I expect I’ll be writing a lot about Passover during the next month. But since this is the first installment, let’s start at the beginning.
Planning your Passover
There are a lot of details to think about, but the first should be your intent. The Seder is, after all, a ritual — and planning a ritual starts with the intent. You’d think this is obvious, but based on the number of Haggadahs on the market, there’s a lot of room for interpretation. For me, it’s about preventing slavery and empowering those would fight against it by enacting this ritual. I try to make things very personal for people, so they will get involved on a very emotional level. Tears should flow. If those tears and that energy helps to free a single person from slavery or allows one person to stand up and speak the truth — my intent has been met.
You can see my Haggadah on this site. There’s a full PDF preview available.
It’s also easy to get caught up in the ritual actions — because there’s so many options! Do you add an orange, do you add a Miriam’s cup, what songs do you sing, what kind of food do you serve? The intent should drive each of these actions.
By deciding on your intent — all of these questions become much more obvious. If your intent is to bring forth the contributions of women, then by all means, add that Miriam’s cup and orange. This is how I developed the idea of the prophet’s cup. Instead of honoring a single prophet — we honor many over the generations and each person adds to the cup from their own. That way each of us supports the efforts of those who speak the truth and work to free others.
Passover Resources:
The Haggadah Toolkit (pdf)
Creating Seder Traditions
Seasons of Our Joy - Pesach
Ask most Jews of almost any flavor what their favorite holiday is, and Purim will rank in the top 5! It’s fun. As a kid you get to dress up and yell, shout, and be rowdy in synogogue! What kid doesn’t like that.
There is a much darker side to Purim that we all seem to just ignore. Acknowledging it doesn’t have to take the fun out — but we should be honest about the whole story, not just the fun part.
Towards the end of the Book of Esther is the story of the massacre of Haman’s family and more than five-hundred others. What does this say about us? How on earth do we reconcile this with the message at Passover a month later? Why don’t we ever seem to remember this part of the story?
At Passover we are told NOT to revel in the destruction of our enemies, because they too are human beings and children of the Divine. Here at Purim, we seem to be rolling in blood without remorse. Is it a learning curve for us? At Purim we revel in the destruction of our enemies and then we are taught through our redemption from slavery that this is wrong?
Questions upon questions. I think what’s important is to ask the question. Don’t just read the text and say, “the end!” Read it. Talk about it. Interpret it. Learn. Grow. Change.
I am Becoming what I am Becoming. Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I will be what I will be. Eyeh asher eyeh.
Learn. Grow. Change. Become. Be.
Become what you will Become!
I’m pleased to announce that the 2005 Peeling a Pomegranate Haggadah went on sale today, March 21, 2005.
This Haggadah was written by a Jewitch for Jewitches. It was created to give Jewitches a meaningful Passover that they can share with their families!
This thirty-two page Haggadah is sold in packs of 5 for $25, and you can choose from a blue cover with striped border or a gold cover with brocade border. A full preview is also available in PDF format.
I started having an interesting train of thought during Becoming’s ritual skills class today. I was trying to write an “invocation” to Chava and kept writing Lilith. It got me thinking.
Chava and Lilith are really two sides of the same coin. Chava is the mother of all living things. Lilith is the mother of passion and creativity — which makes life worth living. One without the other is pointless. Light and dark — neither inherently good nor bad.
Why live without something to make it worth living. Art doesn’t exist with life. But on that same thought — life must come first. Think of this in terms of the Purim story too. Vashti may be beautiful and inspiring — but Esther is needed to give life.
There’s a great new article in New Voices about Jewitches / Jewish Pagans. It’s even the cover article! Yours truly gets a couple of very nice mentions. (For some reason it’s dated December 2005, but it was just published.)
The process of being interviewed for an article is really strange. You chat with someone for a while and then trust that not only they will interpret what you said the way you want — but that their editor will as well. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with how the article turned out. It’s a bit different than I thought it would be — but it’s quite good.
Becoming, my group, sounds a bit more Jewitchy than it is. We’ve never celebrated Shabbat as a group, although I did lead a group Shabbat ritual at last year’s Sacred Space Conference. Many Becoming members do attend my Rosh Hashana ritual, and this year they are getting to experience Purim too!
I’ll be curious to see what kind of a response the article gets. The last article I was involved with got picked up by every Pagan and alternative Jewish site/blog out there — and several hate sites. Can’t wait to see what happens with this one.
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