Red Sea

Haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues

 Red Sea: April 2002
by Aurora Levins Morales


This Passover, who reclines?
Only the dead, their cupped hands filling slowly
with the red wine of war.  We are not free.

The blood on the doorposts does not protect anyone.
They say that other country over there
dim blue in the twilight
farther than the orange stars exploding over our roofs
is called peace.

The bread of affliction snaps in our hands like bones,
is dust in our mouths. This bitterness brings tears to our eyes.
The figs and apples are sour.  We have many more
than four questions.  We dip and dip,
salt stinging our fingers.  
Unbearable griefs braided into a rope so tight
we can hardly breathe,
Whether we bless or curse,
this is captivity.
We would cross the water if we knew how.
Everyone blames everyone else for barring the way.

Listen, they say there is honey swelling in golden combs, over there,
dates as sweet and brown as lovers' cheekbones,
bread as fragrant as rest,
but the turbulent water will not part for us.
We've lost the trick of it.

Back then, one man's faith opened the way.
He stepped in, we were released, our enemies drowned.

This time we're tied at the ankles.
We cannot cross until we carry each other,
all of us refugees, all of us prophets.
No more taking turns on history's wheel,
trying to collect old debts no-one can pay.
The sea will not open that way. 

This time that country
is what we promise each other,
our rage pressed cheek to cheek
until tears flood the space between,
until there are no enemies left,
because this time no one will be left to drown
and all of us must be chosen. 
This time it's all of us or none. 

Source:  
Aurora Levins Morales
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Table of contents
    Introduction
  • Passover greetings
  • Silent Meditation on Candelighting
  • Lighting the Holiday Candles
  • 9 Easy Seder Activities You Haven't Thought of Yet
  • Seder Plate and Ritual Items
  • A Seder plate for current events
  • Je Suis Juif, Parce Que... I am a Jew Because... by Edmond Fleg
  • LIBERACIÓN: Passover through a Latin-Jewish Lens of Liberation (English Version)
  • Prayer for Ukraine
    • Kadesh
  • Who Are You?
  • Kadesh Covid-19 Yahrzeit candle
  • Rabbi Abraham Pam on Slavery and Freedom
  • Woke Up This Morning
    • Urchatz
  • Algerian Passover
  • wade in the water
    • Karpas
  • What Do You Use For Karpas?
    • Passover Seder in Manila, Philippines, 1925
      • Yachatz
    • Uyghur Seder Insert
    • ENTERING THE BROKEN WORLD
      • Maggid - Beginning
    • Sunflower Seeds on My Seder Plate
    • Brombacher Haggadah Illustration
    • The Seder's Order
      • Commentary / Readings
    • Exodus 2022/5782: A Reading for the Seder
    • Lean Out / Lean In: A Meditation on Reclining, Connected to the Global Refugee Crisis
    • Winter is Over: Ukrainian Schoolchild's Poem, 1920, NLI
      • -- Four Questions
    • Four Questions in Fictional Languages
    • 4 Questions for Your Shabbat Table
    • New Questions for the Third Year of COVID-19
    • A Child Eating Matzah, Europe, NLI
      • -- Four Children
    • The Child Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask a Question
    • Golden Girls Wise Child
      • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
    • The Exodus: Coming Out
    • Dayenu
    • Persian Passover
    • Dayenu—Finding Meaning in the Small Things
    • Dayenu, Disability Justice
    • An Orange on Plate for Women - And Spit out Seeds of Hate
    • Dayenu Cartoon, The Sentinel, March 24, 1977, NLI
      • -- Exodus Story
    • Lyric video: Wide as the Water (Mi Chamocha)
    • Dayenu "Moses in the Basket", The Sentinel, 1967, NLI
      • -- Ten Plagues
    • 10 Plagues, Amsterdam Haggadah, 1738, NLI
    • Red Sea
    • Makah/​Plague of the Binary
    • Ten Plagues of Fossil Fuels
      • Motzi-Matzah
    • Freedom Together
      • Koreich
    • Mixing The Sweet And The Bitter
    • Earth & Justice Freedom-Seder - The Blessings of Redemption
      • Shulchan Oreich
    • US Soldiers Celebrating Passover in Korea, 1953. Source: The National Archives.
    • Passover Seder at the Hannanshwili family, Tbilisi, Georgia (USSR), 1924
      • Rachtzah
    • Yemenite Passover
      • Bareich
    • Gratitude for the meal
    • Gratitude
      • Hallel
    • Fourth Cup
      • Nirtzah
    • Golden Girls Nirtzah
    • We Sing Your Song / Strong in Your Majesty
      • Songs
    • We Don't Talk About Pharaoh (Adapted From We Don't Talk About Bruno)
    • "The Uyghurs Must Be Free"
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