The Freedom Seder Dayenu
Selections from Liberation Now: Next Year in a World of Freedom, a Haggadah for Passover by Arthur I. Waskow used on the third night of Passover, April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, in the basement of a Black church in Washington DC. About 800 people took part, half of them Jews, the rest Black and white Christians.
“For if we were to end a single genocide but not stop the other wars that kill [people] as we sit here, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to end those bloody wars but not disarm the nations of the weapons that could destroy all [humankind], it would not be sufficient;
If we were to disarm the nations but not end the brutality with which the police attack black people in some countries, brown people in others; Moslems in some countries, Hindus in others; Baptists in some countries, athiests in others; Communists in some countries, conservatives in others, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to make sure that no one starved but were not to free the daring poets from their jails, it would not be sufficient;
If we were to free the poets from their jails but not to train the minds of the people so that they could not understand the poets, it would not be sufficient;
If we educated all [people] to understand the free, creative poets but forbade them to explore their own inner ecstasies, it would not be sufficient;
If we allowed all people to explore their inner ecstasies but would not allow them to love one another and share in community, it would not be sufficient;
How much, then, are we bound to struggle, work, share, give thanks, plea, feel, organize, sit-in, speak out, hope, and be on behalf of humanity! For we must end the genocide [in Vietnam], stop the bloody wars that are killing [people] as we sit here, disarm the nations of the deadly weapons that threaten to destroy us all, end the brutality which which the police beat minorities in many countries, make sure that no one starves, free the poets from their jails, educate us all to understand their poetry, allow us all to explore our inner ecstasies, and encourage and aid us all to love one another and share in human community. All these!”
ALL: Reply with your own dayenus and the group will respond with: DAYENU
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