Marten Bjork; Unsplash
The Passover seder revolves around many sets of questions. Some of them have answers that stay the same (i.e. why we eat bitter herbs or recline), while others require us to reflect anew each year on the world’s injustices and our role in them.
If we are to follow the commandment that we must see ourselves as part of the Haggadah’s rich stories of suffering, revolution, and liberation, that involves examining what we believe and how we show up. If we understand liberation as a gift that we have to claim again and again, it can’t help but change how we look at the world around us and how we move forward.
If you’re looking for a new set of questions this year, I offer these:
• For/to whom am I responsible and/or accountable?
• Who is helping to care for me, and how can I show them my appreciation? (Alternatively, if I see that I need more care, how can I reach out and make my needs known?)
• What is happening in the world right now that complicates, challenges, or expands my conception of justice?
• What changes would make our society and its institutions more just, equitable, or visionary? What is my role in getting there?
Our resources this month, along with Avodah’s bank of social justice Passover supplements and themed haggadot, offer many ways to jump into the discussions that might be sparked by your answers to these questions. In particular, we hope you’ll consider whose perspectives could enrich the layers of conversation at your seder table and that these resources can offer a way to bring some of those voices in.
Chag Pesach sameach (Happy Passover),
— Sarra Alpert, Director of the Avodah Institute for Social Change
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