The Haggadah Revisited

change in circumstance that may call for a change
in position or change in response on our part; 17)
leave the rest to God, hoping that somehow the
position we have adopted is among the Godapproved "these and those" referred to above; and
18) move on to consider the next issue! •
The Haggadah Revisited
Leona S. Green
The Haggadah teaches: "Whoever enlarges upon
the story of the Exodus from Egypt, that person is
praiseworthy." As I began my month long preparation for the ninth year of Seders in our home, I
thought back to the events that prepared and finally
motivated me to write a traditional-innovative
Haggadah.
My childhood memories of Passover Seders in
Pittsburgh, are dream-like and warm. For the first
Seder night, we went to my maternal grandparents'
house. They and my parents were born in Eastern
Europe. Zaidy conducted the Seder in rapid Hebrew, with my father and uncle keeping pace. A
hodgepodge of "free" haggadahs were used, (the
usual Maxwell House and several others), some
printed only in Hebrew, others with English translations. I managed to stay awake only long enough
to recite "The Four Questions," then fell asleep
from the combined effects of the wine, sing-song
Hebrew chanting, and the lateness of die hour.
The second Seder night took place at my parents'
home, where my father conducted the Seder. He
also used a variety of Haggadahs but encouraged
participation from the women and children by having us read an occasional passage in English.
After my grandparents had passed away, I attended
both Seders at my parents' home where the familiar scenario was repeated. In 1953, the spring before I married my husband, Norman, an entirely
new Passover experience began for me. I attended
a Seder at Norm's Aunt Esther and Uncle Marcus'
home, and a whole new world was opened to me.
Not Merely Observances but Meaning
Uncle Marcus began the Seder with a brief lesson
on the significance of Passover. I stared in awe as
copies of the hardcovered New Haggadah (Jewish
Reconstructionist Foundation) were passed around.
I had never before attended a Seder at which the
Haggadahs were not only identical, but had been
purchased for the occasion. What followed was a
totally new, exciting and inspirational Seder. Along
LEONA S. GREEN is a reading specialist in the
Cleveland Heights school system.
108
with the Hebrew, each one of us, men women and! j
children, took turns reading a paragraph of the
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English translation. Uncle Marcus would occasion- ii'
ally depart from the text to explain a particular
Ir
passage, or read from another source, to add to thet| V
spirit and understanding of the passage. I loved ev- '
ery moment of that Seder!
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When the food finally arrived, I tasted dishes I hadv,1
never eaten before—cafftalin (chicken patties in
i
wine sauce), Rumanian eggplant, and others. That 1
evening was as soul-satisfying as it was stomach- I I
pleasing. And we completed the Haggadah after
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the meal—significantly, something I don't remember having been done in my parents' home.
For the next twenty-two years, despite our move too
Cleveland, we celebrated at least one of the two
Seders with Aunt Esther and Uncle Marcus in
Pittsburgh.
i
In 1975, much to everyone's dismay, Aunt Es an- j
nounced that preparing for the Seders had become
an insurmountable task for her and that this would , j
be their last Seder. I savored every moment of thattj j
Seder trying to use my eyes and ears to record ev- I
ery familiar and loving sight and sound. I can't ex- - j
press the depth of the void that announcement
made in our spiritual lives. We continued to attend I
Seders in Pittsburgh for another year or two with
other family members, but the inspirational and
nurturing aspects of the Seder were missing. The
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event became a holiday meal preceded by a brief
Seder service but rarely followed by the conclusion >
i 11
of the Haggadah.
j
No one did it for us
When the void became too painful, Norm and I
decided to establish our own Passover tradition at
home in Cleveland. Aunt Es and Uncle Marcus
gave us ten of their beloved, food-stained Haggadahs and a service for ten of their Passover
dishes.
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In 1976, we had our first Seder using the Haggadahs, the dishes and as much of Aunt Es* menu
as I could handle. Never before had Norm or I
taken responsibility for a Jewish event of such
magnitude. That first Seder was a beginning, but it i
lacked the well-worn comfort and easy flow of
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Aunt Es and Uncle Marcus' Seder. We were insecure in our knowledge of how to perform many of j
the rituals the Haggadah did not frilly explain. But ;
our three daughters and our friends plugged along,
adding and enhancing when they could.
i
In 1979, a friend attended our Seder with his
young son and daughter. Each time he read a passage of English translation from the Haggadah, he
paraphrased the text, changing "forefathers" to
"forefathers and foremothers" and "sons" to
"sons and daughters," etc. Since I grew up under
the impression that the liturgical language was
dogma, I had never, before that moment, been
conscious of the absence of the feminine gender
from Jewish liturgy.
During the course of the Seder, I asked Hanoch
about his adaptations. He said he did not want his
daughter to subtly or overtly feel any less significant in Judaism than his son, due to exclusionary
language. Since such language tends to permeate
attitudes and behavior it could impose unnecessary
limits to their growth as individuals. Thus was
born the seed of my discontent with the Haggadah.
The Discontent that Produces Creativity
As I attempted to alter the English text I came to
realize that it would not be a simple exercise of
changing nouns and pronouns. Each change
seemed to create the need for still another change.
I began to haunt the Jewish book stores searching
for an acceptable egalitarian Haggadah. But,
whether the text was traditional or contemporary,
it was either sexist in language and/or presuming
i knowledge of and skill in ritual. In the contemporary texts, for example, Lilith 's egalitarian Haggadah by Aviva Cantor, while creative and inspiring, is not traditional in format or explicit in
procedure. The San Diego Women's Haggadah
practices reverse sexism with its exclusion of masculine language. The New Union Haggadah, edited
by Herbert Bronstein, talks of G-d in the masculine gender exclusively, and uses masculine
pronouns throughout to refer to both sexes. (The
latest edition has been revised. Ed.) In addition,
the interpretive readings are all male-authored. The
1982 edition of the Rabbinical Assembly Haggadah
"claims to eliminate sexist language and stresses
the role women have had in the Jewish struggle for
freedom, (but) does not live up to these claims."
(Aviva Cantor.) Even Chaim Stern's highly praised
egalitarian Gates of Freedom uses only male
authors for all its inspirational passages.
At this point I decided to do something a little
more daring than work with published texts and
correction fluid. I decided to create my own
Haggadah.
The beginning was terribly difficult, but once underway, I became thoroughly involved in and excited by the project. The more I read and
researched, die more I came to love Passover as
the most meaningful of all our holidays. As I
wrote in a letter to my daughter, Ronna:
Of all our holidays, Passover is the most crucial
for you to understand as a Jew. We, the parents,
are charged with the responsibility to teach our
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children about the enslavement of our people, our
ensuing birth as a nation, and our role in the
scheme of things on this earth. Passover forms the
basis for our moral and ethical character as Jews
and as human beings.
In addition, I have made it my personal commitment to write a Haggadah that describes the story
of the Exodus in a way that even the least religiously educated Jew can understand and find inspiration, if he/she so desires. The Seders and the
Haggadah have come to represent the culmination
of the love I have for my family, for my life, and
for my religion.
The Proof Lay in Continuity
The first rough draft of the Haggadah was completed in Spring 1983 and used at our Seders.
Hanoch and his family, two of our daughters, and
some special friends were present. When we read
from the Haggadah everyone sensed the uniqueness of the moment.
As Passover 1984 drew near, I feared that the
uniqueness of that past Seder could not be
repeated. But as our Seder began, I realized that
Pesach and the Haggadah are living entities. Each
person who contributes to the Seder instills new
beauty and meaning to the holiday and the
Haggadah.
My contribution was to create a Haggadah that retains all the elements of a traditional text, is
egalitarian in both language and inspirational passages, and explicit in directions for conducting the
Seder. There is a growing need among American
Jews for this kind of liturgy. But I have found
publishers hesitant even to consider liturgy written
by a woman. Jewish liturgy is a dynamic, evolving
process. It is time for women to take a more active
role in this dynamic process.
I wrote the Haggadah to satisfy a longing in my
own soul and as a meaningful legacy to my children. It is the inheritance I leave them. I hope it
also will serve as the key to bring Jewish women
into the closely guarded domain of traditional Jewish liturgy. •
Questioning the tradition i love
Dan Mosenkis
For a Jew desiring to live in both a modern world
and a Jewish world, life is a process of grappling
with difficult questions. An article last year in
Sh'ma (15/292) by "Manny" raised two points
DAN MOSENKIS lives in Fair Lawn, N. J. and
teaches Math at City College of N. Y.