On the pouring out of the wrath
2016-Apr-28, Thursday 15:58
Our Seder went really well! Everyone had a good time, and even now, almost a week later, we're still eating leftovers from it. It's also the longest Seder we've ever had--it started around 5:30 with the traditional (for our household) watching of Prince of Egypt and people left just before midnight. I don't think we got to dinner until 10:00, what with all the discussion and stories being shared in between portions from the Haggadah, I loved it.
Anyway, this week I was listening to the Talking in Shul podcast and they had a section on the Shefokh hamatkha, part of the Haggadah that comes near the end. It reads:
Some people deal with it by taking it out--our Haggadah actually doesn't have Shefokh hamatkha in it at all--and some of them by replacing it with another section. There's a forgery that supposedly dates from 1521 that starts "pour out your love"--you can see the full quote here, though they pass it off as genuine--as one widely-cited replacement.
I'm kind of wondering if we should add it in, though. The Seder is a welcoming experience, or at least it's supposed to be. Part of the Seder is the announcement "All who are hungry, come and eat" (though Talking in Shul does point out that you say this after everyone has already sat down and the door is closed!) and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schoolpsychnerd and I have always invited a lot of gentile friends to our Seders. But it's also supposed to commemorate the experience of our ancestors in Egypt, what with the maror and the salt water that represent the bitterness and pain of slavery.
But there's really no symbol of anger. In my Philosophy of Politics class at Penn, I read bits of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, and while I don't remember any specific quotes, I remember the point that anger is important to oppressed peoples and that it's not a character flaw; often it can be a source of strength in the face of hardship. Expecting the oppressed to remain perfectly calm is another way of exerting authority over them. The Haggadah encourages its participants to imagine that they themselves had been enslaved and now are free, and to my mind, part of that is the anger that slaves would feel but be forbidden to display.
And, while we're mostly isolated from it here in America, there is the rising tide of anti-semitism elsewhere in the world to consider too. From the end of Yemen's 2500-year-old Jewish community in the face of threats to convert to Islam or leave to the problems with Labour in Britain, I imagine there are plenty of people out there who wish for G-d to pour out a little more of his wrath than usual.
This year, in addition to the wine cup of Eliyahu and the water cup of Miriam, we added a coffee cup of Zipporah, who was infamously mocked by Aharon and Miriam for her skin color, as a tribute to those who do not feel comfortable in Jewish spaces because of their skin color, or family background, or childhood experiences. Maybe next year, we should add back in the Shefokh hamatkha.
Anyway, this week I was listening to the Talking in Shul podcast and they had a section on the Shefokh hamatkha, part of the Haggadah that comes near the end. It reads:
Pour out Your wrath upon those who do not know You and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your Name. For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitations. Pour out Your fury upon them; let the fierceness of Your anger overtake them. Pursue them in indignation and eradicate them from under Your heavens.The last part of the podcast was devoted to the question of what place does this have in the Seder?
Some people deal with it by taking it out--our Haggadah actually doesn't have Shefokh hamatkha in it at all--and some of them by replacing it with another section. There's a forgery that supposedly dates from 1521 that starts "pour out your love"--you can see the full quote here, though they pass it off as genuine--as one widely-cited replacement.
I'm kind of wondering if we should add it in, though. The Seder is a welcoming experience, or at least it's supposed to be. Part of the Seder is the announcement "All who are hungry, come and eat" (though Talking in Shul does point out that you say this after everyone has already sat down and the door is closed!) and
schoolpsychnerd and I have always invited a lot of gentile friends to our Seders. But it's also supposed to commemorate the experience of our ancestors in Egypt, what with the maror and the salt water that represent the bitterness and pain of slavery.But there's really no symbol of anger. In my Philosophy of Politics class at Penn, I read bits of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, and while I don't remember any specific quotes, I remember the point that anger is important to oppressed peoples and that it's not a character flaw; often it can be a source of strength in the face of hardship. Expecting the oppressed to remain perfectly calm is another way of exerting authority over them. The Haggadah encourages its participants to imagine that they themselves had been enslaved and now are free, and to my mind, part of that is the anger that slaves would feel but be forbidden to display.
And, while we're mostly isolated from it here in America, there is the rising tide of anti-semitism elsewhere in the world to consider too. From the end of Yemen's 2500-year-old Jewish community in the face of threats to convert to Islam or leave to the problems with Labour in Britain, I imagine there are plenty of people out there who wish for G-d to pour out a little more of his wrath than usual.
This year, in addition to the wine cup of Eliyahu and the water cup of Miriam, we added a coffee cup of Zipporah, who was infamously mocked by Aharon and Miriam for her skin color, as a tribute to those who do not feel comfortable in Jewish spaces because of their skin color, or family background, or childhood experiences. Maybe next year, we should add back in the Shefokh hamatkha.
