Progressive Passover Seder!

On Tuesday, PJA celebrated Passover with our annual Progressive Passover seder.  The PJA seder takes the Passover tradition and the story of the Exodus and expands them to discuss modern-day issues of oppression and liberation.

A reading from the PJA haggadah to reflect on during Passover:

"Dayenu," says the haggadah, "it would have been enough."  A rewriting of this tradition from the Freedom Seder, held on the first anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, identifies the insufficiencies in the world and calls us to act.

So the struggles for freedom that remain will be more dark and difficult than any we have met so far. For we must struggle for a freedom that enfolds stern justice, stern bravery, and stern love.

For if we were to end a single genocide but not to stop the other wars that kill men and women as we sit here, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to end those bloody wars but not disarm the nations of the weapons that could destroy all mankind, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to disarm the nations but not to end the brutality with which the police attack people it would not be sufficient;
If we were to end outright police brutality but not prevent some people from wallowing in luxury while others starved, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to make sure that no one starved but were not to free the daring poets from their jails, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to free the poets from their jails but to train the minds of people so that they could not understand the poets, it would not be sufficient;
If we educated all men and women to understand the free creative poets but forbade them to explore their own inner ecstasies, it would not be sufficient;
If we allowed men and women to explore their inner ecstasies but would not allow them to love one another and share in the human fraternity, it would not be sufficient.

How much then are we in duty bound to struggle, work, share, give, think, plan, feel, organize, sit-in, speak out, hope, and be on behalf of Mankind!

-Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 1969

PJA Hosts Annual Progressive Passover Seder

Looking for a different kind of seder this year?

Come to the PJA Progressive Passover Seder!

Join us for the second night of Passover (Saturday, April 7th) as we explore the Jewish commitment to social justice through contemporary instances of oppression and liberation that parallel the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt. Enjoy good food, wine, and company, free on the undergraduate meal plan if you sign up below!

Sign up here!

The Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance is committed to a wide variety of programming related to both Israeli and domestic issues. We explore progressive issues from a Jewish perspective, as well as Judaism from a standpoint of progressivism.

For more information, please contact eunger@college.harvard.edu