Re: RE: progressive haggadah

>>>>> "matt" == Matt Gushee <[email protected]> writes:

  matt> On Sun, Mar 24, 2002 at 09:08:44PM -0600, Sharon Stade wrote:
  >> < Did you ever write a progressive haggadah? If so, is it online
  >> anywhere? >

  matt> For the gentiles in the group, would you be so kind as to
  matt> explain what that is?

Matt and other goyim,

I can't speak for Niel (well, I *can*, but it's tacky!) but I suspect
one of the main problems with traditional Jewish Passover ritual and
liturgy is that it can be rather triumphalistic (in American (and
probably Israeli) context, anyway) and does not lend itself to
critical evaluation of the situation of Israel and Palestinian
peaceful cohabitation.

There are other issues, I suspect, that could be foregrounded by a
progressive Jew seeking to rework haggadah, (technically, the Haggadah
is the narrative of the Jews exodus from Egypt; it has come to
stand-for Passover altogether in an informal sense, though) but
questions about the Intifada, a Palestinian state, the right of
return, and so on seem paramount. *Especially*, I think, given that
the until the formation of Israel in 1947 the post-diasporic Jews were
a landless, stateless people, who suffered tremendously at the hands
of their various co-citizens in Europe. (Which is rather a decent
description of the Palestinians *since* about 1947.)

Also, for what it's worth, writing a "family" or otherwise
context-specific haggadah is a very ordinary thing to do in Judaism;
it is much more 'user-friendly' in this regard than Christianity. (I
almost said "or Islam" but I don't know that to be true, in fact, and
I'm not entirely sure which ritual or liturgical parts of Islam are
most analogous to haggadah.)

I think this is partially due to the fact that Judaism, historically,
was far more 'decentralized' than Christianity; but also because
Jewish Passover has been for a v. long time a rather intimate,
household, family affair (what the ancient Greeks would have called an
affair of the 'oikos', the household, rather than the 'polis' or the
public square). That kind of institutional setting certainly lends
itself to a degree of freedom you don't find in Christian celebrations
of, say, Easter (with which Christians have always associated Jewish
Passover, a bit strangely).

I hope that gives some useful context and background.

Best,
Kendall Clark