Please find enclosed Torat Tzedek's English language Haggadah
supplements for this year. I will send
this year's Passover Thoughts during the intermediate days.
I hope that I will have pictures to send from an event that meant a lot
to me this week. If you don't remember the story of Ibrahim from Farata, he is
one of the people I ask that you invite to your seder table in the supplements
below. The fact that we successfully
helped him plant new trees this week is not moving to be only because of my 17
year relationship with Ibrahim, and the obligation I feel towards him. From the day we founded Torat Tzedek, we have
said that we strive to reverse the chipping away at the obligations of Israeli
security forces towards Palestinian farmers won in the 2006 Morar High Court
ruling. The fact that we were able to
get the army to do something that wasn't in their game plan, and that they
resisted, means that we are getting some wheels to turn. We will have to be creative and determined
facing what we will most likely face under our new government, but it is
possible.
Passover is about understanding that freedom and justice are possible,
even when they seem so distant.
On behalf of Torat Tzedek's staff, membership, board and volunteers, I
want to wish our Jewish friends a joyous and liberating Passover. We wish our Christian friends a blessed
Easter renewing your faith in the possibility of good news.
Arik
P.S. I would greatly appreciate
it if you would invite me to your community.
My next visit to North American will be centered around a visit to
Western Massachusetts May 30th-June 2nd. I am available before or after those
dates. After that, I plan to be in North
America in late November/early December, and possibly in Europe after that.
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The seder as we know it is actually the outline that our sages created for what was to take place on seder night. Rather than simply read the outline, as many us do, we were to fill it in with discussion, debate and commentary. This supplement should help you do so.
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Eloheinu
v'Elohei Kadmoneinu (Avoteinu, Avoteinu vEmoteinu),
our God & God of our ancestors, we are gathered around this seder table
as b'nei khorin, free people commanded to remember our dark nights of
oppression. Your Torah warns us never to become oppressors ourselves,
reminding us, "For you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Yet,
when we're honest with ourselves, we know that we have been Pharaoh to other
peoples, and to the disadvantaged among our own people. Our awareness that,
"In every generation there are those who arise to destroy us" often
causes us to harden our hearts, perceive hatred where it does not exist and
justify the oppression of others.
We
therefore turn to You, as in days of old. Stand with us, so that our fears
not rise up to be our taskmasters. Help us to banish Pharaoh from our hearts,
and let the rest of humanity in.
With
Pharaoh at bay, we are better able to perceive the desecration of Your Image
found in every human being. As with the plagues of old, our joy is diminished
when we hear of those whose lives remain embittered. "Hashata Avdei,"
"This year we remain slaves because of their oppression." We remove additional drops of wine from our
cup of celebration and renew our commitment to winning their freedom, thereby
completing ours. We make room in our hearts and at our table for:
(Choose
one or more. One person can read out loud, & all participants can read
the final line together)
Ibrahim {not real name) organized
the Bedouin shepherds around the "Omer's Farm" outpost. He always
had a smile on his face, and would even flirt with the women soldiers. One day Omer's brother and two additional
thugs beat him up. The army managed to
arrive and recover his stolen sheep and donkey. He declined to lodge a police complaint,
fearing what would happen if Omer would decide to take revenge. A month later
soldiers detained him. Knowing that
Omer didn't want to see uppity shepherds in the area he had claimed as his, the
soldiers targeted the leader. Shortly after, Ibrahim says that Omer showed up
in his home in the middle of the night, put a gun to his head, and told him
that he would kill all his sheep if he dared to come into "his"
territory again. Ibrahim's father made him sell his sheep the next day. More recently, masked soldiers
"visited" Ibrahim's neighbors, warning them not to enter
"Omer's territory."
Tonight, when we open the door for Elijah we remember
the years that we didn't know who or what was waiting for us in the middle of
the night. We know we must do what we
can to stop the terror stalking Ibrahim and the Bedouin shepherds by night,
and the expulsions from grazing lands by day. Omer doesn't want them anywhere
near his table, but they have a seat at ours.
Sima (not real name) is an Israeli single parent
mom. She lives on the edge, and
suffered for months because she couldn't afford a dentist. She met somebody in the tents of the 2011
social protest movement, but can't marry because she might lose the public
housing apartment she fought for. Sima
doesn't just fight for herself. She runs a legal clinic that has helped many
to put a roof over their heads. The
clerks and bureaucrats know that when she accompanies another single mother,
they can't play around.
The midrash teaches that we were redeemed from Egypt
because the women maintained hope and persevered, even when the men had given
up. Tonight we invite Sima to our
table. We honor her tenacity, and the perseverance of the single parent moms
for whom a laden table is a far away dream.
Ali (not real
name) used to make a living from his olive trees. But his bad luck
is that his grove is next to the violent Khavat Gilad outpost. He once had 450 trees there, but only 230
remain. He can't get to the grove
without army protection, and when he does get there he finds every year that
most of his olives have been stolen. Khavat Gilad homes have been built in
the grove. Now in his sixties, he has
been forced to become a day laborer in Israel. After a Government Cabinet
vote to legalize Khavat Gilad, he asks whether anything will remain. In
October, bulldozers cleared land, apparently to build another home. He lost 22 trees that day. After months, he finally received
protection to plant new trees, only after Israeli organizations asked why the
army was demanding Ali again prove ownership in order to replace the trees
their negligence had allowed to be cut down.
One officer promised to help protect the new trees. The army had also promised in October..
Tonight when we declare "Let all who are hungry
come and eat we know that it would be better if Ali could support himself, rather
than come to our table. We share his
hope against hope that the seedlings he has planted contain the seeds of
redemption.
SheikhSayakh:
Last
year Sheikh Sayakh slept on the ground near where his village once stood. Now he is serving a 10 month jail sentence
for "trespassing" on his own land, and couldn’t attend the opening
of the court hearings in which he and his family seek to prove their
ownership. The judge offered to cancel
his sentence if he would agree not to return to Al-Araqib, "Why at your
advanced age do you need to spend 10 months in jail?" Some of his
friends agreed. But, Sayakh knew that an agreement on his part would
undermine his determined effort to hold on to his tribe's land, despite over
130 demolitions of whatever he and a handful of family members manage to
rebuild. Sheikh Sayakh says that those Israeli Jews who support El-Araqib
help give him strength.
Our sages ask what
gave our ancestors strength, and how much longer they could have survived
Egyptian oppression had not God fulfilled God's promise to stand with us.
Tonight we know that we must stand with El-Araqib, and all of Israel's
Bedouin citizens.
African Asylum
Seekers: A mass expulsion was supposed to take place last Passover. Israel's
High Court originally intended to allow it, but issued a temporary order when
the judges realized that there was no truth to government claims that they
had an agreement from a safe country to welcome them. There were all too many
stories of their friends who "agreed" to leave and were killed,
drowned, became slaves and/or were tortured.
Many of parties poised to form Israel's next government are committed
to passing laws making it easier for them to override the Court, when it
thwarts their plans. Asylum seekers
know their future is perilous.
We were once slaves,
and our Torah commands us not to return fleeing slaves to their owners.
Tonight we commit to redoubling our efforts to stop plans to condemn others
to slavery, or worse.
Some
say that our sages of old spent seder night planning how to resist and end
tyranny. Recalling the midwives of old, we know that the seeds of redemption
are planted when we oppose Pharaoh's command. Now we must decide whether the
story we tell tonight is only a tale of long ago, or a story instructing us
what we must do tomorrow. The rabbis
taught that the seder moves from from gnut to
shevakh, from degradation to praiseworthiness. Will we?
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MAY OUR STORY OF WHAT WAS STRENGTHEN OUR RESOLVE TO STRIVE FOR WHAT MUST BE: NEXT YEAR IN A JERUSALEM REDEEMED THROUGH JUSTICE
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You shall not wrong
a ger (Non-Jew living among you and living by your rules) or oppress him/her,
for you were gerim in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:20)
The
great, meta-principle is oft-repeated in the Torah that it is not race, not
descent, not birth nor country of origin, nor property, nor anything external
or due to chance, but simply and purely the inner spiritual and moral worth of
a human being, that gives him/her all the rights of a human being and of a
citizen. This basic principle is further protected against infringement by the
additional explanation, "For you were gerim in the land of
Egypt." … Your entire misfortune in Egypt was that you were “foreigners”
and “aliens." As such, according to the views of other nations, you had no
right to be there, had no claim to property, to homeland, or to a dignified
existence. It was permissible to do to you whatever they wished. As gerim,
your rights were denied in Egypt. This was the source of the slavery and
wretchedness imposed upon you. Therefore beware, so runs the warning, from
making human rights in your own state conditional on anything other than on the
basic humanity which every human being as such bears within him/her by virtue
of being human. Any suppression of these human and civil rights opens the gate
to the indiscriminate use of power and abuse of human beings, to the whole
horror of Egyptian mishandling of human beings that was the root of abomination
of Egypt.
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