Please read this and bring these ideas and readings to whatever celebration you attend during Passover!!!

Next Year in Jerusalem? Passover for those whose moral compass has not gone dead   

Throughout the past week the world has heard Israeli government officials and their allies in the US --particularly among the pro-settler crowd -- defending construction in East Jerusalem settlements on the grounds that "everybody knows" these areas will always be part of Israel.

The "everybody knows" argument is familiar. Those in the peace camp often say that everybody knows what an Israeli-Palestinian permanent status agreement looks like. Their point being: all that is needed is the political will of courageous leaders to work out the final, hardest details and sign the treaty.

But today the "everybody knows" meme has been cynically appropriated by Netanyahu and his supporters. "Everybody knows these areas in East Jerusalem will always be Israel," they say, "so when the Palestinians (and the Americans) make a fuss about new construction plans, it is just for political purposes, not because there is any real issue."

Those peddling this rubbish are guilty of transparent manipulation. Those buying it are guilty of having short memories and an excess of credulity.

In 1993, when the peace process was taking off, the settlement of Ramat Shlomo -- which last week caused such a headache for Vice President Biden -- didn't exist. The site was an empty hill in East Jerusalem (not "no man's land," as some have asserted), home only to dirt, trees and grazing goats.  It was empty because Israel expropriated the land in 1973 from the Palestinian village of Shuafat and made it off-limits to development. Only later, with the onset of the peace process era, was the land zoned for construction and a brand-new settlement called Rehkes Shuafat (later renamed Ramat Shlomo) built.  

If in 1993 you had asked what areas "everybody knows" would stay part of Israel under any future agreement, the area that is today Ramat Shlomo -- territorially distinct from any other settlement and contiguous with the Palestinian neighborhood of Shuafat -- would not have been mentioned. 

The same can be said for the massive settlement of Har Homa, for which Israel issued new tenders in the past few days (sometime after the Ramat Shlomo-Biden fiasco). Here, again, the argument is that "everybody knows" this area will forever be part of Israel. But here again, we are talking about an area that at the outset of the peace process was empty land -- devoid of Israelis, belonging mainly to Palestinians, and contiguous entirely with Palestinian areas -- that anybody drawing a logical border would have placed on the Palestinian side. 

American pundits and members of Congress may be unfamiliar with or may have forgotten these inconvenient facts, but the Palestinians -- who have watched Israel eat away at East Jerusalem at an increasing pace -- have not.

Some will argue that these are the facts on the ground today, and the fact is that Israel will never part with the big East Jerusalem settlements. So regardless of sins of the past, why make a fuss about new construction in them?

The answer lies in a closer look at what Netanyahu means when he talks about what "everybody knows."

Because if he meant that everybody understands what will be Israeli and what will be Palestinian in Jerusalem, this would potentially be great news: it could mean an agreement is possible, at least on Jerusalem, tomorrow. And if that were what he meant, then just as he suggests that Israel can build without restrictions in the areas that "everybody knows" will stay Israeli, he would have no problem with Palestinians building without restrictions in the areas that everyone knows will be Palestinian.

But there's the catch: for Netanyahu, there is no place in Jerusalem that "everybody knows" will be Palestinian.

What Netanyahu really means is that East Jerusalem land falls into two categories: areas that "everybody knows" Israel will keep and where it can therefore act with impunity, and areas that Israel hopes it can keep, by dint of changing so many facts on the ground before a peace agreement is reached that they move into the first category.

It is an approach that can be summed up as: "what's mine is mine, and what you think is yours will hopefully be mine, too." It discloses with stark clarity the underlying principle of Netanyahu's Jerusalem policies: the status of Jerusalem and its borders will be determined by Israeli deeds rather than by negotiations. More bluntly, who needs agreement with Palestinians or recognition of the international community when "everybody knows"?

And it is an approach that we see today on the ground, where Israel is doing its best -- through construction, demolitions, changes in the public domain -- to transform areas of East Jerusalem that have always been overwhelmingly Palestinian into areas that everybody will soon recognize as Israeli, now and forever. This is happening in the area surrounding the Old City, in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods like Ras al Amud and Jebel Mukabber, and it is now starting to target areas like Shuafat and Beit Hanina.

The notion that a peace process can survive such an Israeli approach in Jerusalem is not rational.  The notion that Israel can be taken seriously as a peace partner while acting this way is farcical.  And the notion that the United States can be a credible steward of peace efforts while tolerating such behavior is laughable.

Lara Friedman is director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now.  Daniel Seidemann is the founder of the Israeli NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem.

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Happy Passover from Gaza

By Sam Bahour

In 2010, Jews in Israel and around the world will celebrate Passover beginning on the even of March 29^th. Passover is the seven-day holiday (8 in the Diaspora) of the Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorating the ancient Hebrews' escape from enslavement in Egypt. (In Israel, March 30^th is also Land Day: the day when Palestinians commemorate and protest the confiscation of their lands by the Israeli government; but that’s another story.)

As I’m learning, the Passover holiday begins with the Seder, a traditional ceremonial meal. Its centerpiece is a special Seder plate containing six symbolic foods. Each has its own significance in the retelling of the story of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt. The stack of three matzos, or unleavened bread, a kind of cracker made of plain white flour and water, has its own separate plate on the Seder table.

For each of the six traditional items on the Seder plate (as per Wikipedia and the Chabad website) —listed here by its Hebrew name—I note its traditional symbolic role and offer an additional, alternative interpretation. I hope my alternative can help Jews around the world, and especially in Israel, connect with a broader perspective on the meaning of Passover right here, right now, in the land that became the eventual endpoint of that ancient exodus.

Maror and Chazeret — Bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery which the Jews endured in Egypt. Slavery: severe curtailment of one’s freedom. Today, one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza are tasting the bitterness of unfreedom, hermetically sealed in their encircled enclave with no end in sight. Sixty percent are under the age of 16. The Jewish citizens of Israel have hardened their hearts to this reality and they have expected the rest of the world’s Jews to do likewise. For how long will you wait for Palestinians to vanish?

Charoset — A coarse mixture of chopped nuts, apples or dates, and wine, meant to symbolize the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build the storehouses of Egypt. Today, Israel permits no mortar, or cement, or any other building materials, to enter Gaza. Let them sleep in tents! This, after last winter’s assault on Gaza, internationally documented war crimes (and possibly crimes against humanity), causing over 1,400 deaths in 22 days between December 2008 and January 2009– leaving scores homeless in the rubble. Is this the freedom Moses envisioned? The freedom to attack civilians with the tanks, planes and warships of the “Jewish” State? Doesn’t sound very Jewish to me. Not at all.

Karpas — A vegetable other than bitter herbs, dipped into salt water (which represents tears) to recall the pain felt by the Jewish slaves in Egypt. Tears! Pain! In your name, my Jewish friends, Israel continues its inhuman siege on Gaza. The folks there shed tears as salty as anyone’s; their pain is beyond description. Two of every three of today’s Gaza residents originally lost their homes in what is now Israel when the state was established. Six decades later, they find themselves living a nightmare, a kind of living death: their economy in ruins, their neighborhoods in ruins, their educational and health systems in ruins, even their sanitation systems in ruins. Israel refuses to allow reconstruction. What comes after stripping Gazans from their last remaining sense of sanity?

Z'roa — A roasted lamb shankbone (or a chicken wing, or chicken neck) symbolizes the paschal sacrifice offered originally on the eve of the exodus and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. Sacrifice!  Do you insist on sacrificing the possibility of a sustainable future for modern Israel in the name of its founding myth – since discredited – that Palestine was “a land without people, for a people without a land”? A million of today’s Gazans are from the families that Israel expelled. Gazans have remained steadfast under conditions even the early Hebrews might have found intolerable in Egypt. Gazans, together with all Palestinians, are the people that Jews in Israel are destined to live with, today, tomorrow, and forever.  The only uncertainty is how much more hate will be generated by military occupation and armed assault before a process of shared rehabilitation can begin.

Beitzah — A hard-boiled egg, symbolizing the main festival sacrifice that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and roasted and eaten as part of the meal on Seder night. The egg is a symbol of mourning. Eggs are the first thing served to mourners after a Jewish funeral. The egg on the Seder plate evokes the mourning over the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent inability to offer sacrifices there in honor of the Pesach holiday.  Mourning!  As Jews, you know a lot about mourning; consider the sixty-two years of mourning, consider every day of every one of those years, among the people--real people, with real names and real children—in Gaza and in squalid refugee camps all around Israel who can see their homeland with the naked eye, but are denied their basic human right of returning home. Sixty-two Passovers and counting. All I ask of you on this year’s holy day, as you contemplate the egg on the Seder plate, is to remember them, no more.

My Jewish sisters and brothers, you can continue to look away as Israel claims to speak and to act in your name.  It kills and maims in your name.  It dispossesses and occupies in your name.  It talks peace and wages war in your name.  If you turn a deaf ear to their mourning again this year, if you harden your heart again this year, if your voice is not raised this year in protest – then you are acquiescing in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of another people, in your name.  If you cannot see Palestinians as fully human now, you will hear them trying to give voice to their humanity in your nightmares, year after year, until you can see and until you can hear.

It is written in the Talmud: We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. I urge you, while you commemorate the Hebrews’ ancient slavery and deliverance, to see yourselves finally as equals in this world: equal with your neighbors, neither their masters nor their slaves.  I urge you to see yourself and your children in the image of every Palestinian mother, father and child in Gaza. Let this year be the year of your shared redemption!

Free Gaza now!  End the occupation now!  Happy Passover from Gaza!

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American living under Israeli occupation. He may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com and blogs at www.epalestine.com.

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Here are some teachings that may be useful to you whether or not you actually attend a Seder or do the spiritual practice of Passover.

1. RabbiLerner's Supplement to the Haggadah. Please read it!

2. Letty Cottin Pogrebin's somewhat humorour but also quite serious The Ten Plagues According to Jewish Women. Letty was a founding editor of Ms. Magazine and a founding member of Tikkun's Editorial Advisory Board.

3. Prophetic Passover words from a new Tikkun blogger . You can read it on Tikkun Daily

4. Letty Cottin again--on the Judah-ization of East Jerusalem--NOT what we have in mind when we sing Next Year in Jerusalem!

5. My Jewish Renewal rabbinic colleague Miles Krassen on How To Get to Passover--an approach based on Kabbalah

And many blessings for a spiritually deep Passover, Easter, spring celebration or any other way you are celebrating the holiness of the period ahead.

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PASSOVER READINGS:

If you prefer to read this on line or download it, please go to http://www.tikkun.org/passover2010

FOR YOUR SEDER, here is a Haggadah supplement-nota replacement. If you don't normally

do a Seder, you can use this supplement as the basis

for an interfaith gathering in your home on March

29, the first night of Passover, or on any of the other

nights of Passover until it ends on April 6.

AS WE SIT AT THE SEDER TABLE we need to discuss how

ancient liberation for the Jews can inspire liberation today for

all people.

Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for

Barack Obama in 2008, and a majority of non-Jewish

Americans joined them. The message was clear: end the war

in Iraq and let our troops come home, end the war on the

poor and the environment, and stop favoring the rich and

corporate interests.

No wonder, then, that as we sit around the Passover table

in 2010 there is a widespread sense of disappointment at the

way President Obama moved far away from the hope for

"change that we can believe in." Some will celebrate the recent health care

legislation finally passed by the Congress, while others will point to the ways that

that version may in the long run undermine rather than strengthen support for progressive causes

because it forces 30 million people to get a health care plan that they don't want to have or face fines

for not doing so--but it does NOT contain any cost-controls so the insurance companies, hospitals, and docotrs

can keep on raising their fees, and ordinary people will feel squeezed by the government to be paying tens of billions into

the bank accounts of the health care profiteers.But, we at Tikkun argue back, don't minimize the value of having stopped

the momentum of the racists and reactionaries who were trying to sink the bill entirely--because now there may be a

change to improve the bill in years to come, but more importantly we can build on the positive energy evoked by the

passage of the bill to challenge the hateful energies that some people on the Right have made central to their

politics, opening up scary possibilties of a mass fascist movement in our country.

Some will say that Obama

was never who he said he was, that he was always just a

clever manipulator of our hopes while actually being a

centrist corporate-oriented politician, and that is why as

soon as he was elected he chose advisers such as Geithner

and Summers and chose to retain Bush's secretary of de-

fense, rather than balancing his cabinet with people like Paul

Krugman or Robert Reich and representatives of the

women's, GLBT, environmental, human rights, immigrant

rights, peace, and other progressive movements that made

his nomination possible in the first place.

Others will suggest

that he had no options, that he couldn't do more than he did

(and some will then say that he should have told the truth

about what was happening and that he should have stopped

trying to appeal to the people on his right while failing to ap-

peal to his own base). Still others will say that the whole idea

of a U.S. president being able to stand up to the complex of

corporate interests, military-industrial powers, insurance

and health care companies, pharmaceutical firms, fossil fuel

promoters, environmental polluters, and their banks and in-

vestment companies was ludicrous from the start. Some will

argue that to counter such forces Obama would have need-

ed to mobilize his own constituency, from the first moments

of his presidency, into an independent movement present in

the streets and in the balloting-a movement able to go door

to door to advocate for a new kind of social and economic

order and willing to push him away from the temptation of

betraying his highest vision through backroom deals.

Well, this IS the kind of discussion that is needed on

Passover this year-because Passover is not meant to be

merely a celebration of the Jewish victory for

liberation in our past, but is rather meant to

stimulate us to extend that liberation to the whole

world. Such liberation would bring an end to the

destruction of the environment. It would bring an

end to the cheapening of cultural life by the domi-

nance of an ethos of "looking out for number one."

It would bring an end to rampant materialism and our

society's belief in salvation through mechanical objects

and technological fixes.

It is not a new president that we need but a new kind of

movement. We need a movement that has a spiritual di-

mension and affirms and builds on what the 2008 election

revealed: the deep yearning of Americans (and really all

people on the planet) for a world in which love, kindness,

generosity, ethical and ecological sanity, awe and wonder at

the grandeur of the universe, and commitment to a higher

meaning for our lives are valued over the pursuit of money,

power, sexual conquest, and fame, which have been extolled

as central values by corporate media and enshrined in the

workings of the global capitalist system. At the Seder table,

we invite you to ask how you can help get this kind of spiritual

consciousness introduced into the discourse of secular

liberal and progressive social change movements, NGOs,

and liberal political parties. We invite you to make this

discussion a central part of your Passover Seder this year.

LIBERATION TODAY IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Unfortunately, we in the Jewish world have another

major challenge. We have to face the set of distortions that

have accompanied a blind and idolatrous worship of the

State of Israel-distortions that are apparent whenever Jews

close their eyes to the suffering of our brothers and sisters,

the Palestinians. Go into most synagogues or Jewish institu-

tions in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom,

Australia, or France, and you' ll find that you can denounce

God, question the Torah, or refuse to follow various Jewish

ritual practices, and you are likely to be met with a "ho-hum"

response. But dare to question Israel and its policies, and

you' ll find yourself being denounced as a traitor, a self-

hating Jew, an anti-Semite, or "an accomplice of Hitler." The

blind worship of Israel has become the only contemporary

religion of the Jewish people, a people still so traumatized by

our long history of oppression and so angry at God for not

intervening during the Holocaust that we've come to believe

in the religion of our enemies, the religion that says that we

can only trust in our power, our army, and our ability to wipe

out our enemies.

To be sure, that celebration of violence and hurt

against our enemies was al ways there i n the

Jewish tradition and is present in the famous song

that Moses's sister Miriam is said to have com-

posed while watching Pharaoh's army drown in

the Sea of Reeds. But that chauvinist triumphal-

ism was the compensation for our powerlessness,

an empowering fantasy that made it possible for us

to believe that no matter what those who hated and

oppressed us were doing to us, no matter how bitter their

treatment of us, we would survive because there was a Force

of Healing and Transformation in the universe: God. We be-

lieved that God would ultimately be there for us as God had

been there for us in Egypt, when we had been utterly de-

graded as slaves. To see God as redeeming us when we could

see no rational path to self-protection had a positive value.

But today these very same thoughts have a very different

meaning when it is we who are powerful, and when our

Jewish community aligns itself with the State of Israel, even

as Israel uses its power in heartless and cruel ways against

another people over whom it rules. Israel's approach is struc-

turally cruel because on the one hand it denies Palestinians

the right to vote in Israel, but on the other hand it denies

Palestinians the freedom to create their own state and run

their own affairs free of the military presence of Israelis.

Our Torah understood the potential of this problem,

which is why its most frequently repeated command (mitz-

vah) is a variant of this: "When you come into your land, DO

NOT OPPRESS THE STRANGER. Remember that you

were strangers in the land of Egypt." Indeed, it commands us

positively: thou shalt love the stranger.

We cannot turn this Seder into a meaningless ritual by

ignoring the ways in which we, the Jewish people, have been

acting as Pharaoh to another people.

Yet we also have to approach these issues with a high degree

of compassion, both for Israelis and for Palestinians.

Both peoples have co-created the current mess. Both are suf-

fering from a post-traumatic stress disorder so acute that

they cannot recognize the humanity of the other, nor can

they see their way to the peace and justice both legitimately

seek. And both have been victims of a horrendous history of

oppression. So while we as Jews have a responsibility to

challenge our own people's distorted vision, we have to mix

that challenge with a high level of love and caring for our

own people, and recognize that our people needs healing

and not just chastisement. We have to acknowledge that

some Israeli intransigence is rooted in genuine fear that has

been reinforced by terrorist attacks and by Hamas' bombing

of Israeli cities, just as some Palestinian intransigence is

rooted in the daily violence imposed on Palestinians by the

Israeli Occupation, as well as by the targeted assassinations,

the killing of hundreds of civilians, and the jailing of tens of

thousands of Palestinians, who are often imprisoned

without formal charges. Because our people has

vastly more military power than the Palestinians,

we must mix our compassion with a firm commit-

ment to end the Occupation with its inevitable con-

sequences of human rights violations and its

hatred-generating behavior, which in turn has al-

ready ensured that there will be generations of

Palestinians who will feel justified in acts of terror

and hatred against our people. Both peoples need healing,

and that can only happen when there is both a genuine

peace accord that brings justice to the Palestinian people

and also a fundamental change in the dominant paradigm

of thought so that our people become the embodiment of

Torah values of love, generosity, repentance, and forgiveness.

We must escape the "blame game" of who did what to whom

and focus on how we can embody more loving and compas-

sion for both sides of this struggle.

HOW WE FIND SECURITY

What is really needed is a revolutionary transformation

in our way of thinking and in our economic, political, and so-

cial arrangements. America will find security when it is

perceived by the world as caring not merely for its own

well-being, particularly that of its most wealthy citizens

and global corporations, but genuinely for the well-being

of all of the people on the planet. Instead of relying on

domination, we know both from our holy texts and from our

real -worl d experi ence that i t i s generosi ty, ki ndness,

compassion, and caring for others that will be the key to our

success and survival.

Telling the ancient story reminds us that the same Power

in the Universe (YHVH or, in English, "God") that made the

Exodus possible can, at this very moment, make it possible

for the world to be transformed and liberated from all forms

of oppression. No matter how overwhelming the global

order of materialism and selfishness might seem at this mo-

ment, the power of God's goodness can again be enlivened in

all of us, and we can act together to transform the world, just

as the ancient Israelites did in their struggle with Pharaoh.

Inviting God's goodness to be enlivened within us takes

inner work, as well as political organization.

First and foremost, we need to overcome ego, quiet our minds, affirm

pleasure for our bodies, rejoice in our opportunity to serve

God and humanity, and recognize that beyond the self, be-

yond family and country, we are part of the ongoing unfold-

ing and evolution of the consciousness of the universe as it

moves toward higher and higher levels of self-knowledge,

partly through us. So we pause now to close our eyes, to

envision the universe and our place in it, and to affirm the

meaning of our human mission as partners with God in the

healing and transformation of all that is.

KIDDUSH

We are gathered here tonight to affirm our con-

tinuity with the generations of Jews who have kept

alive the vision of freedom in the Passover story. For

thousands of years, Jews have affirmed this vision by

participating in the Passover Seder. We not only re-

member the Exodus but actually relive it, bringing

its transformative power into our own lives.

The Hebrew word for Egypt, mitzrayim, means "narrow

straits." Traditionally, mitzrayim has been understood to

mean a spiritual state, the "narrow place" of confusion, frag-

mentation, and spiritual disconnection. Liberation requires

us to embrace that which we have been taught to scorn with-

in ourselves and others, including the split-off parts from our

own consciousness that we find intolerable and that we pro-

ject onto some evil Other. The Seder can also be a time to re-

flect on those parts of ourselves.

Israel left Egypt with "a mixed multitude"; the Jewish

people began as a multicultural mélange of people attracted

to a vision of social transformation. What makes us Jews is

not some biological fact but our willingness to proclaim the

message of those ancient slaves: (say together) The world

can be changed, we can be healed.

Blessing over the first cup of wine.

KARPAS

The saltwater on our table traditionally represents the

tears of the Israelite slaves. The green vegetables we dip in

the water suggest the possibility of growth and renewal even

in the midst of grief.

The greens on the table also remind us of our commit-

ment to protect the planet from ecological destruction. In-

stead of focusing narrowly on what we may "realistically"

accomplish in today's world, we must refocus the conversa-

tion on what the planet needs in order to sur vive and

flourish. We must get out of the narrow place in our think-

ing and look at the world not as a resource, but as a focus for

awe, wonder, and amazement. We must reject the societal

stor y that identifies success and progress with endless

growth and accumulation of things. Instead we will focus on

acknowledging that we already have enough; we need to

stop exploiting our resources and instead care for the earth.

Dip the greens in saltwater and say blessing.

FOUR QUESTIONS: THE ADULT VERSION

Discuss as a group or in pairs at the Seder table:

1. Egypt, "mitzrayim" in Hebrew, comes from the word

"tzar": the "narrow place," the constricted place. In what way

are you personally still constricted? Are you able to see

yourself as part of the unity of all being, a manifestation of

God's love on earth? Are you able to overcome the

ego issues that separate us from each other? Can

you see the big picture, or do you get so caught in

the narrow places and limited struggles of your

own life that it's hard to see the big picture? What

concrete steps could you take to change that?

2. Do y ou be l i e v e t hat we c an e v e nt ual l y

eradicate wars, poverty, and starvation? Or do you

believe that no one really cares about anyone but themselves,

and that we will always be stuck in some version of the

current mess? Or do you think that such a belief is, itself,

part of what keeps us in this mess? If so, how would you sug-

gest we spread a more hopeful message and deal with the

cynicism and self-doubt that always accompanies us when

we start talking about changing the world?

3. What experiences have you had that give you hope?

Tell about some struggle to change something-a struggle

that you personally were involved in-that worked. What

did you learn from that?

4. When the Israelites approached the Sea of Reeds, the

waters did not split. It took a few brave souls to jump into the

water. Even then, the waters rose up to their very noses, and

only then, when these brave souls showed that they really

believed in the Force of Healing and Transformation

(YHVH), did the waters split and the Israelites walk through

them. Would you be willing to jump into those waters

today-for example by becoming an advocate for nonvio-

lence or for the strategy of generosity? Would you go to speak

about this to your elected representatives? To your neigh-

bors? To your coworkers? To your family?

MAGID (TELL THE STORY):

Tell the story of the Exodus, and identify the Pharaohs in

your life today.

Blessing over the second cup of wine.

We are descended from slaves who staged the first suc-

cessful slave rebellion in recorded history. Ever since, our

people has kept alive the story of liberation, and the con-

sciousness that cruelty and oppression are not inevitable

"facts of life," but conditions that can be changed.

THREE SYMBOLS OF PASSOVER

PESACH (the Bone or Beet): Our Seder pl ate i n-

cludes a symbol of the ancient Passover sacrifice, which

was brought each year to the Temple in Jerusalem. The

Hebrew word for sacrifice is korban, which comes from

the root meaning "near." What could bring you closer to

your highest spiritual self ?

MATZAH: The Torah tells us that the Israelites had to

take the uncooked dough with them, "for they had

prepared no provisions for the way." Symbolically,

the matzah reminds us that when the opportu-

nity for liberation comes, we must seize it, even if

we do not feel fully prepared-indeed, if we wait

until we feel prepared, we may never act at all. If

you had to jump into such a struggle tomorrow

morning, what would you have to leave behind?

The matzah al so stands i n contrast to

chametz (Hebrew for the expansive yeast that makes bread

rise), which symbolizes false pride, absorption in our indi-

vidual egos, and grandiosity.

MAROR (the Bitter Herbs): The suffering of the Jews

in Egypt has been matched by thousands of years in which

we were oppressed as a people. Our insistence on telling

the stor y of liberation and proclaiming that the world

could be and should be fundamentally different has an-

gered ruling elites. These elites often tried to channel

against the Jews the anger that ordinary people were feel-

ing about the oppression in their own lives. But Jews are

not the only ones to have suffered oppression and violence.

We think of the genocide against native peoples all around

the world, including in the United States. We think of the

enslavement of Africans, and the oppression of Armenians,

homosexuals, women, and many others. Yet, tonight it is

appropriate for us to focus also on the suffering of the Jewish

people and to affirm our solidarity with victims of anti-

Semitism through the ages. Anti-Semitism still persists in

our own time in the use of double standards in the judg-

ment of Jews, in acts of violence against Jews, and in refus-

ing to acknowledge the history of Jewish suffering as equal

to the suff eri ng of other vi c ti ms of oppressi ve soci al

regimes in Christian, Islamic, and some secular societies,

as well. Meanwhile, we Jews need to acknowledge the

ways that this suffering has at times distorted our con-

sciousness and made it hard to fully grasp the pain others

feel. We must evolve a Global Judaism that compassionately

embraces the Jewish people and all other peoples.

THE MEAL

The Haggadah says, "Let all who are hungry come and

eat." Traditionally, this is understood to mean not only

literally feeding the hungry, but also offering spiritual sus-

tenance to those in need. Both must go hand in hand. We

live in a society of unprecedented wealth, yet we turn our

backs on the hungry. Even the supposedly liberal and pro-

gressive political leaders are unwilling to champion any

&nbs