Liberating Your Passover Seder

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Liberating Your Passover Seder

Dear companions,

The book whose front cover is just above is a gift from its authors, its illustrator, and its editors to The Shalom Center. All proceeds from its sale go to empowering continuing creativity as we work on future actifests.

Pesach is looming in a year when we have received letters saying people are too heartsick to hold a Seder celebrating ancient Israelite freedom — heartsick from the 30,000+ people killed by the Israeli government in Gaza and the 3,000 dead or kidnapped by the attack of the military wing of Hamas inside Israel.

Can “heartsick” become “creative” and “liberating"? Can we create a Seder that takes account of TWO Pharaohs in this history — one of them Jewish and far more powerful that the Palestinian one? Can we recognize the many ways in which tyranny and cruelty can invade a Jewish regime, and create a Seder that speaks this part of the Truth: that in both regimes, not just one, Pharaoh is in military uniform upon the throne? Indeed, that governmental cruelty by the “Jewish” regime is more lethal to Palestinian civilians and the Palestinian people as a whole than Hamas cruelty has been to Israeli civilians or the Israeli society as a whole.

The Shalom Center in these last months turned to reshaping the bloodiest aspects of Purim to offer the heartsick Jewish community a balm. That left us little time to address Pesach. We have done what we could to send biblical passages, Palestinian poetry, etc., to help in creating a Truthful Seder. We also invite you to buy Liberating Your Passover Seder to heal and hearten your heart. Its authors range from Dr. Susannah Heschel’s story of the “orange on the Seder plate,” Rabbi David Saperstein’s assessment of the ripples and powerful waves stirred by the original Freedom Seder, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi's pointers toward a mystical Seder, Reverend William Barber's eloquent and stirring call for action at the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Seder, and many others.

See the list on the back cover of the book, in a moment, just below.

Purchase from Ben Yehuda Press at:

https://www.benyehudapress.com/books/liberating-your-passover-seder/