our ears.
Who is Darfur to us? And who are they to us? They are us.”
Another custom I’ve adopted for our Seder is that when we talk about the 10 plagues visited upon the Egyptians before they let the Israelites go free, I ask the participants to mention a plague that the world is suffering today - e.g. genocide, global warming, tsunamis. This year someone mentioned George Bush. We all nodded our heads. Then, I “collect” these plagues in Elijah’s cup - yielding a cup of plagues.
Toward the end of the Seder, when we open the door for the prophet Elijah, I take the cup and ask people to offer a blessing they have experienced or witnessed in the past year. Examples are family, friends, music, etc. This year one of my best friends, who is not Jewish, said he is thankful for interfaith experiences like this one tonight. That really touched me. So, I say that we have turned plague into blessing which is our job on earth - to repair the world. The connection to Elijah, you may be asking? Well, when Elijah comes, we think the world will be overflowing with blessings. I hope your cup will be overflowing with blessings for the next year.
It was a wonderful evening. And, the food was magnificent. More about the food and another take on the Seder.
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In a previous post, I talked about the Seder that I led at our home. We had several good discussions spun off from questions raised during the “service”. I attended a community Seder last night, hosted by our Temple’s women’s group. I enjoyed it very much.
FAIR WARNING: I’m going to talk about the notion of God in this post. I’m familiar with the “old” adage not to broach politics and religion in the blogosphere, but I’m giving you a heads-up if you want to stop reading now.
Last Spring at our Temple auction, we bid on and won a very cool item. We get to choose four words and our rabbi will incorporate them into a sermon. The actual auction item said six words but we ended up splitting this with another couple and bargaining our way to 4 words apiece. This week, we had to pony up the final list of words. Here is mine:
I love Christmas day. I look forward to it for weeks. Why? There is NO TRAFFIC! There’s also NO STRESS. There’s no old family tensions to deal with either. After all, we’re Jewish. So, I get a chance to do my 3 favorite things:
