The Tikkun Passover Supplement

This is meant as a supplement to the traditional Haggadah, not as an alternative to it. A more full version of this supplement can be found online at tikkun.org/passover.

A Note to Non-Jews Jesus was a Jew, and the Last Supper was a Seder. Our supplement affirms the liberatory message that is part of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is found in many other religious and spiritual traditions as well. You may find some of this ritual helpful if you create your own rite to celebrate the key insight of all the spring holidays of the world: that rebirth, renewal, and transformation are possible, and that we are not stuck in the dark, cold, and deadly energies of winter. Judaism builds on that universal experience and adds another dimension: it suggests that the class structure (slavery, feudalism, capitalism, or neoliberal imperialism) can be overcome, and that we human beings, created in the image of the Transformative Power of the Universe (God), can create a world based on love, generosity, and nonviolence.

Kadesh

Before blessing the wine, read this together:

We are the descendents of a people that have told a story of liberation from slavery and placed that story at the very center of our religion, most of our holidays, and the Torah read each Shabbat. We took upon ourselves the task of telling the people of the world that nothing is fixed, that the world can be fundamentally transformed, and that together we can build an economic, political, social, and cultural reality based on love and generosity, peace and nonviolence, social and economic justice, and caring for each other and the world. That is our inherited calling as the Jewish people.

We do not come to this task with the arrogance implicit in suggesting that we already have lived a life that fully embodies these values. In fact, the trauma of hatred against us that our message engendered in ruling elites—who hate anyone who teaches that society can be freed from class oppression—has led many of us to run away from our highest spiritual vision and try to be “a nation like all other nations.” In the process, some of us have ended up working with and benefitting from the institutions of exploitation and oppression. This occurred in the Middle Ages, when Jews were offered very limited options and some ended up as tax and rent collectors and the most visible face of the feudal lords whom we served. And it is also true in the modern capitalist period, in which some of our brethren have become the moguls of Wall Street, investment bankers, corporate lawyers, media tycoons, and political operatives serving the status quo of Western imperialism.

Yet there has also been a core of our people who have managed not to allow fear to dominate our consciousness, and who in various ways have tried our best to remain true to the liberatory vision of Judaism. We are proud that even at a time when some Jews preach that our narrow self-interest should lead us to support a preemptive war against Iran and a solidarity with the 1 percent, the overwhelming majority of Jewish people continue to vote for liberal candidates for public office who, when they are at their best, provide a bulwark against the most reactionary forces in our world. These voting patterns have made Jews the most reliable electoral ally for people of color in Western societies, despite the loudmouths whose racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia continue to get disproportionate media attention.

As we lift our cup of wine to say the prayers for sanctification of this joyous holiday, we recommit ourselves to the struggle for a world in which our society’s rationality, efficiency, and productivity are judged by how much our economic, political, corporate, educational, legal, and medical systems tend to increase the amount of love, caring, kindness, generosity, and awe and wonder at the grandeur and mystery of the universe. We recommit ourselves to judging the rationality or efficiency of societal policies and institutions on how much they either undermine or sustain the way of life generated by capitalist...