The Haggadah as a Source Text for Lifelong Happiness (Copy)

Soul Mates - Talking Till Morning (From the Ayeka Haggadah: Hearing Your Own Voice)

A slave doesn't have much to talk about. There are no personal goals, no dreams or aspirations, no highlights, and no change. Just the same old, same old.

And with nothing to talk about, there isn't much hope for deep friendship. There is nothing new to share. Being a slave is a very lonely experience.

On the other hand, people who talk till sunrise are full of passion and hope. We simply don't want to go to sleep. Our conversation keeps pushing for more; we are oblivious to our need to rest.

People who are in love - whether with another person or a project - stay up all night talking. There is so much to know; there is endless curiosity and interest.

The rabbis sat together till the sun came up. They couldn't stop. They had found their fellow travelers.

Who are your traveling partners? With whom could you talk till dawn? What is one idea you would talk about?

Techine for Candle Lighting for Passover

May it be Your will, my God and God of my ancestors, to be gracious to me and to all my family and to give us, and all Israel, a good and long life. Remember us with goodness and blessing, and grant us salvation and mercy. Bless us with abundant blessing, and fortify the places we call home.

May Your presence dwell among us as we gather here tonight. May we be blessed to bring up children and disciples who are wise and learned, lovers of God who stand in awe of You, people who speak the truth and spread holiness. May those we nurture and teach, light the world with words of Torah and deeds of justice.

Hear the prayer that I utter now, in the name of our mothers Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah. May Your light, reflected in these candles, shine upon us always. And let us say, Amen.

(Techine are petitionary prayers written in Yiddish and recited by women.)

Introduction to the 10 Plagues from the Kveller Haggadah

It's time to recite the 10 plagues. As you say each one, dip one finger (many use their pinkies) into your wine or grape juice and touch it to your plate. Do not lick your fingers! By not tasting these drops, we are saying: We take no joy when other people suffer, even if the people suffering are our enemies. Their pain makes our joy a little less joyful and, in this case, our glasses a little less full.

Ten Modern Plagues

The traditional Haggadah lists ten plagues that afflicted the Egyptians. We live in a very different world, but Passover is a good time to remember that, even after our liberation from slavery in Egypt, there are still many challenges for us to meet. Here are ten “modern plagues”:

Inequity - Access to affordable housing, quality healthcare, nutritious food, good schools, and higher education is far from equal. The disparity between rich and poor is growing, and opportunities for upward mobility are limited.

Entitlement - Too many people consider themselves entitled to material comfort, economic security, and other privileges of middle-class life without hard work.

Fear - Fear of “the other” produces and reinforces xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia.

Greed - Profits are a higher priority than the safety of workers or the health of the environment. The top one percent of the American population controls 42% of the country’s financial wealth, while corporations send jobs off-shore and American workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively is threatened.

Distraction - In this age of constant connectedness, we are easily distracted by an unending barrage of information, much of it meaningless, with no way to discern what is important.

Distortion of reality - The media constructs and society accepts unrealistic expectations, leading to eating disorders and an unhealthy obsession with appearance for both men and women.

Unawareness - It is easy to be unaware of the consequences our consumer choices have for the environment and for workers at home and abroad. Do we know where or how our clothes are made? Where or how our food is produced? The working conditions? The impact on the environment?

Discrimination - While we celebrate our liberation from bondage in Egypt, too many people still suffer from discrimination. For example, blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate. Women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. At 61 cents to the dollar, the disparity is even more shocking in Jewish communal organization.

Silence - Every year, 4.8 million cases of domestic violence against American women are reported. We do not talk about things that are disturbing, such as rape, sex trafficking, child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse, even though they happen every day in our own communities.

Feeling overwhelmed and disempowered - When faced with these modern “plagues,” how often do we doubt or question our own ability to make a difference? How often do we feel paralyzed because we do not know what to do to bring about change?

Source: JWA / Jewish Boston - The Wandering Is Over Haggadah; Including Women's Voices

The Four Children - Teaching the Next Generation, A Modern Version by the American Jewish World Service

At Passover each year, we read the story of our ancestors’ pursuit of liberation from oppression. When confronting this history, how do we answer our children when they ask us how to pursue justice in our time?

What does the activist child ask?
“The Torah tells me, ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue,’ but how can I pursue justice?”

Empower her always to seek pathways to advocate for the vulnerable. As Proverbs teaches, “Speak up for the mute, for the rights of the unfortunate. Speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.”

What does the skeptical child ask?
“How can I solve problems of such enormity?”

Encourage him by explaining that he need not solve the problems, he must only do what he is capable of doing. As we read in Pirkei Avot—The Ethics of Our Ancestors, “It is not your responsibility to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

What does the indifferent child say?
“It’s not my responsibility.”

Persuade her that responsibility cannot be shirked. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

And the uninformed child who does not know how to ask …

Prompt him to see himself as an inheritor of our people’s legacy. As it says in Deuteronomy, “You must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

At this season of liberation, let us work toward the liberation of all people.

Let us respond to our children’s questions with action and justice.

Expressing Gratitude, A Reading for Dayenu from the Ayeka Haggadah, Hearing Your Own Voice

Sometimes the accumulation of life's small defeats can wear us down and make us lose hope.

My brain is flooded with, "Why didn't I do that? I can't believe I did that again; what on earth was I thinking?"

What would happen if I changed my focus? If instead of reminding myself of my failings, I started to list my successes? Even my little ones?

What would happen if we began publicizing achievements and blessings rather than catastrophes and setbacks?

What if we tried to see things in a positive light? If we constructed "gratitude lists" to make us more aware of all the wonderful things happening to us?

Singing the song "Dayenu," a keystone moment for many families, is nothing if not a "national gratitude list." After a rousing chorus, how can a person not have more hope?

What would be on your gratitude list for the Jewish People? Can you get to fifteen things?

Matzah - Take 2, A Reading in the Ayeka Haggadah Hearing Your Own Voice from the section of the Maggid on Rabban Gamliel, What is the Meaning of the Matzah That We Eat?

People have told me that getting stuck is one of the most serious reasons that they lose hope.

Being stuck in a habit, a relationship, or an attitude causes me to think I can never change.

At the beginning of the Seder we refer to matzah as "the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate in Egypt." We only see the negative side of matzah.

Toward the end of the Haggadah, we describe matzah as the dough that didn't have time to rise as God was redeeming the Jewish people. The bread of affliction has now become the bread of liberation. Suddenly, the matzah is put into a larger context and everything changes.

The process of reframing an experience, of placing a negative moment into a larger context, is essential to our becoming unstuck.

What habit or relationship do you need to reframe, to de-stuckify?