I have a group of friends who have been coming together for Passover for 46 years. We all began in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, and now we move from house to house ranging from Philadelphia to Vermont. Our celebration style is to divide up the Passover “themes” (springtime, slavery, burning bush, Elijah, etc.) among us and bring various poems, songs, performances, readings that are expressive of those themes so that we create an oral Haggadah. Each host also creates some kind of written text to string it all together.
Susan and I are hosting the gathering this weekend, and here’s a selection from the “100-Word Haggadah” that I’ve created to string it all together — 100 words for each theme. If you care to see the whole text, visit my Babushkin’s Playhouse website.
THE HUNDRED-WORD HAGGADAH
Imagine the Earth flying more than a thousand miles through space every minute. Drawn in by the Sun’s gravity, it is constantly falling, yet its own momentum keeps it from traversing the ninety-three-million miles and vaporizing.
Falling, falling . . .
Meanwhile it spins at a thousand miles per hour, bringing us light and darkness, light and darkness.
Spinning, spinning . . .
One day in March, the falling and the spinning interact to bring us twelve hours of light, twelve of darkness. And we say:
“For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over. The flowers appear. The time of the singing has come.”
*
The first glass of wine:
Let’s dedicate it to intoxication!
To the orange moon hanging full over the city skyline,
and the double rainbows vaulting over the dunes of Cape Cod.
To the fragrance of lilacs,
the baby’s scalp,
the lover’s skin.
To intimacy among old friends,
the years dropping off in laughter.
To jazz musicians in their trance states,
the fantastically skilled painters, sculptors, dancers, performers,
the basketball sharpshooters, the flying ski-jumpers,
the ruminating mathematicians, and the builders, the builders!
To the people in the streets demanding justice
and food for the children,
To all we say: Long life!
*
I imagine myself as Moses. I’ve followed the same path of the herd for endless years, seeking safety, comfort, oblivion. Now I want new sights, new smells, new hopes, new possibilities — even new fears — however old a man I’ve become. Barefoot, I feel the vibrating mountain. Never mind that the path is stony. Never mind the quicksand and sudden drop-offs. Never mind the thunderous avalanches, the shifts in climate. Never mind danger! Listen to the voice within each: the stones, the quicksand, the drop-offs, the avalanches. Listen to their warnings, and hear opportunity.
A fire that speaks! Answer, stutterer, answer!
*
I imagine myself as the man-god, Pharaoh, already mummified when alive, encased in millennial traditions, surrounded by advisors and wives and servants, my humanity surrendered to my deification as symbol of the perfect, the powerful, the orderly, the other-worldly. The more power I accumulate, the less autonomous I am. My heart has hardened like clay in the desert. Every time its shell cracks — cracked by dissent, by fear, by bodily suffering, by a new perception of truth — the shell hardens again. I punish. I slaughter. I scorn all their warnings: Let them go. Don’t you see that Egypt is lost?
*
I imagine myself as the Angel of Death, harvesting the first-born of Egypt, devouring their trillions of living cells the way an anteater licks up the colony. I command all demon hordes, all diseases, all fleets and battalions, all fires and sandstorms and earthquakes and beasts of prey, all of them festering beneath my wings. I spare no one but the cowering slaves in their blood-marked huts; I smell out the first-born of every other home and kill them without pause, without thoughts of mercy or mourning. They will all join the soil and nourish other souls for my larder.
*
Why is this night different from all others?
Why is this day different from all others?
Three less minutes of darkness.
Three more minutes of daylight.
Ten people at the table.
(Look at each other. Please, look.
We are not often together.)
We commemorate suffering,
resistance, and freedom —
the struggle imposed on us
by slave-masters in all of their variety.
We celebrate our shared bond
of caring about this sentient world
and trying to map the paths to its liberation.
We help to crack each other’s hardening shells.
and help to revive the joy of friendship,
this day, this night.
*
The second glass of wine:
Let’s dedicate it to old age
A time of joy and sorrow, great gain and great loss,
diminished pride, increased compassion (perhaps)
diminished relevance, increased contentment (perhaps)
anxieties dissipated, hungers slackened (perhaps)
and burning bushes, wherever we find them,
on fire, yet unconsumed — summoning us . . .
Our childhoods, summoning us (remember?)
Our errors, summoning us (forget?)
Our glories, summoning us (o glory be!)
Our failures, summoning us (o well)
Our futures, summoning us (let’s hope)
Our couches and beds, summoning us
Our dreams, summoning us,
Our favorite songs, summoning us,
and the wine itself, summoning us.
*
Now we open the door to Elijah
and wonder who will come in
although we know that no one will come in.
It’s not so dangerous to open the door
briefly
The poor people are OUT THERE
The refugees are OUT THERE
The demanding ones, OUT THERE
not IN HERE.
Where is Elijah?
Nobody knows.
He may be She. She may be They.
They may be We.
We may be OUT THERE.
We may be IN HERE.
I am Elijah.
You are Elijah.
He is Elijah.
She is Elijah.
They are Elijah.
We are Elijah.
Harbingers of a better world.
Hi Larry, Wonderful! Sorry I didn't see this earlier. For my Zoom family seder with my daughter and grandson in New York, I've been using Michael Rubiner's Two Minute Hagaddah, with slight topical additions from myself. Here it is:
The Two-Minute Haggadah
A Passover service for the impatient.
By Michael Rubiner (slight additions by Hillel Schenker)
Opening prayers:
Thanks, God, for creating wine. (Drink wine.)
Thanks for creating produce. (Eat parsley.)
Overview: Once we were slaves in Egypt. Now we’re free. That’s why we’re doing this.
This year we are also struggling to be free from Bibi Netanyahu and his gang of right-wing racist thugs. Tonight, on the 4th night of Passover, once again hundreds of thousands of people will gather in Tel Aviv and around the country to protest the judicial revolution, and to shout “democratia”, democracy.
Sing – Avadim Hayinu
Four questions:
1. What’s up with the matzah?
2. What’s the deal with horseradish?
3. What’s with the dipping of the herbs?
4. What’s this whole slouching at the table business?
Answers:
1. When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread.
2. Life was bitter, like horseradish.
3. It’s called symbolism.
4. Free people get to slouch.
Sing – Let My People Go
A funny story: Once, these five rabbis talked all night, then it was morning. (Heat soup now.)
The four kinds of children and how to deal with them:
Wise child—explain Passover.
Simple child—explain Passover slowly.
Silent child—explain Passover loudly.
Wicked child—browbeat in front of the relatives.
Speaking of children: We hid some matzah. Whoever finds it gets five bucks.
(Show Silver and Gold Dollar)
The story of Passover: It’s a long time ago. We’re slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh is a nightmare. We cry out for help. God brings plagues upon the Egyptians. We escape, bake some matzah. God parts the Red Sea. We make it through; the Egyptians aren’t so lucky. We wander 40 years in the desert, eat manna, get the Torah, wind up in Israel, get a new temple, enjoy several years without being persecuted again.
Sing – Btzet Yisrael
The 10 Plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice—you name it. Bibi Netanyahu is the 11th plague. And let’s not forget Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Levin, Rotman and company.
“Dayenu” (Enough):
If God had gotten us out of Egypt and not punished our enemies, it would’ve been enough. If he’d punished our enemies and not parted the Red Sea, it would’ve been enough.
If he’d parted the Red Sea—(Remove gefilte fish from refrigerator now.)
Eat matzah. Drink more wine. Make matzah brei. Slouch.
Thanks again, God, for everything.
The End, Till Next Year.
Your imaginings are beautiful!
The ones OUT THERE touch me deeply.