Feb 1 1999

Over the last six months, The Shalom Center has developed a new SEDER OF THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, AND SARAH -- for use during Pesach but normally not on the first two nights. (We recommend using it on Sunday evening, April 4.)

The Seder was woven by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center and author (among many other works) of The Freedom Seder, a pathbreaking innovative Haggadah when it was published in 1969.

Tikkun magazine is publishing the whole Seder of the Children of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah as an 8-page insert in its March issue, available in late February.

Circulation of information about the Seder was assisted by Break the Silence, a network of US Jews committed to seeking peace between Israel and a Palestinian state.

As the title hints, this Seder is focused not on the Exodus from Egypt but on the Biblical and Koranic stories of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael, & Isaac, and on the contemporary stories of painful conflict and hopeful reconciliation betwen Israelis and Palestinians.

Below you will find passages from the Seder, to give you a sense of it. Among the parts of the Seder that we are not including here are four stories of today, each of them itself a combination of conflict and cooperation between the two peoples. And there are passages from Torah & Koran.

Please feel free to use these excerpts for planning, but for use at the actual Seder, please get Tikkun magazine (see below) and credit Tikkun as well as The Shalom Center and Break the Silence.

We suggest using the new SEDER OF THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, AND SARAH as a context for organizing in support of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

For example, by holding the Seder on an evening that is not a festival night when writing or using money is traditionally avoided, you could invite signatures and contributions for a local Break-The-Silence ad or other action toward peace.

You could invite local Jewish, Arab, and general media and win broad attention for a new approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. (The media like to cover Passover events.)

The best night for such a communal SEDER might be Sunday evening April 4. That night is the fifth night of Pesach, the night of Easter Sunday, and the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King.

This new Seder is modeled on but textually and liturgically different from the "Seder of the Children of Abraham" written by Rabbi Devora Bartnoff z'tz'l, Catherine Essoyan, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, and Rabbi Brian Walt and published in 1984.

If this possibility appeals to you, we strongly urge you to begin planning a communal or congregational Seder NOW; to get the March issue of Tikkun as soon as it is available in late February; and to use it to create your own Seder. (Copies of the 8-page Seder insert from Tikkun may be available earlier in February.)

In New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and many other locales, plans are already under way to hold such a Seder.

The Seder could be held at home; at and by your synagogue or havurah or Hillel House; or as a community-wide event organized by an independent committee. It can be held as a Jewish event, or as a joint effort by Jews and Arab-Americans.

If you are already involved with an Arab-Jewish dialogue group, you might explore doing this together. If not, you can write Leonard & Libby Traubman, who are in touch with a national network of such dialogue groups, for information on how to do this. Their Email address is LTRAUBMAN@igc.org

On the other hand, the Seder is designed to be just as usable by a Jewish community, if you are not in a position to organize an Arab-Jewish event.

PLEASE LET "Break the Silence" KNOW DETAILS IF YOU DECIDE TO SPONSOR A SEDER. WRITE AT TIKVANET@AOL.COM.

To get a copy of the March issue of Tikkun, send a check for $8.00 for the issue to --

Tikkun
26 Fell Street
San Francisco CA 94102.

If you want info, please email at magazine@tikkun.org

or fax at 415-575-1434.

The Shalom Center undertook considerable expense in preparing this Seder; if you can, please contribute (P. O Box 380, Accord NY 12404) to defray these expenses. Thank you.

Excerpts from the Seder

From the plate with four slices of matzah, lift the bottom slice. Say aloud: This is the bread of affliction: It is whole, and so long as it is whole, no one can eat from it.
Now break it; let everyone see these two pieces.

(1) Why do we break the matzah in two?

Because the bread of affliction becomes the bread of freedom --when we share it. Because the Land that gives bread to two peoples must be divided in two, so that both peoples may eat of it. So long as one people grasps the whole land, it is a land of affliction, and no one is nourished by it. When each people can eat from part of the Land, it will become a land of freedom.

Pass the broken pieces of matzah from hand to hand. Each person breaks off a piece and hands that piece to someone else. Together they say: "Blessed is the Breath of Life, Who brings forth bread from the earth and compassion from each earthy-human." Everyone eats.

*********************

Hand two sprigs of mint to everyone; have each person dip one sprig in the horse-radish, and one in the sweet charoset paste.

All say together: Blessed are You, Breath of Life, Who breathes life into adam and adamah, into human-earthling and the earthy-humus, Who brings forth from the earth what keeps the human alive, and brings forth from the human the compassion that restores life to the earth.

Each person eats first the sprig dipped in horse-radish, then the one dipped in charoset.

Reader:

(2) Why do we dip herbs three times, once in salt water, once in bitter herbs, and once in sweet charoset?

First for the tears of two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian; then for the bitterness of both peoples, tasting ruined lives; and then for the sweetness of two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli. For the future of both peoples, who must learn not to repeat the sorrows of the past but to create the joys of the future.

**************************************

The Four Children

Four children bring different questions to the Seder table tonight:

The angry child asks, "Why should I compromise?"

And we answer that we choose the route of compromise because the alternative is the mutual destruction, both moral and physical, of our two peoples. If we fail to compromise, we will lose a vision of the future for our children.

The naive child asks, "Why can't we just love each other?"

And we answer that neither of us can live as if history has not happened. Unfortunately, too much blood has already been shed on both sides. It takes time to build trust.

The frightened child asks, "How can I be safe?"

And we answer that we are both afraid. "How can I be safe if my brother or sister is not safe?"

The wise child asks, "How can we take the steps that walk in peace, toward peace?"

This is the question with which we wrestle tonight. But this is a question that goes beyond tonight. For in each one us lives all four children: Each of us bears in our own belly the angry one, the frightened one, the naive one, the wise one. Which of these children shall we bring to birth? Only if we can deeply hear all four of them can we truthfully answer the fourth question. Only if we can deeply hear all four of them can we bring to birth a child, a people, that is truly wise.

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(4) Why is there an egg upon the Pesach plate?

It is the egg of birthing.
When the midwives Shifrah and Puah
Saved the children that Pharaoh ordered them to kill,
That was the beginning of the birth-time;
When Pharaoh's daughter joined with Miriam
To give a second birth to Moses from the waters,
She birthed herself anew into God's daughter, Bat-yah,
And our people turned to draw ourself toward life.
When God became our Midwife
And named us Her firstborn,
Though we were the smallest and youngest of the peoples,
The birthing began;
When the waters of the Red Sea broke,
We were delivered.

So tonight it is our task to help the Midwife
Who tonight is giving birth to two new peoples --
For tonight only Hagar can give a new birth to the children of Israel,
And only Sarah can give a new birth to the children of Ishmael.

Our lives are in each other's hands.
No Pharaoh can force us to kill.

*****************************************

Sarah and Hagar

I am calling you oh Sarah
this is your sister Hagar
calling through the centuries
to reach you from afar

Here is my son Ishmael
your sister's son alive
we share the sons of Abraham
two peoples one tribe

Oh yes I am your Sarah
I remember you Hagar
your voice comes through the distance
a cry upon my heart

It was I who cast you out in fear and jealousy
yet your vision survived the wilderness
to reach your destiny

But it wasn't till my Isaac lay under the knife
that I recognized your peril
the danger to your life

I tremble now Hagar
for our peril's still the same
we will not survive as strangers
we must speak each other's name

We must tell each others' stories,
make each other strong
and sing the dream of ancient lands
where both of us belong

we must hear the prayers
where spirit first was sown
that all of our children
may call this land their home

-- By Linda Hirschhorn 1985, l997 recorded on More Than Luck and a Prayer