Re: RE: progressive haggadah

On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Kendall Clark wrote:
> 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.
> ...
> Jewish Passover has been for a v. long time a rather intimate,
> household, family affair

These two points of Kendall's are becoming the most important factors for
me personally.  I spoke with my mother a few weeks ago about my plans for
Passover, and while she does not necessarily agree with my politics, she
does support my need to personalize the holiday.

Passover is the most major of the in-home family rituals, and the only
thing that's considered hard-and-fast is the order of the Seder itself.
So I'm using that as the starting point, and trying to build some
meaningful dialogue entry points into each of those Seder parts.

Since they're symbolic things anyway, expanding on the symbolism that's
already there is becoming fairly simple. For example, the green vegetable
is dipped in salt water, traditionally to remind us of the salty tears of
the Jews in Egyptian slavery. Well, it's not much of a leap to have the
salt water represent the tears of any oppressed person or people. Pick
Afghan refugees, and you have an instant discussion point: what
responsibility do we, as Jews, have to prevent the suffering of other
people?

That's kind of where my Haggadah stands right now.

Niel