Passover Publications & Resources
The Inner Haggadah A Seder for activists, shut-ins, singers,
students, poets, etc. Materials: Grape
juice candles bowl
for hand washing towel matza shankbone
or a roasted beet roasted
egg horseradish
root or romaine lettuce (maror) salt
water parsley
or onion or boiled potato (karpas) Charoset The seder
plate may be laid out this way: Beitza/eggie zaroa/shankbone or beet Maror Karpas Charoset We begin
by singing the order of the Events of the Seder (seder
means "order"): 1)
Say the Kiddush 2)
Wash the hands 3)
Eat a green vegetable 4)
Break the middle matza 5)
Tell the story 6)
Wash the hands 7)
Eat the matza 8)
Eat the bitter herb 9)
Eat bitter herb and matza 10)
The meal 11)
Eat the afikoman 12)
Blessing after eating 13)
Hallel 14)
Conclude Kadesh
u-r karpas
yachatz Maggid
Rachtza Motzi
Matza Maror
korekh Shulchan
Orekh Tzafun Barech Hallel Nirtza Kiddush First
cup of juice: Baruch
Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam Borei
p Blessed
are You Eternal our God Ruler
of the Universe Creator
of the fruit of the vine. Amen. Light
the candles Baruch
Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam Asher
kid-sha-nu b v l Blessed
are You Eternal our God Ruler
of the Universe Who has made us holy with mitzvotand has
asked us to light these candles of the Baruch
Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam She-he-che-ya-nu V V laz-man
ha-ze. Amen. Blessed
are You Eternal our God Who has
given us life and sustained
us and brought
us to this time. Amen. Praying for Gratitude My lines are drawn in pleasant places, making sense, laid into soft wax. My lines are laid in pleasant places, I am wearing them, now I am weaving them working backwards from the source. I am breathing soul at the inner point of truth, the lines converging on Tiferet, beauty. Master of all the worlds, I am thanking you for the soul breathing within me and the unclaimed soul without. I am tying untying my life in knots, I have assembled the fibers and hung them on the wall. All weavers pass through Tiferet, beauty. My lines are laid in pleasant places. Meet me at the blessing, it is a tunnel to the heart of the world. Restore me don I am wearing my soul like a coat, inside out. My lines are left in pleasant places, a true person of compassion pulled them together into time, just enough for another day. Now I know that nothing, nothing in God My lines are left in pleasant places, my lines are left in pleasant places, the soft wax of the world soul. Amen. Rachatz Walk
around and pour water over the hands
of all the participants, with
a bowl to catch the overflow, an act
of welcoming and purification. Pour
twice over the right hand, twice over the left hand. Dry.
No blessing, please. Karpas Dip the
parlsey (or small piece of onion or boiled potato) into
salt water and say the blessing before eating: Baruch
Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam Borei
p Blessed
are You Eternal our God Ruler
of the Universe Creator
of the fruit of the earth. Amen. Yachatz Break
the middle matza of the three, leave
the smaller part on the plate, the larger
part is used for the afikomen. Maggid (fill
the second cup) Song: Kol dich-fin
yei-tei ve-yei-chol, kol ditz-rich
yei-tei ve-yif-sach. La la
la. . . Let all
who are hungry enter and eat. Let all
who are needy come to our Passover feast. The Four
Questions (lift
the dish) 1) Ma
Nishtana ha-lai-la ha-ze mi-kol ha-lei-lot She-b chametz
u-matza ha-lai-la
ha-ze ku-lo matza. 2) She-be-chol
ha-lei-lot anu och-lin she-ar
ye-ra-kot ha-lai-la
ha-ze maror. 3) She-be-chol
ha-lei-lot ein anu mat-bi-lin a-fi-lu
pa-am achat ha-la-la
ha-ze she-tei fe-a-min. 4) She-be-chol
ha-lei-lot anu och-lin bein
yosh-vin u-vein m ha-lai-la
ha-ze ku-la-nu m Why is
this night different from all other nights? On all
other nights we eat either matza or chometz, on this
night only matza. On all
other nights we dip only once, on this
night we dip [our vegetables] two times. On all
other nights we eat either sitting or recling, on this
night we all eat reclining. (put
the dish down) It is
customary to eat an egg here, a memory
of the sacrifice called "chagiga" and symbol
of renewal. (Blessing
over the egg) Baruch
Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam She-ha-kol
n Blessed
are You Eternal our God Ruler
of the Universe Everything
created according to your word. Amen. Four
Other Questions (For
discussion at your table) Every Passover,
the Haggadah says, I should feel as if I, personally, were being liberated
from Egypt. That is always the point of the liberation saga: it is
my story. I am getting free. I ask myself four questions. First question: Free from what? The Hebrew
for "Egypt" is Mitzrayim, which is a pun. It means "narrow
place," like Detroit. Each year at Passover time, I get a little
more free, each year I leave that narrow place which is too small for
me now. It is a different place each year, because I am in a different
place each year. Mitzrayim, "the narrow place," is also meant
to conjure the birth narrows. Freedom is always a birth experience,
a re-birth, renewal. Second question: When does my freedom begin? R. Levi
Yitzchak of Berditchev asked this question: when does my freedom begin?
I might think it begins with leaving Egypt. The koan of the question
puts my memory to work on my own life, trying to discern the influences,
who said what to me when that gave me strength, that planted a seed,
that snuck the message by the guardians of my equanimity, the way the
soul eludes the intellect and speaks directly to the heart. Who taught
me to resist the easier, softer way of complacency, who taught me to
dream, who taught me that I could transform, be transformed, that I
could be free? Who was it? What teacher? What voice? Who is part of
my freedom chain? Who made it possible for me to get free? Third question: What is freedom? It is written
that the Torah was given in the third month after leaving Egypt, the
Midrash plays with the pun for the word "month" which in
Hebrew is related to the word for "something new" (chodesh/chidush).
That Asking the
two questions, when does freedom begin, and how do I know I have acquired
freedom re-fashions the liberation concept, re-formulating my notion
of freedom from something that I have or on Fourth question: What interferes with the
freedom journey? I put out
the chometz, all the leavened food, from my life forthis journey.
What is this chometz that I remove from my life during Pesach? The
chometz is anything inflatable, all the inflatable aspects of self
that prevent God. The inflatable sense of self aggrandizement, the
inflatable narcissism of self -- this is chometz, and this is what
I take out of my life during Passover. There is no room for God in
a person too full of self (Baal Shem Tov). I get, in a word, humble. We call
humility "bittul" which means suppression of self. Less self,
more other, less self more Other--this is the emerging Jewish spirituality.
When I eat matzah, that substance of no chometz, I am reminded that
chometz takes me away from God. Fifth Question
(in Chassidus, there is always a hidden fifth concept): So, what is
my response to the gift of freedom? Gratitude,
because it was a gift. Humility, because I didn Rabbi James
Stone Goodman ` Born in Detroit Song: Mi-mitz-ra-yim
ge-al-ta-nu mi-beit
a-va-dim pe-di-ta-nu. From
Egypt You redeemed us. From
the house of slaves You saved us. Four
Children: The Torah
speaks of Four Children: One wise,
one wicked, one tam/simple, and one
who does not know how to ask. The wise
child says: what are the laws of Pesach? The wicked
child says: what are these things "to you?" To this
child you say, "this is what God did for me when
leaving Mitzrayim" (Exodus 13:8) The Tam
says: "what is this?" (Exodus 13:14) To this
child you say, "with a strong arm God pulled
us out of Mitzrayim, from the house
of slaves." (Exodus 13:14) To the
child who does not know how to ask, you must
make the opening. as it
is said, "you shall tell your children on that day, saying,
this is done because of what God did for me in leaving
Mitzrayim." (Exodus 13:8) Last Stand of the Resistance When they came from the other side, the sirens chased us into a house at the end of the village. Who?
Egyptians? “Surely they are
coming back,” you said. We paused to breathe, to plan our escape. Outside the window the open field and beyond that the forest and the gold coast. We sat underneath the window. Siren -- ambulance or fire? Pharaoh does not disclose himself with sirens, we held hands tighter. Was it
Pharaoh? No, a reckless taxi full of fools, the owner of a radio station in a large midwestern city the mayor who had his hand in the preacher’s pocket the owner of the nursing home who signed his checks with
a gold pen they lunched on the skyline while we all burned in the
street. They chased us into the last house in the village. We decided to stay right there and be artfully defiant. James Stone Goodman A wandering
Aramean And you
shall go into the Kohen that
shall be in those days, and say
to him, I say today to Hashem your God, that
I am come into the country which Hashem swore
unto our ancestors to give us. And the
Kohen shall take the basket out of your hand, and set
it down before the altar of Hashem your God. And you
shall speak and say before Hashem your God, a wandering
Aramean was my father, and we
went down into Egypt, and sojourned
there with a few, and became
there a nation, great,
mighty, and populous, and the
Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted
us, and laid upon us hard bondage, and when
we cried out to Hashem
the God of our ancestors, Hashem
heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our
labor, and our oppression, and Hashem
brought us forth out of
Egypt with a mighty hand, and with
an outstretched arm, and with
great deeds, and with signs, and wonders. --Deut. 26:3 ff Tell/write/dream/draw
your Jewish story.
I am marking time backwards, nam The Plagues,
Song (melody from Sarajevo): U v Dam va-esh,
ve-tim-rot ashan. Davar
acher b u u u u-ve-mof-tim she-ta-yim, Ei-lu
eser makot she-hei-vi HaKadosh Baruch Hu al Ha-Mitz-rim
b Dam Tze-far-de-ya kinim arov dever shechin barad arbe Choshech macat b-cho-rot, Rabbi
Yehudah haya notein bahem si-ma-nim: DeTzaCh ADaSh B Another
thing: with
a mighty hand, means the two plagues, with
an outstretched arm, another two, with
great fear, another two, with signs, another two, and wonders,
another two. These
are the ten plagues with the Holy One brought
upon the Egyptians in Egypt, and they
are: Blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, darkness,
the slaying of the firstborn. Rabbi
Yehuda used to remember them by their initials: DeTZaCH,
ADaSH, B the heart Dayenu I-lu
hotz-i-anu mi-mitz-ra-yim Dayenu i-lu
na-tan la-nu et ha-shabbat Dayenu i-lu
na-tan la-nu et ha-Torah Dayenu Rabban
Gamaliel used to say, whoever
does not discuss these three things on Passover
has not fulfilled the obligation, and these are: Pesach Matza Maror Lift up The Pesach The Pesach,
the paschal lamb, which
our ancestors ate in the time when the Temple stood, what
does it mean? 1) Because
the Holy One "passed over" (pasach) our ancestors 2) Because
God leaped or jumped (Rashi on Exodus 12:13) and so
we should perform all our activities in a
similar manner, leaping and jumping, as God
leaped and jumped over our houses. The life
of the spirit requires a leap, a jump
over our limitations. Sometimes
the spiritual response is a measured, learned
response, and sometimes it is
a leap, a jump, to a higher awareness; a breakthrough
experience every now and again, to remind
ourselves what we are all about. 3) Or,
as Rebbe Nachman reads it, God "pasach" jumped
in, jumped out of our story. In Mitzrayim,
we were feeling far away from God, but Moses
let us know we would soon be leaving, he whispered
to us the secret of the Pesach lamb, |