On Passover, the Jewish people are created anew as we commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. We are reminded time and again that we were once slaves in the land of Egypt and escaped because of the goodness of God and the leadership of the prophets. The ceremonial Seder meal is our tool for collective catharsis and connecting to our religious origins.
The observance of Passover has changed over time to ensure that each generation of Jews understands the renewal of people and faith to be its own. Animal sacrifices at the central Temple in Jerusalem millennia ago assumed symbolic forms as eggs and shank bones. In response to widespread messianism in Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Prophet Elijah and prayers for return to the Holy Land made their debuts. And as a result of oppression during portions the Middle Ages, a rancid piece of liturgy was added to the service.
Even in the more progressive My People's Passover Haggadah (Passover prayerbook), the section on "God's Triumph over Evil" reads:
Pour out Your wrath on the nations who do not know You and on the countries who do not call upon You. For they have devoured Jacob and desolated his home. Pour Your anger over them, and let Your fury overtake them. Pursue them in fury and destroy them beneath Adonai's sky.
When we read this section at our Seder this year, there was a collective wince at the table -- not so much from our gentile guests but our Jewish ones. Could our religion, our people, ever wish something so terrible on others? My wife quickly jumped in to explain the historical context, that this is what an oppressed people would yell to vocalize its pain.
I knew intellectually that she was right, but the lines seemed so misplaced, so terrible. On a holiday of freedom, one in which we also reflect on the pain that the ten plagues caused the Egyptians and take wine out of our glasses to reduce our joy accordingly, it seemed unfitting to wish ill upon others. So I followed up on my wife's insightful remarks more simply: "That's true... But these are ugly words."
These ugly words may not have offended my gentile guests and may have even been overlooked by my Jewish guests after another glass of ritually mandated wine. But with the understanding that it is in every generation that we go from slaves to free people and recommit ourselves to a Jewish life and Jewish morals, "God's Triumph over Evil" should be excised from the Passover Seder entirely.
Once we were slaves to the oppression in our past. Now we are free to learn from it.
Follow Joshua Stanton on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dialogueeditor
http://lady-light.blogspot.com/2010/04/pour-out-thy-wrath.html
For a "rabbinical student" to write such an article which reeks of embarrassment and 'political correctness'--that is what is offensive, not the passage in question.
Thank you for reminding us of the numerous persecutions of the Jewish people IN EVERY GENERATION and that the almighty allowed all of these horrors to take place and simply watched.
The deep delusions of being “chosen” and of divine protection caused Jews to perpetrate hostility and hate against them.
That is why Spinoza, “Einstein’s Rabbi” and a refugee of the Portuguese inquisition, rejected these dangerous, hate generating beliefs and Einstein, a refugee of the Holocaust strongly promoted Spinoza's convictions.
I think you might find the following article “How is this night like other nights?” By Amir Ora bout the origin and evolution of the Haggadah interesting. It was published in the Israeli web news site of Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159901.html
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BIBLE BELTS
http://biblebelts.blogspot.com/
BEWILDERING BIBLE LEGENDS
http://bewilderingbiblelegends.blogspot.com/
In the East God Won - The high cost of organized ignorance.
http://whengodwins.blogspot.com/
Holy Cows and Calves - Sacred superstitions, aka religions, from the Indian subcontinent.
http://holycowsandcalves.blogspot.com/
ניפוץ אלילים - ביעור הבערות
HOLY HERETICS - Jesus, Maimonides, Spinoza, the Founding Fathers, Herzl and Einstein.
http://holyheretics.com/
HOLOCAUST HAGGADAH - שואה
Top religion merchants scandalous explanations as to where the God of the Jews was during the great massacre - blame the victims.
http://holocausthagaddah.blogspot.com/
1283 C.E. Mayence & Bacharach Mob Attacks
1285 C.E. Munich Jews Burned Alive
1290 C.E. England King Edward I issues an edict banishing all Jews from England. Many drowned.
1291 C.E. France The Jewish refugees from England are promptly expelled from France.
1292 C.E. Italy Forced conversions & expulsion of the Italian Jewish community.
1298 C.E. Germany The libel of the "Desecrated Host" is perpetrated against the Jews of Germany. Approximately 150 Jewish communities undergo forced conversion.
1298 C.E. Franconia, Bavaria & Austria Reindfel's Decree is propagated against the Jews of Franconia and Bavarai. Riots against these Jewish communities, as well as those in Austria, result in the massacre of 100,000 Jews over a six-month period.
1306 C.E. France Expulsion
1308 C.E. Strasbourg Jews Burned Alive
1320 C.E. Toulouse & Perpigon 120 Communities Massacred & Talmud Burned
1321 C.E. Teruel Public Executions
1328 C.E. Estella 5,000 Jews Slaughtered
1348 C.E. France & Spain Jews Burned Alive
1348 C.E. Switzerland Expulsion
1349 C.E. Worms, Strasbourg, Oppenheim, Mayence, Erfurt, Bavaria & Swabia Jews Burned Alive
1349 C.E. Heilbronn (Germany) Expulsion
1349 C.E. Hungary Expulsion
1354 C.E. Castile (Spain) 12,000 Jews Slaughtered
1368 C.E. Toledo 8,000 Jews Slaughtered
1370 C.E. Majorca., Penignon & Barcelona Mob Attack
1215 C.E. Toulouse (France) Mass Arrests
1218 C.E. England Jews Forced to Wear Badges
1231 C.E. Rome Inquisition Established
1236 C.E. France Forced Conversion/Massacre
1239 C.E. London Massacre & Property Confiscation
1240 C.E. Austria Property confiscation. Jews either imprisoned, converted, expelled, or burned.
1240 C.E. France Talmud Confiscated
1240 C.E. England Book Burning
1240 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
1242 C.E. Paris Talmud Burned
1244 C.E. Oxford Mob Attacks
1255 C.E. England Blood libel in Lincoln results in the burning / torture of many Jews & public hangings.
1261 C.E. Canterbury Mob Attacks
1262 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. Germany Council of Vienna declares that all Jews must wear a "pointed dunce cap." Thousands murdered.
1267 C.E. Vienna Jews Forced to Wear Horned Hats
1270 C.E. Weissenberg, Magdeburg, Arnstadt, Coblenz, Singzig, and Erfurt Jews Burned Alive
1270 C.E. England The libel of the "counterfeit coins" - all Jewish men, women and children in England imprisoned. Hundreds are hung.
1276 C.E. Bavaria Expulsion
1278 C.E. Genoa (Spain) Mob Attacks
1147 C.E. Belitz (Germany) Jews Burned Alive
1147 C.E. Carenton, Ramenu & Sully (France) Massacres
1171 C.E. Blois Stake Burnings
1181 C.E. France Expulsion
1181 C.E. England Property Confiscation
1188 C.E. London & York Mob Attacks
1190 C.E. Norfolk Jews Burned Alive
1191 C.E. Bray (France) Jews Burned Alive
1195 C.E. France Property Confiscation
1209 C.E. Beziers Massacre
1212 C.E. Spain Rioting and blood bath against the Jews
1012 C.E. Mayence Expulsion
1021 C.E. Rome Jews Burned Alive
1063 C.E. Spain Massacre
1095 C.E. Lorraine Massacre
1096 C.E. Northern France & Germany 1/3 of Jewish Population Massacred
1096 C.E. Hungary Massacre
1096 C.E. Ralisbon Massacre
1099 C.E. Jerusalem Jews Burned Alive
1100 C.E. Kiev Pogrom
1140 C.E. Germany Massacres
1146 C.E. Rhine Valley
250 C.E. Canhage Expulsion
224 C.E. Italy Forced Conversion
325 C.E. Jerusalem Expulsion
351 C.E Persia Book Burning
357 C.E. Italy Property Confiscation
379 C.E. Milan Synagogue Burning
415 C.E. Alexandria Expulsion
418 C.E. Minorca Forced Conversion
469 C.E. Ipahan Holocaust
489 C.E. Antioch Synagogue Burning
506 C.E. Daphne Synagogue Burning
519 C.E. Ravenna Synagogue Burning
554 C.E. Diocese of Clement (France) Expulsion
561 C.E. Diocese of Uzes (France) Expulsion
582 C.E Merovingia Forced Conversion
612 C.E. Visigoth Spain Expulsion
628 C.E. Byzantium Forced Conversion
629 C.E. Merovingia Forced Conversion
633 C.E. Toledo Forced Conversion
638 C.E. Toledo Stake Burnings
642 C.E. Visigothic Empire Expulsion
653 C.E. Toledo Expulsion
681 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
693 C.E. Toledo Jews Enslaved
722 C.E. Byzantium Judaism Outlawed
855 C.E. Italy Expulsion
876 C.E. Sens Expulsion
897 C.E. Narbonne Land Confiscation
945 C.E. Venice Ban on Sea Travel
1009 C.E. Orleans Massacre
Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, this brutal campaign began with a deliberate series of progressively hostile acts of bigotry, repression, humiliation and discrimination. Authorized by the Nazis and their collaborators, such actions were based on the views that the German people were a superior "race," that all non-Germans were therefore inferior, and that Jews were race-poisoners. The intervals between each phase -- from antilocution (using hostile, bigoted language) to avoidance to discrimination to violence to genocide -- were frighteningly small.
Jewish victims of the Holocaust were rounded up from all parts of Nazi-occupied Europe and shipped to concentration camps where almost all were shot, hanged, subjected to hideous medical experiments, gassed or worked to death. Only a small percentage survived. It did not matter whether they were rich or poor, religious or secular, or decorated soldiers of the First World War. If they had even one Jewish grandparent (a provision of the Nuremberg Laws), they were marked for destruction.
jerry belairca
It brings to mind this quote: "He's got a lot of soul, [Joshua] has." ~ Ringo Starr
THAN PERSEVERING IN AN ERROR."
--Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:123
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0750.htm
http://books.google.com/books?q="There+is+more+honor+and+magnanimity+in+correcting,++than+persevering+in+an+error."+&btnG=Search+Books
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Third president of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence.
He was one of the most brilliant individuals in history
Jefferson's interests were boundless, and his accomplishments were great and varied. He was a philosopher, educator, naturalist, politician, scientist, architect, inventor,
pioneer in scientific farming, musician, and writer, and he was the foremost spokesman for democracy of his day.
Jefferson had great faith in popular rule, and it is this optimism that is the essence of what came to be called Jeffersonian democracy.
During his lifetime he sought to develop a government that would best assure the freedom and well-being of the individual.
Jefferson swore his hostility, he said, to "every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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ניפוץ אלילים - ביעור הבערות
HOLY HERETICS - Jesus, Maimonides, Spinoza, the Founding Fathers, Herzl and Einstein.
http://holyheretics.com/
HOLOCAUST HAGGADAH - שואה
Top religion merchants scandalous explanations as to where the God of the Jews was during the great massacre - blame the victims.
http://holocausthagaddah.blogspot.com/
"These ugly words may not have offended my gentile guests and may have even been overlooked by my Jewish guests"
Why would that be?
Are the non Jews too dimwitted to pickup on their meaning, or too lacking in morals to care?
I'm an Atheist and this passage is outrageous. Trust me, the meaning does not pass me by unnoticed.
For people who scream "anti-semitic" at the smallest personal observation or criticism of their own foibles, Jews sure seem to make a habit of assuming the worst in others.
Personally, I suspect it is a result of their religious training.