Ten Plagues

Haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues

Search, and inquire, what Laban, the Syrian, intended to do to our father Jacob; for Pharaoh decreed the destruction of the males only; but Laban intended to root out the whole; as it is said: "A Syrian had nearly caused my father to perish, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with few persons, and there became a great, mighty, and populous nation."

Search further, and inquire, what our own fathers Moses and Joshua intended to do to our brothers the Canaanites, for as it is said, "We took all his cities and that time, and utterly destroyed every city, the men, and the women, and the little ones; we left none remaining."

Search still further and inquire in the last generation, what Hitler intended to do; for once again he intended to destroy all Israel and enslave Mankind.

And in this generation, search and demand to know about those who shape the fire of the sun to murder nations and all mankind; for at last those who rise up against us, to annihilate us, make no distinctions of race or belief, but plan to destroy us all, without exception. May the Most Holy, blessed be he, deliver us out of their hand again!

The tradition says that we will spill wine from our cups in recounting the plagues because it is incumbent on us to reduce our pleasure as we remember the sufferings of the Egyptians. 

These are the ten plagues which the Most Holy, blessed be He, brought on the Egyptians in Egypt:

(Drop wine from the cup ten times while saying the ten plagues)

Blood, Frogs, Vermin, Poisonous Beasts, Pestilence, Boils, Hail, Locusts, Darkness, Slaying of the Firstborn.

Tradition tells us that when the angels rejoiced in the drowning of the Egyptians, the Lord our God, blessed be He, rebuked them, saying, "Are these not my people also, and the work of my hands?" Let us therefore grieve for the sufferings of our brothers the Egyptians.

But let us also remember the lesson of the plagues: the winning of freedom has not always been bloodless in the past. Through the generations we have faced the issue of violence in the struggle for freedom.

The struggle was not bloodless when the prophet Micah warned, "Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they execute it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and seize them, and houses, and take them away. Thus they oppose a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore thus sayeth the Lord: Hear this I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor justice and pervert all equity, the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest."

It was not bloodless when the people of America announced, "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it," and when the shofet Jefferson, the revolutionary judge and leader, added, "Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

It was not bloodless when the shofet Nat Turner proclaimed, "I had a vision, and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was dark and the thunder rolled in the heavens and blood flowed in streams, and I heard a voice saying, 'Such is your luck, such you are called to see and let it come rough or smooth you must surely bear it.'"

It was not bloodless when the rabbi Thoreau wrote of the prophet John Brown, "It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others";

when the prophet Garrison burned the Constitution that protected slavery because it was "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell";

when the judge Lincoln said, "If every drop of blood drawn by the lash must be paid by one drawn by the sword, still it must be said. The judgments of our Lord are true and righteous altogether."

No, the moments of resistance have not been bloodless. The blood of tyrants and the blood of freemen has watered history. But we may not rest easy in that knowledge. The freedom we seek is a freedom from blood as well as a freedom from tyrants. It is incumbent upon us not only to remember in tears the blood of the tyrants and the blood of the prophets and martyrs, but to end the letting of blood.

Source:  
1969 Freedom Haggadah

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