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he Passover story is a
universal tale of
persecution and
emancipation; it is a story
that offers modern suffering
in the continuum of Jewish
history.
With this in mind, rabbis
and lay leaders, especially in
the last four decades, have
attempted to make the Ex-
odus story recited at the
Passover Seder relevant to
the present. Is this proper,
and in keeping with the
eternal message of the
Passover saga, or is it an ar-
tificial effort to
"contemporize" a biblical
story?
Consider:
• In 1953, Nahum
Glatzer introduced readings
from Anne Frank's diary
and Elie Wiesel's Night into
the Passover Seder.
• At the height of the
civil unrest and anti-war ac-
tivism of the 1960s, Arthur
Waskow injected passages
from Gandhi and Pope John
XXIII into the Haggadah
readings as well as invective
against the Dow Chemical
Company for its manufac-
ture of chemical weapons
used in the Vietnam War.
• A feminist Haggadah
was published in the 1970s,
which attempted to restore
the trials and tribulations of
women into the Exodus
reading.
• Tikkun Magazine added
a supplement this year that
included a blessing for "the
vegetation of the earth in
times of ecological crisis."
The supplement also in-
cludes a prayer addressing
the plight of the Palestin-
ians, to be read before the
recitation of the 10 plagues.
The prayer states "let us
also dip from the cup of wine
for the sufferings that both
people endure as long as the
occupation continues." It
then lists hardships inflicted
on the Palestinians by
Israelis.
• The National Jewish
Center for Learning and
Leadership (CLAL) in-
troduced the "fifth child"
and a fifth question, in
memory of the children of
the Holocaust who could not
recite the the four questions.
• In 1966, two national
Jewish organizations
drafted a statement on
behalf of persecuted Soviet
Jews called the "Matzah of

Oppression," which has been
revised and is still used.
• This year, the National
Conference on Soviet Jewry,
together with the United
Jewish Appeal Rabbinic
Cabinet, has introduced
"The Matzah of Unity,"
symbolizing unity with the
Jews in the Soviet Union
and a commitment toward
the UJA's "Operation Ex-
odus" campaign.
Yet such attempts to inject
modern political issues into
the Seder has sparked con-
troversy within rabbinic
circles.

"If a Haggadah

speaks to people,
they will use it."
Rabbi Jerome
Epstein.

"We're suffering today
from '21st centuryism' and
avant-gardism," contends
Reconstructionist Rabbi
Alan Miller. "The wisdom of
the architecture of classical
Judaism was that they built
structures with room to
grow.
"There's a danger to stress
the present and ignore the
classical dimension.
Sometimes the seder
becomes more of a social ac-
tion committee rather than
an affirmation of age-old
myths and rituals."
Rabbi Miller feels that the
matzah of hope and the fifth
child are unnecessary and
extraneous additions to the
Passover seder. "If a
Passover seder is condition-
ed with a serious and deep
grappling with the classical
text, there is no need to add
an extra cup. The bread is
called the bread of affliction;
this is a big enough phrase
to encompass all the afflic-
tions of today."
But other rabbis from
various denominations of
Judaism disagree.
"The seder is a drama and
the Haggadah is a script,"
says Conservative Rabbi
Jerome Epstein, executive
vice president of the United
Synagogue of America. "If
we want to make the litera-
ture meaningful, it has to
speak for today.
"A lot can be gained from
interpretation of the text,
but there are so many burn-
ing issues to which the Hag-
gadah speaks, it's a shame
not to apply it to our lives."

