Thursday 5 April 2012

What's New This Year

Peace Now, a pro-Israel, pro-Peace organisation are encouraging us to see Yachatz, the moment when the middle matzah is split in two, in terms of a two state solution in the Land of Israel.

 

Rabbis for Human Rights and a coalition of agricultural workers in low wage jobs are encouraging us to place a tomato on our Seder plate. The video shows a vast field in Florida and a worker explaining how she has to carry the 32lb buckets for 50c a bucket. It ends with this quote from the farm-worker and civil rights activist, Caesar Chaves, ‘The fight is never about grapes or lettuce, it's always about people.’

 

Away from the politics the National Library of Israel has digitised and made available some extraordinary manuscripts including the 14th century ‘Wolf’ Hagadah and the 1948 Palmach Hagadah (ah! politics again, you can’t get away from it at Pesach time).

 

For those who find the Hebrew too difficult, but would love to join in with, particularly, the songs I’ve come across a full transliteration of the Hagadah available for download.

 

Josephine and I have designed a kiddie-appropriate Hagadah, slimmed down, simplified translations and transliterations. We’ve made it available for anyone to customise and improve as would best work for you.

 

Same old, same old, always new.

Passover is desperate to be relevant and engaged, from one generation to the next. From the four calls of the Torah that this story should be told to generations to come, to the Mishnah’s call, taken up by the Hagadah that ‘in each and every generation a person should see themselves as if they themselves left Egypt. Please make use of the links below, or anything else that can help you and those you celebrate with, make the most of our most special celebration of the journey from bondage to freedom.

 

Yom Tov this year falls over the weekend, both our Shacharit services on Saturday and Sunday will feature baby blessings as well as Hallel. All are particularly welcome to ensure Pesach is a celebration for the whole community, not our private Seder tables.

 

Chag Sameach to all,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

Links:

  • Peace Now, the divided Matzah

http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/americans-peace-now-bring-you-download-print-haggadah-inserts

  • Rabbis for Human Rights, the tomato

http://www.thejewishweek.com/special_sections/special_holiday_issues/tomato_finds_its_place_seder_plate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-klein/tomato-farming-florida-immokalee_b_1381421.html

  • National Library’s Collection of Haggadot

http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/gallery/of-israel/haggadot/Pages/Introduction.aspx

  • Seder Transliterations

http://www.tiferethisrael.org/HolidayInfo/Pesach%20Melodies/PesachTransliteration.pdf

  • The ‘Goldhurst Haggadah’

As a large word document please customise as you wish - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42398105/goldhurst%20haggadah%202012.doc

As a pdf –

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42398105/goldhurst%20haggadah%202012.pdf

 

 

 

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