Haggadah for the Vegetarian Family
Bilingual, illustrated, 60 pages
Similar in spirit to Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb, Haggadah for the Vegetarian Family is shorter and the text and illustrations are more child-friendly. Much of the text and order are tradtional, but slavery, as a condition of both humans and animals, is stressed:
The stroy of how Jocheved put Moses in a basket on the Nile is told in the context of the universal spirit of maternal empathy:
"Throughout the ages parents have resorted to all sorts of tricks to rescue their chilren: they have put them on trains and on boats and into the hands of strangers so that their chldren could be taken our of an evil country into safety. Animals too will do anything they can to defend their young, even at the cost of their own lives. Wolves will risk gunfire from hunters to rescue their orphaned young."
The seder should be "a teachable moment." Thus this haggadah expands the idea of slavery to animal life and to the problem of slavery in the modern world: "There are more slaves in the world today than when the Anti-slavery Society was established in 1832. There is slavery in Africa, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Lebanon....This slavery consists of selling women and children into forced marriages, harems, and prostitution. There is alo child labor, chattel labor, debt slavery, and bond slavery."
We extol the part played by women in the liberation of slaves, like Harriet Tubman, in the 19th century, who was called "Moses" by her people.
We praise the Creator for the liberation of all people and the liberation of nature:
Ha Shem has prepared a feast for us on this night
Manna and matzoh, honey, seeds and herbs
Hei Haoilamim feeds us from the earth
All creation praises the Creator of the Universe
the cows of the field gather together and sing
the cattle in Ninevah sing
Sing, oh sing, acacia, tower in all your splendor, you who are decked in golden embroidery praised in the inmost sanctuuary.
Hei Haolamim set the stars in the skes
Hei Haolamim set Israel upon her land,
Set the creatures upon the earth, marked off the waters from the hills,
shaped each creature with its genius, each lamb to know ts mother
each calf to know its field
each hen to guard her nest
each bird to feed its young
and Israel to know Your Presence.
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