The order of the seder is
Kadesh (kiddush, sanctification)
Washing hands (no blessing)
Greens (the food from the earth, not the political party)
Breaking the Matzah - there's more to it than meets the eye (even before hiding the afikomen!)
The Passover Story
Washing the hands (with blessing)
Blessing/eating the matzah
Blessing/eating the bitter herb
Combining matzah, bitter herb, and charoset
Festive meal (Pesach is a festival!)
Afikomen - making the broken pieces whole again (hmmm, sounds like tikkun olam!)
Blessing/Grace after meal
Hallel/Praise
Conclude

Each of these items will be separated by a bar across the page
My own contributions and "stage directions" will be in this font without a serif

From: Rabbis for Human Rights - North America, Haggadah supplement 2003/5763 on economic justice (entire document available online)

Four Cups of Wine
Rabbi Gerry Serotta [Temple Shalom, Silver Spring, MD]
The Four Cups: Four Expressions of Liberation

The four cups of the Passover Seder traditionally derive from four different expressions for liberation in the book of Exodus (6:6-7.) The four Hebrew verbs used there (typically translated as freeing, delivering, redeeming, and taking out of slavery) are in the peculiar Biblical future tense—so it shall come to pass if God’s plan is accomplished.

As we sit down to the ironic Seder ritual, re-experiencing a time of want through the lens of plenty, we connect each of the four cups with a modern vision of redemption. The blessing in each case can be accompanied with pledges by the guests to do what they can to bring about these visions. In this way we may make more real the image that our cups of wine and celebration is diminished due to the suffering of others.

In Western affluent societies the very lifestyle of the majority, let alone our contribution to global warming and our failure to work for a more just global economic order put us closer to Pharaoh than to the Israelites. There is no more compelling reason to observe the rituals of the Seder than to reconnect ourselves with this struggle.

THE FIRST CUP—Freedom in America

As we lift the first cup, we envision an America—the “land of the free”— where everyone has a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of him/herself and of his/her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. (from Article 25 of the Declaration of Human Rights)

Now do the traditional weekday kiddush for Pesach in your haggadah, then the shehecheyanu

Selection chosen for its green flavor and its essence of being from the salt of the earth
From: The Love and Justice Haggadah by Dara Silverman and Micah Bazant (available online)

Passover in New Mexico
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb [Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda/Potomac, MD]

Horseradish is hard to find in the hinterlands outside Gallup NM. On this dry bit of Earth, next to what's left of Navajo/ Hopi/ Zuni lands, Pesach was clearly going to be a new experience. I had taken the year off from Brandeis to join the Global Walk for a Livable World 1990, figuring the truest education would be to "get up and walk the land" (Gen. 13: 17), and to "serve and defend it" (Gen. 2: 15). We'd started in L. A. two and a half months earlier, and would arrive in New York six months later, "walking
our talk" of sustainability.

There were nearly sixty of us crossing the AZ/ NM border, when suddenly Passover was upon us. We decided to hold two sedarim -- the first as an all- group program, and the second as a Jewish space. We typed up a "freedom seder" on the office bus that accompanied us; worked with that week's cooks on Pesach- friendly foods; took the outreach van into Gallup to copy the haggadah and scout out the basics (no horseradish, but chiles did the trick); picked up specially- delivered matzah from back east. Amid sand and sagebrush, in an interfaith group devoted to protecting Creation, the story of the Exodus took on new meaning:

"This is the bread of affliction... let all who are hungry come and eat" -- our walk had taken us through some of the poorest urban and rural areas in the country already; we knew that social and environmental sustainability were intertwined.

"This year we are slaves; next year may we be free" -- living out of a backpack, and getting almost everywhere on foot, upper- middle- class folk like me quickly realize how enslaved we are to the external trappings that make up our daily lives. We also realize that this is how most people in most lands and through most of history live.

"Blood; frogs; lice..." -- the longest part of our desert sedarim was recounting the plagues, noting the environmental relevance of the original ten, and coming up with our own lists. We offered ten plagues of sexism and homophobia, ten plagues of economic injustice, ten plagues of human rights abuses. Over our abuse of Earth, ten simply could not suffice.

"On all other nights, every other vegetable; on this night, bitter herbs" -- the group's favorite reading was Reb Zalman's kavannah over the maror: "We are the Egypt, and we are the Pharaohs whose hearts have been hardened and who refuse to let our Mother the Earth heal. We must shout a "Dayenu" to that, and begin to act.... As we are observant of the laws of Peach, so we must become observant about what is helpful to Earth; and like chametz on Pesach, we must avoid what destroys her."

Lessons learned: Tradition gives us not just symbols but also roots, sustaining us in our struggles for justice in the modern world. Seders are at least as good for bridging across cultures and religions, as they are for bonding within our own communities. To understand the Exodus, walk. And near a desert or not, to understand and relive Pesach as the Torah tells us to (Ex. 12: 14ff), celebrate it outdoors.

Dip greens in salt water, say blessing, eat. Now can munch on veggies during the long discussion!

Read this selection, or try to explain it, and break the middle matzah and hide the larger portion

From: Letter to friends/email list, on April 9, 1998
by Rabbi David Seidenberg

What is the meaning of Yachats?  The simple explanation, that we need one broken matsah for lachma anya,the bread of poverty, and two whole ones for hamotsi, is clear enough. But what is the deep meaning for why we break the matsah at the beginning of maggid, and how does the broken matsoh connect with the Afikomen, the bigger half that we eat at the end of the meal?

Of course we do yachats at the beginning of maggid because it is the symbol which dramatizes the story.  In telling the story, we are required to begin with ganai/humiliation or downtrodden-ness, and to end with shevach/praise and exultation, which means going from slavery to redemption.

"Seder" means order.  It seems trivial when we think of it in terms of the "kadesh, urchats..." song.  But it's very deep.  Look at how we explain matsah in the haggadah:
1) lachma anya, poverty bread, bread of slavery;
2) bread that didn't have time to rise because we were rushing to leave Egypt (following Rabban Gamliel citation, "One who has not mentioned three things has not fulfilled the obligation");
3) Korekh, the bread we ate in the Beit Hamikdash [temple] with the Pesach sacrifice;
4) Afikomen, eaten in silence, the reminder of what is to come, the redemption we cannot know until it happens.

Get it?  Matsoh can represent anything from slavery to redemption.  But we give the symbols an order, so that we are always moving toward redemption. The brokenness of the middle matsoh is a symbol of poverty, slavery, impoverishment.  It is essential that we end the seder by bringing back the other half, importantly, the larger half, of the broken matsoh, which symbolizes the completion of redemption. By going through the symbolic meaning of matsah in this way we transform the matsah, and hopefully ourselves, moving from enslavement to Exodus to settling in the land to the redemption which will transcend all this conflict and complete our history.  Giving the symbols an order, a progression, is what makes it a seder.

Look for the hidden repetitions in the haggadah if you really want to darshan this out.  There's more 4's in the seder than the four cups and the four sons. Note especially the four times that the phrase "bavur zeh asah li Adonai b'tsayti mimistrayim" is darshaned.  Also that we begin telling the story four times.

You may also notice that the explicit four's don't follow this pattern of redemption in any way.  The four questions, for example, mix up the symbols of poverty (matsah and maror)  and wealth (dipping and reclining) without any delineation.  The haggadah mixes up materialistic symbols of redemption, while ordering the symbols of spiritual redemption.  The first symbols are explicit, but the second ones are hidden, like the Afikomen. The ordering of the interpretations of matsah so they teach us about transformation is the deep structure of the seder.

You can always tell a good haggadah from an inadequate one by whether it gets this deep structure.  The most important theological question is: Why are these moments where we cannot darshan and extemporize the meaning of redemption?  Why do we instead face it in silence, satiety, unspoken hopes?  It's a question worth contemplating during the seder.

Chag Sameach umishachrayr,
David Seidenberg

Go to your haggadah for the standard paragraph: this is the bread of affliction, let all come and eat…

From: Rabbis for Human Rights - North America, Haggadah supplement 2003/5763 on economic justice (entire document available online)
Ha Lachma Anya [the bread of poverty] and corporate responsibility
Rabbi David Seidenberg

It says in Lamentations, “Judah was exiled through poverty [oni].” The rabbis explain that this means that exile came because the owning class of Judah didn’t fulfill the commandment of Lechem Oni—giving bread to the poor. The wealthy eliminated  tzedakah/charity for poor people in order to enrich themselves.

Tonight, we say, “This is bread for the poor . . . everyone who is hungry can come and eat,” in order to fulfill the commandment of tzedakah.[4]

Tonight we say, “This is bread for the poor/ha lachma anya . . . everyone who is hungry can come and eat it,” in order to fulfill the commandment of tzedakah. Only by truly fulfilling this commandment, inviting poor and rich to the same table to share the same meal, will we be redeemed.

The rabbis taught that our people was sent into exile because the owning class enriched themselves by denying the poor a share of the common wealth of society. Does this apply to our own society?

After so many revelations of corporate scandals, we know too well that some owners and CEO’s of corporations enrich themselves while endangering and stealing from their own workers and the lives of future of generations. In a world where immediate profit-taking takes precedence over the long-term health of people and the economy, how many companies thrive by shifting costs onto workers, the environment, and the people who sustain them?

What does this teach us about how we prioritize our social budgets— both in Israel and in the US - where social programs are being cut year after year? What does it teach us about a society where the rich corporations receive charity tax breaks as incentives, and where the government puts its strength behind eliminating the minimum corporate tax? What does it say about laws written by corporate lobbyists to help corporations make more money, even when those laws destroy the common wealth andwell-being of the planet and the country?

According to the New Jersey State Treasury, thirty of their fifty largest employers paid only the minimum $200 in corporate taxes last year. Ten corporations revealed that they told their shareholders they had earned $13.3 billion in profits, but when they filled out their state tax returns, they showed no profits. Even during the current economic slowdown, US Congress responded by supporting a “stimulus” package to eliminate the minimum corporate tax, yet it denied unemployment insurance and healthcare assistance.[5]

Corporations enjoy some of the same rights as actual human beings under our economic system, but have far fewer responsibilities to the common good. Which is in God’s image: the corporation, or the people who work for it and live alongside it? Is Enron the exception, or is it an extreme case of the drive in corporate culture to make money now rather than to produce benefits for the future?

Hashata avdei. l’shana habaah b’nei chorin — This year we are slaves. Next year we will all be free.

Why do we say that we are slaves, when it doesn’t seem as if we are slaves? Perhaps “we” at this table tonight are not slaves. But the fact that slavery in its various forms still does exist in the world means that if some of us are slaves, then all of us are enslaved to an economic system that does not serve our common humanity.

What do pyramids look like in the modern day economy?

The CEO of a major company earned $488 per minute in the year 2000. A U.S. worker in that company making minimum wage would have to work 5,695 years to equal the CEO's earnings in that one year. However, the company moved its factories to foreign soil to increase profits... so the actual line worker for the company made about 30 cents a minute. That worker could not even make in a year what the CEO made in one minute. That worker was probably also working in a sweatshop.

fill 2^nd cup (don’t use it for a long time yet!)
4 questions (traditional) – just the questions. Note, we will be interspersing many more questions during the story!

Mitzrayim and Chometz

What did we get led out of, what really was that place we call "Egypt"? Mitzrayim = Egypt = narrow place (literal Hebrew translation - applied to Egypt with the narrow fertile strip along the Nile amidst desert all around). The narrow place is the rut we’re stuck in. We’re telling the story all over again. It’s been a year and once again we see we’re stuck in another rut (or is it still the same one?). So, how do we get out of such a rut? One step is by getting rid of our chometz.

So, what is chometz – the leavened bread, and what does it have to do with mitzrayim? It is puffiness, fluffiness, our inflated egos. It is fermented – opposite of fresh. How can you get out of a narrow place when you’re puffed up? How can you get unstuck from a problem with a stale approach? Passover is largely about getting rid of the puffiness so we can slide on out, reducing our ego so we can see better and come up with fresh ways of doing things – it’s a way of being able to move onto a new journey. Ridding our homes of bread is to symbolize this process. But Pesach is full of paradox – we feast and recline like royalty while humbling ourselves with the lowly matzah.

Back to the haggadah, do the 4 sons, then skip to "v'hee she amdah" (paragraph with "in every generation they rise against us"). Read that paragraph, then continue here.

HANDCUFFS AT THE SEDER/ An Insert into the Haggadah
Written by Rabbi Arthur Waskow [The Shalom Center]
[note: Stephen Jascourt added the 4 lines following "Strangers?"]
Following the March 24, 1999 civil disobedience of 126 Jews protesting the killing of Amadou Diallo, organized by JFREJ

Background:
        ON ROSH HODESH NISAN, the new moon of the month of Liberation, more than 100 Jews—15 of them Rabbis—were arrested in New York City as part of an ongoing protest at Police HQ against the killing of an unarmed Black man—a devout and law-abiding African immigrant to the US—by four police officers who fired 41 bullets at him, hitting him 19 times. (He died only once.)
        The Jewish protest was organized by Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ). They can be reached at jfrej@igc.org.
        This death capped a history of coercive and illegal on-street harassment of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers by some parts of the police force, including the torture of Abner Louima, and even more deeply a period of hostility from the mayor of New York toward the poor and the communities of color.
        Among the people in the jail cell where I was held after the arrests on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, we agreed that we would work out some possible responses in the Passover Seder to the Diallo/Louima story and our arrests. Here is one effort.  It draws on the fact that all those arrested were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, often with the tough plastic painfully cutting into wrists—mild compared to 41 or 19 bullets, but still a reminder—I hope that as the protests in NYC continue, similar protests will arise in other places where some units of the police also single out for harassment and death various communities of color, youth, gayness, or otherwise defined "strangers."
        And I also hope that in NYC and elsewhere, clergy of various communities, leading their own communities and in communal interconnection with each other, will join in these protests.
        In this season of rebirth, sweet and liberating festivals of freedom and rebirth to us all.
            —Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director, The Shalom Center

Who is this “us”?

Perhaps this "us” is all human beings, for all of us carry the Image of God.

NO! Surely this "us" does not include foreigners, strangers.

“Us.” is just us:

Us Jews.

Us white folks.

Us Americans.

People whose skin, whose speech, is familiar.

But we are taught:  “Love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the Land of Mitzrayyim/ Narrowness/ Egypt.”

Abner Louima: a stranger.

Amadou Diallo: a stranger.

Strangers because they came new to the shores where three generations have made “us” -- us Jews -- into home-borns.

Not "us. "

Strangers?
In 2003, who is the stranger?

An immigrant. Especially undocumented immigrants.

Anyone with a turban and a beard.

Anyone with an Islamic-sounding name.

“In every generation,” teaches the Haggadah further, “every human being is obligated to understand that we ourselves, not our forebears only, come forth from slavery to freedom.”

When are handcuffs a mark of freedom?

When we freely choose to stand with those who are not free, demanding that we too be put in fetters.

For EVERY human being must be free to come forth from slavery to freedom; and when in our city, our country, our generation,
some are marked for bullets,
some for a stick into the bowels,
some for  harassment on the streets,
some for constant humiliation,
some for poverty in the midst of Pharaonic wealth --

Then those who are not so marked must step across the line into action.

Into wearing handcuffs as a mark of freedom.

“We Shall Overcome” in Hebrew:
Anu nitgaber, anu nitgaber
Anu nitgaber b'vo hayom
Ani ma'amin, b'emunah shleima
She'anu nitgaber hayom

The Telling

The traditional haggadah avoids mentioning Moses, to avoid deifying him for the role God had him star in, leading his people out of the narrow place of enslavement, for the purpose of leading them to serving God instead of Pharoah and to the enlightenment of Torah, of the law that we puzzle over and try to apply in every new generation. We will be different this year and tell the story directly, to make it more transparent, more human, less abstract.

From: The Love and Justice Haggadah by Dara Silverman and Micah Bazant (available online)
[with a few interspersed comments and questions by Stephen Jascourt]

According to the Torah, our ancestor Joseph (who had great fashion) was sold into slavery by his brothers and became valuable to Pharaoh for his astute economic predictions and ability to administer before and during severe famine. Because of his skills, his people were welcomed. When new rulers came to power the Hebrews fell out of favor and were enslaved. Vineyards and fields were confiscated, work quotas were increased, families separated and wages
dropped to nothing. Despite these hardships, the Hebrew people survived and grew in numbers. The new Pharaoh became concerned that they would unite with Mitzrayim’s enemies.

Miriam was four years old when the Pharaoh said, “ There are too many of those Jews— I’m scared of them— they’ll take over soon. Kill all their sons! Drown them in the Nile!”

Amram, Miriam’s father, said to Yochevet, Miriam’s mother, “Dear, there is only one solution. We mustn’t make any more babies, and we must tell our people to do the same. If no sons are born, no sons will be killed.” Yochevet
sighed, but strong, young Miriam cried, ”No! You shall not do that! Pharaoh’s decree kills only the boys— your decree kills the girls as well. We will find another way.” Amram and Yochevet listened to their daughter, Miriam, and
Jewish babies continued to be conceived and born.

Pharaoh summoned the Jewish midwives whose names where Shifra and Pu- ah and ordered that the boy babies be killed as soon as they were born. Slyly, they responded “No way! We mean sir, there is no way because the strong Jewish mothers birth their babes so quickly that they are hidden before we arrive.”

[What happened here? Refusing an order from Pharoah! First civil disobediance action, and it was led by women.]

Miriam was five years old when Yochevet became pregnant. Miriam was a prophet and she said, “Yochevet will give birth to a son who will survive and help our people.”

Ah Moses, now comes Moses… teeny- tiny baby boy, cute, but makes a lot of noise, “Whaa, whaa…” What shall we do? If the baby is found, we will all be punished. The baby must be saved! Think Miriam, think; a basket of reeds, on e
that will float. She said to her brother, “Aaron, we must weave a basket of papyrus reeds,” and they did. [So we’re not as direct as we could be… Miriam is who? Moses’…. (sister). Aaron is who? Moses’… (brother) – this is the same Aaron who was to become the first high priest, the religious leader of the people.] Smart young people. All night long they worked together. In the morning, tired, hopeful, the family took the new baby, kissed
him all over, patted his “tuchas” and tucked him in his basket. Miriam took the basket to the river and while she hid in the tall grasses, floated her new brother downstream past the very place the Pharaoh’s daughter went swimming every
morning.

And there she was, ready to dive in, when a beautiful woven basket floated by . And in the basket? A tiny perfect Jewish baby, cute and very noisy: Whaa, whaa! Pharaoh’s daughter drew him from the water and said with love: “I will
raise you but who will feed you?” Miriam, delighted, alert, piped up from her hiding place and said: “I know a good woman, Yochevet, who will nurse him.”

“Perfect,” said the daughter of Pharaoh. “Bring him to me when he is weaned; he will be as my own son for I have no other. Moses, I will call him Moses because I brought him from the river’s water.” [Miriam is quite an unusual character! 5 years old (maybe 6 by this time) and so clever! Another noteworthy female character in a Torah dominated by voices and actions of men.]

History tells is that Moses grew up in the palace and had no awareness of himself as a Jew. But we know that Moses was nursed by Yochevet and had played with Aaron and Miriam and his father Amram, and though he left when he was weaned, the memory of their warmth, their love, their light, was in his head and heart.
 

Growing up, Moshe is growing up Restless, very restless Not at ease in his palace home not at peace with the Pharaoh He goes out walking, is often out Watching and listening… He’s learned all his teachers have to offer… Lonely, this upper class boy, with no peers, heir to the Pharaoh, honest and compassionate, Moshe tries to ease the burdens of the workers He has questions “Who are these Jews to me?” Who are these workers, these slaves, so driven in toil That the quarries, the cities, the roads, and the tombs are built with the blood of the Jews in their bricks? Why the Jews

I must speak out  I can’t bear this Don’t you beat him! He is dying! She is starving! You, overseer, why must you be so brutal? The Taskmaster says to Moses, You mind your own business. young Pharaoh- son! A slave who can’t work here is useless, is guilty, is worthless. The whip is the master. But no! You can’t kill them Tho’ slaves, they’re all people! We’re all people! My just heart is breaking My reason is shattered

[Note that Moses grew up in privilege, in the house of the king. He could have shut himself off from the plight of the average person. Why didn’t he? Could the Jews have extricated themselves without him? Is there a moral here about social change movements needing some leadership and action from those in advanced positions in society? And what of the obligation of the elite to not lock themselves away from the plight of the ugly underside of society?]

And in the fury, in the pain and confusion, young, idealistic, ready, impuslive Moses killed the taskmaster who beat the slave. [At the very end of the Seder, after dinner, we will briefly talk about rule of law, about "might versus right". For now just note that Moses was so enraged that he committed murder.] And then he fled to the desert, through barren hills and over- dried river beds, to think, and to wait and to grow, beyond the Jordan River. Moses arrived at and stayed many years in Midian. He married Tzeporah and had children. He tended flocks in the wilderness. Life there was good, and yet he never forgot Mitzrayim and the good people enslaved there under Pharaoh.

One day, while grazing his flock and gazing out on the vastness of the desert, he envisioned a bush that burned and burned and did not burn up. And he heard a voice, saying to him what he knew to be true— that the people in his
memories were his own people, that he should return to them, and together they would find a way to be free.

Moses left his life and family in Midian, and returned to Mitzrayim. And what’s happening now back in the Mitzrayim of his youth, his crime, and his vision?

[embellishment in the midrashic tradition of inventing what happened between the lines in the story]
The Jews are hungry.
The Jews are tired.
The Jews are angry.
The Jews are talking with each other.
The Jews are beginning to organize!
Talks of rebellion, talk of escape
Debate argue struggle
Unity struggle unity NO struggle unity struggle— community!
New unity— and a plan evolves:
First, negotiate with the Pharaoh, and if that doesn’t work
Then, threaten with powerful magic, and if that doesn’t work
Then split from Mitzrayim

After all, Pharaoh is not likely to choose to free his entire exploitable labor force just like that! (Snap the fingers.)

Did ya hear?
Hear what?
He’s back in town.
Who’s back in town?
Moses. Remember Moses?
Never expected to see him again.
How does he look?
Older and wiser and…
He’s come out as a Jew!
He wants to work with us, says he has ideas about
How we can all get out of here…

So a new committee was formed, the “how to get out of here” committee. They met every Tuesday and Thursday night for two months, down by the fleshpots. At the end of two months, people weren’t sure that much had been accomplished. Some preferred to remain in slavery rather than face the perils of committee life.

They debated questions of violence and non- violence: is property damage acceptable? Causing enemies to suffer? What about the innocent bystanders? How about revenge?

They also debated questions of leadership: “I think Moses has taken too much power. Let’s try rotational leadership— after all, we don’t want him to have a distorted role in history. We’re all working very hard for our liberation!”

And they were. But Moses had an “in” with Pharaoh, and the time for negotiations had arrived. Armed with the best speech the propaganda committee could prepare and several support people, Moses proposed that Pharaoh free the Jews, with as little fuss as possible.

Pharaoh, of course, said “No,” and the peaceful negotiation was ended. Then
Miriam spoke for the women:
In sadness, we must proceed with our plans,
Pharaoh, do you hear us?
Great suffering will come to the land of Mitzrayim.
We’d rather our freedom be gained without hurting the people of this land.
One plague at a time we will bring you,
And each time we will say: “let my people go!
And Pharaoh didn’t listen.

The Jews marked their doorposts and death “passed over” their homes taking only the children of the people of Pharaoh. And hearing the awful cries of mourning, the grief of all the parents and brothers and sisters, Pharaoh ordered
the Jews to leave.

And they did, very quickly, taking only their journey food, matzah. Yet Pharaoh has a change of heart, and mobilized his forces to recapture the fleeing slaves. The chariots reached the Jews when they were nearing the shores of the Red
Sea. They turned around to see the army of the Egyptians bearing down on them, and were filled with fear. They turned on Moses for bringing them to this impasse.

But, it is said that one man, Nachson, took a risk and walked into the sea, and the waters divided. In doing this he acted as a free man. Only after Nachson and those who followed him had made their first break with slavery, did the
waters divide and drown the army of the Pharaoh.

The Jews never forgot the price that the people of Mitzrayim paid for their freedom. We remember tonight by spilling out a drop of wine from our cups as we recite the plagues one by one. In this way we diminish our pleasure, as the
suffering of others diminished our joy. (25)

The plagues:

Back to the traditional haggadah: read the list of plagues and pour out drops from our cup of joy

Plagues of modern day: go around the table, everyone announcing one that they think of. Keep going until you have ten plagues if there are fewer people present.

Skip the section where the rabbis argue over how many plagues there were. Instead, note that those plagues were brought by God against our oppressors. Discuss: The plagues today are an unintended consequence of the human order of things. Are they brought by us? Are they brought by God upon humans and the earth as a warning – as part of the natural order that creates such warnings? Were the average Egyptians victims or oppressors (or both) – in what ways? But the plagues today, don’t they mostly fall upon the most vulnerable, not upon those most responsible for the human order of things? What do we make of this?

Dayenu:

Back to traditional haggadah for Dayenu, then a version for our times...

by Rachael Kamel for "In Every Generation: A Seder for Economic Justice," Congregation Mishkan Shalom, Philadelphia, PA, 1996/5756.

DAYENU
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH FOR US

Dayenu. It would have been enough.

Dayenui reminds us of the many miracles and triumphs that form the links in the chain of our liberation from Mitzrayim. We pause to take in the fullness of each moment in our story of exodus, and we say that each would have been sufficient. In each we experience the power of love and the power of history. Each was a great transformation. Each would have been enough, we say, even without the following link in the chain.

Of course, if the story had really stopped at any one of these moments, we would have perished, whether at the hands of Pharaoh's armies, by drowning in the Reed Sea, or dying of hunger and thirst in the desert. It is because each moment of transformation gave way to the next, that the Exodus story has endured for millennia as a profound emblem of liberation.

What are the links in the chain of economic justice?

It is difficult to know where to begin. Every people, in every generation has fought in some way for dignity, for security, for survival.

We might begin the story in 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation signaled the end of the abomination of chattel slavery.

All: Dayenu!

Or we might begin in 1886, when the fledgling U.S. labor movement went on strike for the eight-hour day, a victory which we now regard as a basic right.

All: Dayenu!

In the first years of this century, powerful peopleis movements swept the countryoincluding the Populists, Progressives, and Socialistsofocusing public rage at the irobber baronsi and their unrestrained greed. For the first time, corporations were restrained by government, as monopolies were broken up and child labor was outlawed.

All: Dayenu!

Spurred by the Great Depression and the explosive growth of the labor movement, in the 1930s the New Deal brought us many further triumphs: Social Security and unemployment insurance, to name only two.

All: Dayenu

By the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement had shaken U.S. society to its foundations, and the eradication of poverty was acknowledged as a social responsibility in the War on Poverty. Medicaid and Medicare guaranteed health care to the poor and elderly.

All: Dayenu!

By the 1970s, communities of color and the burgeoning women's movement won acceptance of the principle of Affirmative Action and the institution of concrete remedies to centuries of discrimination.

All: Dayenu!

Today, we must come to grips with the paradox that all of these victories add up to less than the sum of their parts. Some Americans have enjoyed enhanced prosperity; most have seen their real wages, security and quality of life decline. An African-American middle class has emerged, while at the same time racial disparities are widening. The gap between the sexes has narrowed slightlyonot because womenis wages are rising, but rather because menis wages are falling.

We cannot go back to the victories,or the certainties,of the past, for each in its turn has proved incomplete. We must find our way forward to the next link in the chain: the new transformation that will enable us to overcome joblessness and capital flight, to reverse the widening gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us, to end the death-grip of racism, fear and violence on our communities. Then we will truly say,

All: Dayenu!

Pointing out the seder plate symbols:

Do the traditional haggadah portion of pointing to and explaining the symbolic Pesach sacrifice, the matzah, and the marror. Continue through end of paragraph that begins "In every generation one must look upon himself as if s/he personally came out of Egypt…", then skip ahead.

Do the 2^nd cup and continue to follow the traditional up to the meal!

From: Rabbis for Human Rights - North America, Haggadah supplement 2003/5763 on economic justice (entire document available online)
Rabbi Gerry Serotta [Temple Shalom, Silver Spring, MD]

I n the spirit of asking questions at the Seder, the blessings and paradoxical statements of the Birkat Hamazon lead to other quandaries. The first blessing refers to God as the one who provides food for all ( / hazan et hakhol). How can we pray this falsehood? Should we see it as a reminder that there is abundance for all available in the world but that human beings have messed up the distribution system? Or should we see it as a challenge to make it real in our society and in our own eating behaviors? Similarly we recite that we wish not to be dependent on human loans or handouts ( / lo lidei matnat basar vadam), but rather on the order of the world that God intended. What is that order and how do we make it so?

We bless you now Eternal One,
The power and majesty in all.
You gave us this food, you sustain our lives
Through your grace,
    through your love,
        your compassion.
You provide all the food that comes to us,
Guiding and nourishing our lives.
Now we hope and we pray,
For a wondrous and great day,
    when no one in our world
        will lack bread or food to eat.
We will work to help bring in that time
When all who hunger will eat and be filled,
Every human will know that yours is the power
Sustaining all life and doing good for all.
We bless you now Eternal One for feeding everything.

Adapted from the translation by Rabbi Burt Jacobson

Elijah’s cup and Miriam’s cup

From Shomrei Adamah Earth Day seder, April 2000, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb [Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda/Potomac, MD]

At this point in the seder, Jewish communities beset by persecution during the Crusades opened their doors and recited the angry plea "Sh'foch Chamatcha... Pour out Your wrath upon the nations who do not know You."

In other communities during the same period, the hope for redemption was so intense that they sang to invoke the Prophet Elijah, who according to legend would herald an era of Messianic peace, justice, and healing.

We open out doors now, at the end of this bloody century [beginning of a new one so far the same], with the need to act on both impulses. The crimes that we see - the rape and torture of innocents, ethnic cleansing, the destruction of entire cities and cultures - cry out for just retribution beyond our limited capacity. And ourlonging for peace, for healing of earth, body and spirit, still brings the hope-drenched melody of Eliyahu Hanavi to our lips.

In the tradition of women's seders, the memory of Miriam the Prophet has been linked with that of Eliyahu. Miriam foresaw the birth of Moses, and according to midrash, was responsible for finding the wells in the wilderness that served as way stations on our people's journey.

Sing songs, whatever you like.

Tomorrow night, after we’ve been liberated from our narrow place (mitzrayim), we begin counting down the seven weeks to the giving of the law. And the Jews wandered the desert for 40 years after being given the law because they weren’t ready to handle it, to carry it out. It isn’t enough to have the law on the books, it must be embodied in the way of living and doing business, it must be a society of rule by law. But wasn’t God’s power play with the plagues a rule by might, a one up-man-ship over Pharoah – "I’ll show you whose boss!" ? What do we make of this? Does this justify (or partly justify) the US invasion of Iraq? Yet the idea was to lead to a society of rule of law – but what do we see today in US foreign policy? in the Prince George's County police force? in the Israeli military occupation of Palestinean lives and homes? In so many other examples around the world? Vigilante justice by those who have the power, not justice by the law. We have a lot of work to do during the next seven weeks!