{ "clip_details": { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-third-cup-of-wine-6", "title": "The Third Cup of Wine", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "We have eaten the festive meal, tracked down the afikomen (hopefully it wasn't somewhere dusty), and now we're starting...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>We have eaten the festive meal, tracked down the afikomen (hopefully it wasn't somewhere dusty), and now we're starting to wonder why we came back to this Haggadah.</p>\n\n<p>Here's another glass of wine to keep you going.</p>\n\n<p>With birkat hamazon, we give thanks for our food, and we pour ourselves a third cup of wine.</p>\n\n<p>(Or, alternately, we say the kadesh again)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Flip to the back of the book for a song, or chat about something that struck you from the seder, as you empty your glasses for the final cup of the night!)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Bareich", "slug": "bareich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 169, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Third Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-third-cup-of-wine-6", "og:title": "The Third Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, "contributed_by": { "author": "Serena Jake", "handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "total_books": 2, "total_clips": 54, "total_followers": 0, "is_following": 0 }, "user_book": null, "clips_by_author": [ { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "welcome-to-the-seder-9", "title": "Serena Introduces the Seder", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Welcome to the seder. Grab a pillow. Recline. Relax. Perhaps you are sitting at a table with your family. Your friends....", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Welcome to the seder. Grab a pillow. Recline. Relax.</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps you are sitting at a table with your family. Your friends. Your housemates. Or perhaps you are alone. At a counter, or a desk, or on a pile of blankets on the floor. Perhaps you are connected to your loved ones through computers. Straddling time zones or battling shoddy WiFi. Grasping onto togetherness. Holding tight to ritual in a time of free-fall.</p>\n\n<p>As a child, I resented tradition. I thought, as so many children do, that custom was only a roadblock to new ideas and free spirits. </p>\n\n<p>We were taught as children to admire trailblazers and radicals! Rule-breakers! Even the story of Exodus is about a man eschewing a tradition -- the slavery of the Jewish people at the hands of the Egyptians -- and leading his people into the uncharted newness of freedom. No time for ritual. Take your bread unleavened. Run. This man didn’t even respect the rules of <em>physics</em> -- he got his God to <em>part the waters of the Red Sea</em> ! </p>\n\n<p>What you never realize, as a child, is that your whole life is built on tradition. The comfort of ritual. A meal three times a day. A goodnight kiss. Being washed and dressed and held and loved by the people who wash and dress and hold and love you.</p>\n\n<p>It is only through the steady hum of ritual, of tradition, that we acquire the tools we need to break the rules when the rules need breaking.</p>\n\n<p>The Passover Seder has been with the Jewish people for thousands of years, evolving from an ancient celebration of springtime to a yearly retelling of the story of Exodus. Jews have held tight to the seder through times of hardship and prosperity. The Crusades, the Pogroms, the Holocaust. Through career successes, reunions, the birth of children. </p>\n\n<p>This year feels unprecedented. As many years do. There will always be something to mourn. There will always be something to be grateful for. </p>\n\n<p>The Passover seder is a thread that connects us from a rich past and into an expansive future. Here, now, we light the candles, close our eyes, and feel our bodies in space, held in suspension along that ever-present thread.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אַדֹנָ-י אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל יום טוב</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch a-ta A-do-nay Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-o-lam a-sher ki-di-sha-nu bi-mitz-vo-tav vi-tzi-va-noo li-had-leek ner shel Yom Tov.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of the holiday.</p>", "cliptype": "", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Introduction", "slug": "introduction" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 193, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Serena Introduces the Seder | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. 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Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "art-7", "title": "Sharone's Hearth", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Sharone Halevy", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238520/Cover2-copy.JPG", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238520/conversions/Cover2-copy-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Introduction", "slug": "introduction" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 192, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Sharone's Hearth | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/art-7", "og:title": "Sharone's Hearth | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238520/conversions/Cover2-copy-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "faith-and-creativity", "title": "Creativity / Faith", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Sharone Halevy", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238511/Cover3-copy.jpg", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238511/conversions/Cover3-copy-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maggid - Beginning", "slug": "maggid-beginning" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 204, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Creativity / Faith | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/faith-and-creativity", "og:title": "Creativity / Faith | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/238511/conversions/Cover3-copy-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "urchatz-2068", "title": "Wash Your Hands", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "David Rosenberg is an actor and playwright. He is a graduate of the acting program at Juilliard, and one of two writers...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>David Rosenberg is an actor and playwright. He is a graduate of the acting program at Juilliard, and one of two writers in this Haggadah with a play set on Passover (\"Effect if Not Intent\").</em> </p>\n\n<p>Urchatz calls on a fairly obscure Jewish ritual: washing our hands before eating foods dipped in liquid. But not all liquids! According to custom, there are only seven that necessitate washing: wine, honey, olive oil, milk, dew, blood, and water. It is said that these liquids possess the danger to bring about “tumah,” or spiritual uncleanliness, in the eater. Washing our hands ritually protects us from tumah and brings about “taharah,” or purity.</p>\n\n<p>There is no prayer associated with Urchatz. It’s a real “Show Don’t Tell” ritual. But tonight, as we wash our hands, let us reaffirm our commitment to go beyond symbolic cleansing. Let us not rely upon ritualistic gestures to ward off spiritual uncleanliness. Let’s be proactive about pursuing taharah without symbolic reminders. And let’s acknowledge that “purity” is an ideal, not a reality. Let’s acknowledge the practical impossibility of taharah, but keep pushing towards it anyway. </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "David Rosenberg", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Urchatz", "slug": "urchatz" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 176, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Wash Your Hands | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/urchatz-2068", "og:title": "Wash Your Hands | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "an-essay-on-ha-lachma-anya-optimism-and-suspension-of-disbelief-that-is-too-long-for-me-to-recommend-you-read-aloud-but-in-writing-it-has-helped-me-process-how-to-do-maggid-this-year", "title": "Shara's Bread of Affliction", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Shara Feit is a playwright, performer, and dramaturg whose play \"little lives\" was a finalist for the 2019 O'Neill Playw...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Shara Feit is a playwright, performer, and dramaturg whose play \"little lives\" was a finalist for the 2019 O'Neill Playwrights Conference. She was raised Modern Orthodox, and we are very grateful to her for dumbing herself down for a Haggadah curated by Reform Jews.</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD5U5ySHgsw\">Before we begin in earnest, here’s a nice man from Toronto, Canada who is going to teach you about / how to sing Ha Lachma Anya. Start at 2:29 if you just wanna learn the tune.</a></strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Ha lachma anya di achalu avahatana b'ara d'Mitzrayim. Kal dichfin yeitei v'yeichul. Kal ditzrich yeitei v'yifsach. Hashata hacha, l'shanah haba'ah b'ara d'Yisrael. Hashata avdei. L'shana haba'ah b'nei chorin.</em> </p>\n\n<p>This is the bread of destitution/affliction* that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.</p>\n\n<p>*Shara is used to the translation “affliction.” Translation of the Aramaic courtesy of Sefaria.com</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Shara Feit", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maggid - Beginning", "slug": "maggid-beginning" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 164, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Shara's Bread of Affliction | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/an-essay-on-ha-lachma-anya-optimism-and-suspension-of-disbelief-that-is-too-long-for-me-to-recommend-you-read-aloud-but-in-writing-it-has-helped-me-process-how-to-do-maggid-this-year", "og:title": "Shara's Bread of Affliction | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "an-essay-on-ha-lachma-anya-optimism-and-suspension-of-disbelief-that-is-too-long-for-me-to-recommend-you-read-aloud-but-in-writing-it-has-helped-me-process-how-to-do-maggid-this-year-1", "title": "An Essay On Ha Lachma Anya, Optimism, and Suspension of Disbelief That is Too Long For Me to Recommend You Read Aloud...", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": " ...but, In Writing It, Has Helped Me Process How to Do Maggid This Year (read the bolded sections aloud) Ha Lachma An...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p><strong> ...but, In Writing It, Has Helped Me Process How to Do Maggid This Year</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(read the bolded sections aloud)</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Ha Lachma Anya, the introduction to Maggid I’ve always known, is hard for me this year. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>This Passover, Matzah does feel more like the bread of affliction than on any other Passover I’ve experienced. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>In his Pesach Haggadah, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes that “What transforms the bread of oppression into the bread of freedom is the willingness to share it with others....” In a year when every place of shared nourishment (both the literal and figurative) are closed, when I am told I cannot stand closer than six feet to the people I love or welcome others into my home, when I am unwilling to share the bread of freedom with others, how can I extend an honest invitation? </strong></p>\n\n<p>And then there is Ha Lachma Anya’s conclusion, its leap to freedom and redemption. This is the least free I’ve ever felt in my otherwise now seemingly very beautifully boring and safe life. Pardon the language, but how the fuck am I supposed to think about invitation and community and freedom? How the fuck am I dreaming about a redemptive next year when we’re all taking things day, hour by hour, when who knows what next year is going to be and time has gotten slippery and days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days and I can’t say I remember when this even began, when death encroaches on all sides, when freedom and redemption couldn’t feel further away? </p>\n\n<p>Do any of you artists have an initial impulse towards false uplift and sentiment, even if you hate it? For years, I strongly and vocally identified as a pessimist. Maybe that was just an ansty posture, a contrarian stance tied to anger and growing into my body and feeling like I didn’t belong in the religious community in which I was raised. People would be shocked when I told them about my straunch pessimism, maybe because I smile a lot and like baking cookies for my friends and generally making people feel better. And yet, though I would declare my self-identification with pride and defiance, I would write plays that ended neatly, where seperated loved ones were reunited and estranged family members held hands, or lovers would kiss and make up, despite everything. I am repelled by false uplift when I see it in art; I think it is both uninteresting and irresponsible. When I sniffed it out in my own work, I would have to untangle and revise my way to somewhere that felt truer: a world that is chaotic and messy and often really sad, a world that was more about tough questions than easy answers (more on questions later). “Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people” smells strongly of false uplift. </p>\n\n<p><strong>In Escape Velocity: A Post-Apocalyptic Haggadah, Stanley Aaron Lebovic argues that Ha Lachma Anya’s invitation is too late to be sincere. The delay of the invitation proves “We are NOT really free! We are NOT yet home! Our exodus from Egypt has landed us in a prolonged exile of unimaginable horrors…” </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>So, for reasons of both the Haggadah’s structure and the current reality of our lives, the invitation isn’t a real invitation. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>But, lately, I have been thinking a lot about suspension of disbelief. </strong></p>\n\n<p>In my recent applications to institutions, I’ve had to articulate what I think is radical or meaningful or even just useful about theatre. I’ve found myself narrowing in on how, when disbelief is suspended, seemingly authentic, unshakeable givens fall away. I’ve found myself writing in definitive, declarative, statements about how theatre is radical because it places the seemingly impossible within the reach of human imagination. A better world must first be imagined in order to ever come into existence. And if a better world can be rendered in imagination, then it might just be possible. </p>\n\n<p>Now, I read these statements, retch a little, and qualify all of them with a small, doubtful, quiet, pleading “right?” Consider this revision for our time: When disbelief is suspended, seemingly authentic, unshakeable givens fall away, right? Theatre can be radical because it places the seemingly impossible within the reach of human imagination, right? And a better world must be imagined in order to ever come into existence, right? And if a better world can be rendered in imagination, then it might just be possible, right?</p>\n\n<p>As I write this, I see the shadow of what I think might be a mouse flit across my parents’ dining room floor. I hop onto a chair, for literally no reason because mice are tiny. I tell my parents. We have a short conversation, loosely summarized: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>We could call someone. </p>\n\n<p>Yeah. </p>\n\n<p>But no one would come. </p>\n\n<p>Yeah.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And my friend Hannah texts me. She’s just angry-written two chapters of her new fantasy novel. She wanted to share her seder with her sister. They both live in Boston. Even so, they can’t be together. I can cite endless examples of everything on the spectrum of wrong to tragic to nightmarish. I know you can too. </p>\n\n<p>And here we are, singing about freedom. </p>\n\n<p><strong>There is the obvious framing of the Passover story that (presumably) draws all of us as ~artists~ to exploring its various facets: Maggid as a highly theatrical act of suspension of disbelief. You’ve got props, set, script, maybe a costume. Hold your matzah aloft. Drink at appointed times. It’s Site Specific Theatre, Baby. </strong></p>\n\n<p>In an article for Scientific American, Literary Critic Norman Holland cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge as the coiner of the term in The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, when he asked his readers for “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith,” though like many of y’all I recall first learning of suspension of disbelief through Aristotle or maybe theater camp. While neuroscience hasn’t quite figured out specifically how we suspend disbelief, Holland describes suspended disbelief in general terms. He writes “It isn't that we stop disbelieving—it's that we believe two inconsistent things. We accept that we are sitting and reading or watching a movie. We also believe or, more accurately, feel that what we are reading or viewing is happening.” When we suspend disbelief, our prefrontal cortexes do not fact-check our realities or trigger our motor impulses. But, our limbic systems make us feel the feels of the stories we’re taking in. </p>\n\n<p><strong>I Googled why we have the capacity, on a neuroscientific level, to suspend disbelief, what might be psychologically or evolutionarily valuable. I haven't had any luck finding anything definitive. </strong></p>\n\n<p>And I don’t know how I identify on the optimism-pessimism spectrum anymore, certainly not now, not in a world where there are hours when I feel the world has been sliced open, tipped over, and completely and utterly drained of purpose and there are other hours, sometimes in the same day, when I feel more grateful just to be alive than I can articulate. </p>\n\n<p>Fuck Aristotelian misogyny and oppressive witch’s hat bullshit structure, but I raise my three glasses of grape juice and maybe one glass of very weak wine to suspension of disbelief and poetic faith. I invite my adolescent self with her blue sparkly eye-liner and anger and angst before she’d experienced anything like this and my present self who feels so very small and sad and scared and incapable of meaningful action. I tell myself, past and present that it’s not naive or foolish to imagine freedom, to use the devices we know from our work to get through this. It is nourishing. It is human. Maybe suspending disbelief, with its capacity to blur the world of reality and the world of story, it is an act of older, wiser, optimism for our times. I don’t know for sure, though. Leibniz’s doctrine of optimism is that this world is the best of all possible worlds. I don’t know if I can believe that about the world we’re living through. </p>\n\n<p><strong>As we embark on the journey of Maggid, we know we’re, up to a point, deluding ourselves. We’re too smart and cynical not to. We know our invitation isn’t real. We know our freedom isn’t, either.. But we’ve all been suspending disbelief, semi-constantly, for weeks: watching hours of television and movies, putting up small shows on the internet, reading books, telling each other stories virtually. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>We are all famished. We are all in need. So, okay. Let’s try it. Let’s suspend disbelief. Let’s invite each other to feast. Next year, we’re going to be free. </strong></p>\n\n<p>PS. I hate that I didn’t cite any women in this, WTF. </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Shara Feit", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maggid - Beginning", "slug": "maggid-beginning" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 177, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "An Essay On Ha Lachma Anya, Optimism, and Suspension of Disbelief That is Too Long For Me to Recommend You Read Aloud... | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/an-essay-on-ha-lachma-anya-optimism-and-suspension-of-disbelief-that-is-too-long-for-me-to-recommend-you-read-aloud-but-in-writing-it-has-helped-me-process-how-to-do-maggid-this-year-1", "og:title": "An Essay On Ha Lachma Anya, Optimism, and Suspension of Disbelief That is Too Long For Me to Recommend You Read Aloud... | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "matt-s-story-part-i", "title": "Matt's Story, Part I", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Matt Minnicino is a playwright, adaptor, actor, director, teacher, and theatermaker with an MFA from Colmubia. In his sp...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Matt Minnicino is a playwright, adaptor, actor, director, teacher, and theatermaker with an MFA from Colmubia. In his spare time, he teaches kids about Shakespeare.</em> </p>\n\n<p>There was a wonderful queer rabbi I knew, a man with a shaved head, sharp cheeks cut like burnished marble, and eyes that pierced and perceived like one searching the depths of a dark-watered sea, urging you not to look away. This rabbi told me once that the foods of the Seder are each the ingredients one must use to create love.</p>\n\n<p> <em>What do you mean</em>, I said. I knew the story. I knew, even lax as I was in my own practice, the frenzied fable of our people’s rushing from dusty Egypt before the bread could rise, left with those dry placards I had so dreaded eating as a child. I knew the story. </p>\n\n<p> <em>No, no</em>, said the rabbi (and I swear this is true), <em>You must awaken from the slumber of what things are said to be and into the world of what you know them to be.</em> </p>\n\n<p> <em>The matzoh</em>, he said, <em>is our divine love. We have three pieces of matzoh—the one above, which is G-d, the one below, which is our very selves, and the one between, which connects us.</em> </p>\n\n<p>I was of course perplexed, and asked further.</p>\n\n<p> <em>Why do we break the middle matzoh</em>, I asked my friend, hearing the weary scowl of my voice lighten like a child’s.</p>\n\n<p> <em>Because connection is hard. And we often break ourselves off from what is divine in us, simply by being.</em> </p>\n\n<p>I couldn’t deny I was moved. He spoke with the delicacy of a palm frond on still water, and yet so resolute in this. A part of me needled him, wanted to poke a hole in his symbols.</p>\n\n<p> <em>What about the afikomen</em>, I said. <em>What’s this nonsense about hiding it, letting a child find it. Surely that’s just to entertain the kids!</em> And I remembered how I’d be rewarded with a little chocolate gelt when I plucked the crumbly sheet of bread from between the pages of some old tome in our basement.</p>\n\n<p> <em>Ah, ah,</em> the rabbi said. <em>It is because, though we break ourself off, we cannot truly continue until we have found the part missing that will allow us to connect. And it is never us who find the piece. It is always our children.</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Here the middle piece of matzoh is broken, and one piece set aside. Someone at the table will now hide this piece - the 'akifomen' - for the children, or most childlike among you, to find later in the evening.)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Matt Minnicino", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Yachatz", "slug": "yachatz" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 148, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Matt's Story, Part I | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/matt-s-story-part-i", "og:title": "Matt's Story, Part I | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "matt-s-story-part-ii", "title": "Motzi-Matzah", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ‑יָ אֱ‑לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמּוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ Baruch Atah Ado-nai Elo-heinu Melech Ha-...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ‑יָ אֱ‑לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמּוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Ado-nai Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha-aretz.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings bread from the earth.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מַצָּה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’tzivanu Al Achilat matzah.</em>  </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His laws and commanded us to eat matzah.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Here we break the top and middle matzot into pieces and distribute them everyone at the table)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": null, "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Motzi-Matzah", "slug": "motzi-matzah" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 164, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Motzi-Matzah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/matt-s-story-part-ii", "og:title": "Motzi-Matzah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "matt-s-story-part-ii-1", "title": "Matt's Story, Part II", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "(The story of Matt and the rabbi continues:) I pressed on, asking Why the maror, then, the bitter herbs ? and even the...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p><i>(The story of Matt and the rabbi continues:)</i></p>\n\n<p>I pressed on, asking <em>Why the maror, then, the bitter herbs</em> ? and even then I remember blanching at the memory of horseradish on my tongue.</p>\n\n<p> <em>It is because love is bitter. Even at its best, there is bitterness in love. We remember that our people tasted the burning discomfort and strife of love but they ate it all the same, in order that they might love each other and what is divine in them.</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>ברוּךְ אַתָּה יְיַָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּֽנוּ עַל אֲכִילַת מרוֹר</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’tzivanu Al Achilat Maror. </em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sancti- fied us with His laws and commanded us to eat bitter herbs.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Matt Minnicino", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maror", "slug": "maror" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 152, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Matt's Story, Part II | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/matt-s-story-part-ii-1", "og:title": "Matt's Story, Part II | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "matt-s-story-part-iii", "title": "Matt's Story, Part III", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "But then the rabbi smiled, and I saw that he had been smiling this whole time but now the smile was wide, not wistful or...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>But then the rabbi smiled, and I saw that he had been smiling this whole time but now the smile was wide, not wistful or wandering, and there was a bounty in it. And he laughed and said, <em>But then we eat the charoset.</em> </p>\n\n<p>I laughed too. <em>No, I know this. The charoset is the clay our people used to build the Egyptians their wonders. It reminds us of how we slaved.</em> </p>\n\n<p> <em>No</em>, said the rabbi, <em>It may be a memory of that. But what it reminds me of is that, in our suffering for love, we became great builders, and our clay tasted sweet, and we learned that you need a sweet mortar to build a strong house. You need to take sweet joy with your bitterness and your broken heart, and you will see all the sides of love.</em> </p>\n\n<p>The rabbi ended here. We had other things to do. But I thanked him and held his hand with both of mine. Through him, and his own connection to what was divine in him, I am joyful to tell others what he taught me, why we eat as we do on the Seder.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Here we combine our matzah, our maror, and our charoset to make a delicious sandwich)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Matt Minnicino", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Koreich", "slug": "koreich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 166, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Matt's Story, Part III | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/matt-s-story-part-iii", "og:title": "Matt's Story, Part III | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "a-little-context-for-this-haggadah", "title": "A Little Context for this Haggadah", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "(No need to read this page out loud! This is straight background.) Last year the task fell to me to arrange a new hagga...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>(No need to read this page out loud! This is straight background.)</em> </p>\n\n<p>Last year the task fell to me to arrange a new haggadah for our Seder from the plentiful resources on Haggadot.com. As the most goyishe of our cadre of Jewish Artists, I was overwhelmed with options. Either the material was painfully dense, or swung entirely in the opposite direction: too many College Liberal Reframings! Too many memes! Where were all the beautiful oral and textual investigations -- and jokes! -- I knew were the birthright (ha ha) of my Jewish community? So: instead of hunting them down, I avoided doing any more scholarly work than was necessary and my partner and I gathered our talented friends -- outstanding and celebrated Jewish artists, all -- to write some new ones instead. Here they are, and we are lucky and grateful to have them. I hope they bring you as much joy as they did me.</p>\n\n<p>--Jake</p>\n\n<p> <em>Jake Beckhard is a director who was just Jewish enough to make it into Birthright. He was a 2018 Drama League Fellow and the founder of Artilliers Theater Company.</em> </p>\n\n<p>So here's how we went about it: we gathered a cohort of our favorite Jewish artists to contribute to our service, with very few guidelines. They were asked to choose a part of the seder that interested them and write whatever they wanted. Solemn, funny, personal, abstract, traditional, meaningful, cheeky. It was a pretty open prompt, but we hope that we have curated a varied and interested seder. Some sections are rather long, and we've bolded the sections we plan to read aloud in our seder. We also reached out to artist Sharone Halevy (also a fabulous director - all of our friends are multi-talented!), who has provided art that we used for the cover and througout the book.</p>\n\n<p>Though Jake first had this idea in 2019 (about three days before our seder...sadly, not enough time to make it happen), it didn't actualize until 2020 aka Big Time Virus. We are all of us weeks into quarantine, and many of these writings contend with that reality. We hope this haggadah will prove useful in years to come, so perhaps we’ll update some of its contents, or else look to the Pandemic Passover as a springboard for broader truths.</p>\n\n<p>This haggadah was curated with love for our artistic community and our Jewish community. Enjoy, and chag semeach. </p>\n\n<p>--Serena</p>\n\n<p> <em>Serena Berman is a playwright, actress, singer, and producer. She is a resident artist at Ars Nova and is frequently type-cast as a Jewish teenager.</em> </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jake and Serena", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Introduction", "slug": "introduction" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 161, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "A Little Context for this Haggadah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/a-little-context-for-this-haggadah", "og:title": "A Little Context for this Haggadah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "eating-the-bitter-herbs", "title": "Eating the Bitter Herbs (Natalie in Quarantine)", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "In quarantine I’m living with my mother, father and grandmother. We are lucky and safe and healthy in our home. In searc...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>In quarantine I’m living with my mother, father and grandmother. We are lucky and safe and healthy in our home. In search of an angle, or take, or a point of inspiration when writing this…I went around the house and asked each of my housemates what they think of, when they think of the bitter herbs on the Seder Plate. </p>\n\n<p>My mother responded “suffering”, my grandmother responded “it represents the suffering that the Jews experienced in Egypt.” And my father responded immediately to me and said “chocolate.” (????). Unclear where his head was at when I approached him… or perhaps very clear. Maybe he didn’t hear my question. Or maybe I should be concerned. </p>\n\n<p>When thinking about the bitter herbs this Passover, it’s an obvious poignant and striking moment to reflect on the current suffering of our nation and our world as we all collectively suffer in different forms through this pandemic.  </p>\n\n<p>However, the bitter herbs are meant to be paired with haroset, and this important. The haroset is sweet, and this sweetness represents hope… an end to suffering. Though it took me a second to bring it all together…I guess my father had a point when he said “chocolate.” There is meaning in thinking of something bitter, and instead choosing to think of something sweet. I hope all of you in your time of quarantine… are treating yourself to some chocolate every now and then, because we must always continue to search for the sweetness, it is after all, the perfect antitode, to bitterness. </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": null, "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maror", "slug": "maror" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 157, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Eating the Bitter Herbs (Natalie in Quarantine) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/eating-the-bitter-herbs", "og:title": "Eating the Bitter Herbs (Natalie in Quarantine) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "there-is-a-curious-paradox", "title": "There is a Curious Paradox", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "There is a curious paradox that no one can explain. Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understa...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>There is a curious paradox that no one can explain.</p>\n\n<p>Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain?</p>\n\n<p>Who understands why spring is born out of winter's laboring pain,</p>\n\n<p>Or why we all must die a bit before we grow again?</p>\n\n<p>I do not know the answer; I merely know it's true.</p>\n\n<p>I hurt them for this reason, and myself a little bit too.</p>\n\n<p> <em>--The Fantasticks</em> </p>\n\n<p>Now we dip our parsley into salt water before we eat it. The tears of slavery. The delicate promise of spring. There is no joy without pain. No rebirth without withering. A curious paradox. A cyclical cleansing.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree ha-adama.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruits of the earth.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 150, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "There is a Curious Paradox | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/there-is-a-curious-paradox", "og:title": "There is a Curious Paradox | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "eating-the-festive-meal", "title": "Eating the Festive Meal", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Hopefully we are all enjoying the beautiful musings of this brilliant collection of Jewish writers. Now though, it's Shu...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Hopefully we are all enjoying the beautiful musings of this brilliant collection of Jewish writers. Now though, it's Shulchan Oreich. And everyone just wants to eat.</p>\n\n<p>So no musings here.</p>\n\n<p>Enjoy your food. Give thanks. Talk. Laugh. Drink. Share. And then come back to the haggadah for more prayer, more wine, and more musings.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Shulchan Oreich", "slug": "shulchan-oreich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 163, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Eating the Festive Meal | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/eating-the-festive-meal", "og:title": "Eating the Festive Meal | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "kiddush-278", "title": "The First Cup of Wine", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Sam Corbin is an acclaimed New York-based writer, comedian, and performer. Someone once called Sam a “force of whimsy,”...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Sam Corbin is an acclaimed New York-based writer, comedian, and performer. Someone once called Sam a “force of whimsy,” and that still sounds about right.</em> </p>\n\n<p>In Hebrew school, Jewish children are made to drink grape juice out of Dixie cups in order to prime them for the experience of drinking wine as adults. I am not making this up. I remember the cups. And I also remember the first seder that my father finally poured me a glass of real wine, because of what he said as he poured it: “For purely ceremonial purposes.” </p>\n\n<p>Over the course of tonight’s Passover seder, we will drink to excess for purely ceremonial purposes: four cups of wine, the first two of which are consumed on an empty stomach. Interesting to consider that we wait nearly a quarter of a lifetime to be deemed “mature” enough to give ourselves over to a ritual. More interesting, still, to consider that this ritual is one of filling. We consume the wine. We make it a part of ourselves. This ceremonial purpose is honored inside of us. </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(If this is your first seder of the holiday)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, she-hechiyanu v’key’manu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Sam Corbin", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Kadesh", "slug": "kadesh" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 161, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The First Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/kiddush-278", "og:title": "The First Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "dayenu-2115", "title": "Dayenu", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "As a way into Dayenu, consider this passage from The Seas by Samantha Hunt.  When I was young I went down to the pi...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>As a way into <em>Dayenu</em>, consider this passage from <em>The Seas</em> by Samantha Hunt. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p> <em>When I was young I went down to the pier looking for my father, I accidentally got on board the wrong boat. [...] I was scared on board, surrounded by five sailors. I thought that the captain was a pirate because he had a round bite taken out of his ear. To appease him I told him I’d work to pay for my passage. [...] Eventually I told him I would make a good end table or hassock. “Great,” he said. So I curled up on the dirty floor and prepared for work. I waited for some weight on my back but it never came. [...] When I was returned to my family I continued to work as a hassock around our house, and sometimes my father would actually use me, resting his feet while he watched the television. I liked the job because it reminded me of the sailors I had met on board. </em> </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is the tense incarnate. We waited for the weight and it never came. But even after returning home, even after being free, we find solace in revisiting the shape of submission, if only to recall the passage itself. </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Now we drink the second cup of wine. Flip to the back of the book for the lyrics to \"Dayenu.\")</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Sam Corbin", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Cup #2 & Dayenu", "slug": "cup-2-amp-dayenu" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 160, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Dayenu | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/dayenu-2115", "og:title": "Dayenu | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "four-questions-2182", "title": "The Four Questions", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת? שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה, הַלַּיְלָה ה...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><b>מַה נִּשְׁתַּנָּה הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה מִכָּל הַלֵּילוֹת? שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה – כֻּלּוֹ מַצָּה. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין שְׁאָר יְרָקוֹת – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה (כֻּלּוֹ) מָרוֹר. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אֵין אָנוּ מַטְבִּילִין אֲפִילוּ פַּעַם אֶחָת – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה שְׁתֵּי פְעָמִים. שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְׁבִין וּבֵין מְסֻבִּין – הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כֻּלָּנוּ מְסֻבִּין</b></p>\n\n<p> <em>Ma Neeshtana ha-laila ha-zeh meekol ha-laylot?<br />\nSheh-bichol ha-laylot anoo ochleem chametz oo-matzah. Halailah hazeh chametz oomatz.<br />\nSheh-bi'chol ha-laylot anoo ochleem sheh-ar yerakot. Ha-lailah hazeh maror.<br />\nSheh-bi'chol ha-laylot ayn anoo mat-bee- leen afeeloo pa-am echad. Ha-laila hazeh sh'tay pi-ameem.<br />\nSheh- bi'chol ha-laylot anoo ochleem bayn yoshveen oo-bayn misoobeen. Ha-laila hazeh koolanoo misooveen.</em> </p>\n\n<p>What differentiates this night from all [other] nights? On all [other] nights we eat chamets and matsa; this night, only matsa? On all [other] nights we eat other vegetables; tonight (only) marror. On all [other] nights, we don't dip [our food], even one time; tonight [we dip it] twice. On [all] other nights, we eat either sitting or reclining; tonight we all recline.</p>\n\n<p>Oh.</p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana. </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana, as recited in Yiddish with a thick, sweet Galicianer accent by my Zaydie. </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana as declaimed by me in Latin with the aid of a printout from my high school Latin teacher (at this point, I remember no Latin). </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana as my now grown up little brother’s indulgence of our family’s mishegas, sung while standing on a chair, even though he is over six feet tall, because he is the youngest and sorry, that’s just how it goes. </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana as sung through a smile by my Mom, who is the youngest of her siblings.  </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana as joyfully scream-sung by my baby cousins who prepared so much and then got flustered but then rebounded.</p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana as an epitomization of maybe the Haggadah as a guide to a pedagogy of freedom or feminism my Mom alludes to in <a href=\"https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-haggadah-toward-a-pedagogy-of-freedom\">her article</a>, because Ma Nishtana is about inspiring accountable, joyful, empowered participation.</p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana because it gave me one of my favorite questions in my dramaturgical toolkit. </p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana because those four answers are some insufficient, direct, overly-literal nonsense, and therefore Ma Nishtana is actually an epitomization of something I can love without qualification about Judaism: all the damn questions, the sweet questions, the questions with no answers in sight, the questioning for the love of deep inquiry, because those four answers are, by no means, all of it. How could they be?</p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana for the same reason I love seeing the messy, incomplete studies of great painters and hearing drafts on the way; I love when the mechanisms by which we learn to do the art can be art in and of themselves.</p>\n\n<p>I love Ma Nishtana because most worthwhile things, including asking questions, require practice, and what a gift that we’ve been given a start and a guide, when so often embarrassment, shyness, or shame get in the way of the best questions ever being asked. </p>\n\n<p>So. </p>\n\n<p>What are you going to ask? </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Shara Feit", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Four Questions", "slug": "four-questions" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 171, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Four Questions | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/four-questions-2182", "og:title": "The Four Questions | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-plagues-15", "title": "The Plagues", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Jake Brasch is a playwright + lyricist + composer + pianist + performer + clown + baker and a Brooklyn-based fancy-free...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Jake Brasch is a playwright + lyricist + composer + pianist + performer + clown + baker and a Brooklyn-based fancy-free queer sober Jew from Colorado.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Each year we take a moment to acknowledge the plagues that the Holy One brought upon the Egyptians in her quest to free the Jewish slaves. </p>\n\n<p>We regret that the Egyptians had to suffer so greatly before allowing the Jews to leave. We don’t wish suffering on anyone. We mourn the fact that it took the Egyptians so long to get the message. </p>\n\n<p>What message is the spirit eternal trying to share with us now? Is she sharing a message? Or perhaps several messages?  Are her messages conflicting? Are we getting the message? Should we be trying to get the message? Should we be sharing what we believe the message is? </p>\n\n<p>This year, as we consider each of the plagues, we look at them a little differently. We ask ourselves what it would have been like to live through them. We question whether or not we would get the message if we were in the Egyptians’ shoes. </p>\n\n<p>***</p>\n\n<p><strong>Blood | dam | דָּם</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>A mother bathes her daughter. The river turns to blood. She pulls her daughter out of the river. She checks for wounds. The baby cries. She looks for the dead animal that is poisoning the river. She can’t find it. She runs home. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Frogs | tzfardeiya | צְפַרְדֵּֽעַ</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>A cobbler sees a frog making its way into his workshop. He loves frogs. Many others are grossed out by frogs. He’s not. When three more frogs arrive, he smiles. He hears a sea of ribbets. He goes outside. He laughs. The gods sure do have a strange sense of humor. He dances with the frogs. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Lice | kinim | כִּנִּים</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>A small boy is very itchy. He cannot figure out why. He wants to bathe. The river is still blood. Ugh. He tries to figure out what is happening, but he can’t think straight. The frogs are loud. He’s so itchy. He runs. He runs. He runs. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Beasts | arov | עָרוֹב</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>An elder is losing her marbles. She must be. For there is a mirage in the distance. She sees zebras, elephants, wombats, crows, crocodiles, all dancing in the meadow. They are approaching. They are not playing. They are fierce. She tries to pinpoint the moment she lost her mind. The itchiness? The blood in the water? Did something happen before that? Or was this gradual? Did she just never notice? She saw it happen to her own mother. A painful decline. She doesn’t want this for herself. She closes her eyes. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Cattle disease | dever | דֶּֽבֶר</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>A farmer is not happy. He successfully kept his cattle safe from all of those tigers that showed up yesterday and for what? For his cows to just start randomly dropping dead? One at a time, they’ve just been crapping out. He’s fed ‘em. He’s done everything right. He sits down. He throws away his hat. He gives up. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Boils | sh’chin | שְׁחִין</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>A small child stares at her arm. She loves the little red spots. Yes, they hurt, but no more than where she was bit on the thigh by a wombat. No more than her gut hurts from all the blood she drank from the river. The spots are forming little constellations on her arm. She wishes she could be someone else. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Hail | barad | בָּרָד</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>The Pharaoh is, like, super freaked out. The last few days have been weird. He looks for answers in the sky. He begins being pelted by little cold spheres. He laughs. He can’t help himself. This is just so weird! He knows he must take this all seriously. He knows he should feel scared. But he laughs. It’s too ridiculous. He just laughs. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Locusts | arbeh | אַרְבֶּה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>The starving family holds each other for warmth. They are terrified. They haven’t gone outside for days. A bug flies inside. A child catches it. She eats it. Several more bugs fly in Eureka. It’s a feast. It’s a miracle. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Darkness | choshech | חֹֽשֶׁךְ</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>Convinced that the world is about to end, a young couple decide to venture out to watch one last sunrise. It never comes. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Death of the Firstborn | makat b’chorot | מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>(We dip) </em> </p>\n\n<p>Our mother has kept her daughter inside ever since the bloody river incident. Her lover tells her about everything that’s been going on. It sounds really scary. Really scary. But she feels safe. She kisses her baby goodnight. She falls asleep. She dreams that she’s able to go back outside. That she’s able to smile. That she’s pregnant again. Another child. Another girl. She awakes in the morning to a scream from a nearby house. She gets up. She rushes to the crib. </p>\n\n<p>***</p>\n\n<p>Only in retrospect do we see G-d's plan. We see the lesson only in the rearview mirror. Curses become blessings and blessings become curses. We are always in process. Our stories never end. </p>\n\n<p>May we remember all of the uncertainty we have felt as a people. May we remember the pain. May we question our certainty. May we leave open the possibility that anything can happen, that tomorrow zebras may come marching into town or that the ocean will be turned to molasses. Stranger things have happened. And may we remember the deliverance, the pleasure, the warmth, the hugs, the little things that matter as we trudge through the endless unknown, the desert, on our way home. </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jake Brasch", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Ten Plagues", "slug": "ten-plagues" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 166, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Plagues | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-plagues-15", "og:title": "The Plagues | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "i-googled-all-of-these-three-things-and-they-all-seem-to-represent-springtime-on-the-seder-plate-confusing", "title": "I googled all of these three things, and they all seem to represent springtime on the seder plate. Confusing!", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Natalie Margolin is a playwright, actress, improvisor and graduate of Kenyon College. Her plays include \"The Power of Pu...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Natalie Margolin is a playwright, actress, improvisor and graduate of Kenyon College. Her plays include \"The Power of Punctuation,\" \"Tutus,\" \"All Nighter,\" and “The Party Hop” a new play specifically for zoom.</em> </p>\n\n<p>The Shank Bone - it symbolizes sacrifice, and you can't eat it till the meal! </p>\n\n<p>Egg - the egg, a symbol of birth, of new beginnings, of winter transforming into spring. </p>\n\n<p>Karpas (leafy greens) - The leafy greens on the plate represents the initial success of the Israelites in Egypt, before they were enslaved.  If your leafy green is parsley, I think you made the right choice. To me, parsley is a successful green. Parsley is pretty, it's green, it often is sold in a large plentiful bunch! Impressive! If you are using a potato or celery, I don't find that as impressive, but I support your choice! Use what you have!</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Natalie Margolin", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 159, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "I googled all of these three things, and they all seem to represent springtime on the seder plate. Confusing! | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/i-googled-all-of-these-three-things-and-they-all-seem-to-represent-springtime-on-the-seder-plate-confusing", "og:title": "I googled all of these three things, and they all seem to represent springtime on the seder plate. Confusing! | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "exodus-1589", "title": "Sofya's Exodus", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Sofya Levitzy-Weitz is a current Core Writer and a 2018/2019 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, where the second ...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Sofya Levitzy-Weitz is a current Core Writer and a 2018/2019 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, where the second seder play referenced in this book (\"Cannabis Passover\") was included in PlayLabs for their public season last fall.</em> </p>\n\n<p> <em>(read the bolded sections aloud)</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>this morning I woke up to a text from my mother that said: feel that in a national crisis you should be with us. &amp; never mad just sad. &amp; I miss you terrible. Terribly. &amp; I can’t get you here fast enough. &amp; a text version of a poem she’d written about all the small moments my family is having right now, without me. laundry &amp; baking &amp; muffins &amp; the smell of the house. &amp; in this poem she accidentally set a small fire and it reminded her of me at three years old, my long hair accidentally caught on fire from the Hanukkah candles. I didn’t feel it, but remember the terror on her face before she launched on me to put it out. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>a thought that happens more than most any in my mind is why am I not with the people I love the most? </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>in a line in my play about my family’s Passover, the mother who is based on my mother says – why do my children want to leave me? and the line gets a laugh because – Jewish mothers! – but this morning on the phone she cried and she was really scared and she is really scared and that scares me.</strong></p>\n\n<p>my Passover plane ticket – purchased months ago, purchased before this – keeps getting pushed. one day, then the next, then the next. I will already miss the scheduled seder. my mother tells me: It will get cancelled. It is going to get worse.</p>\n\n<p>Inertia is the tendency to do nothing. Or to remain unchanged. </p>\n\n<p><strong>I stare at flights until my eyes blur. I stare at the map. The unfathomable difference, made small, made graphic. The google earth image, from almost a decade ago, but still my heart, it aches.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Los Alamitos, California is 2,802 miles away from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.</p>\n\n<p>19 S**** St, Apt 3, with its very recent outfitted balcony patio, with an herb garden, with little lights, with two cats staring out the screen, is 2,802 miles away from 11542 D***** Road, where I learned to ride a bike, where I had family dinner every night, where I cried listening to music in my bedroom, where I ate and slept from age 4. </p>\n\n<p>two weeks ago, I imagined putting my cats in their carriers, renting a van, and just driving and driving west. to the pacific, which is always stamped on the inside of my eyelids. I imagine this so hard it was as though it was already happening. it was as though I was already there.</p>\n\n<p>go, go, go. </p>\n\n<p><strong>when the Israelites left Egypt, the only home they’d known, what did they think of the horizon? what did they think of the purpose of their lives, the ones they were leaving, and the ones they didn’t know yet?</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>the Israelites walked for forty years. many of them died, grew up, made new families. the generation that reached the Holy Land remembered little of what they had left.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>today in yoga, live-streamed from my studio in Brooklyn, the teacher said: we often think of home as a place we eat, we sleep, the walls around us. but our real home is our body.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>and at the end, in savasana: most of us are uncomfortable being at home in our bodies. But we are all we have.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>&amp; I felt comforted. &amp; I cried.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>when Moses first saw the burning bush, did he think: am I going fucking crazy? or: am I alone in this message? or: it’s too much pressure.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>he was already exiled. he could have just left.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>growing up, we had family dinner every night. we spent time together. we are a family that hangs out, a family that spends time in common areas. these past few weeks, with my roommates (my “isolation pod”) – I have felt like a family. we cook every night, we cry, we talk. it doesn’t matter how many people I see in my normal life, I realized, almost stunned. this is what makes me happier.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Moses didn’t know his family. his mother, hiding him in a basket in the reeds, to save his life, hoping the Pharaoh’s daughter would find him, and she did, and his sister watched to make sure it would be okay. the faith, it rocks me.</strong></p>\n\n<p>in a poem I wrote almost 2 years ago, about my grief, about my heartbreak, I wrote of unpacking my little suitcase between any four walls. I wrote of home. I wrote four walls is a body.</p>\n\n<p>one time on a plane ride from Chicago to LAX, watching the little virtual map as I always do, I watched as the unincorporated area known as Rossmoor, the neighborhood I grew up in, appeared on the screen. even now, I think I’m making it up. why would it be there? it has never been there again, never was before. but the boy I loved was with me, and he saw it too. How did it know, I was going home?</p>\n\n<p>one Thanksgiving, he and I were alone in New York, with the cats. I like it, he’d said. Our little family. But I longed to be home, for the kitchen, for the kitchen island, for my brother’s jokes, for my dad’s quiet puttering, my mom’s laugh, the smells, the warmth, this place, my home.</p>\n\n<p>how will I ever make a new home, one that competes?</p>\n\n<p><strong>it was the women at the base of Mt. Sinai who believed Moses would come back. the men panicked, tore the earrings from their wives’ ears, melted them into idols. the women said, he will come back. women, used to waiting. used to fleeing. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>we weren’t supposed to do this. leave communities. go off, alone. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>for what?</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>today, my friend said: you are leaving one family to go to the other. both can exist.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>but I still don’t know if I can - </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>a woman I worked on a television project with– who I admire more than almost anyone – said to me: you’re always thinking about somewhere else. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>this boy I loved for a long time wrote a play in which a character who was based on his sister wishes she could split in half. this was after years of me telling him I wished I could be two people. I wished I could be two places. I wish I could live two separate lives at once. I want to be with my family, I want to be with my family, why am I not with my family? When anything could happen at any point.</strong></p>\n\n<p>But what about me? He never said. Aren’t I your family? But of course, eventually, that would be part of why we never would be. </p>\n\n<p>In that same play, that character asked: how do you love the place you are? As though I’d spoken it.</p>\n\n<p>I remember seeing the movie Sliding Doors as a child and being obsessed with the concept, something I already thought about constantly. What decisions – both tiny and large – are changing the landscape of our whole life? What infinity of tiny decisions, both in and out of our hands, are changing everything, right now, and always? In one life, Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t discover her husband cheating on her in their bed. In the other, she cuts her hair short, does the things she’s always wanted from her life. Or at least that’s how I remember it.</p>\n\n<p><strong>god saved the worst plague for last. god warned and warned – did it have to come to this? – before the death of the Egyptian firstborns. </strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>it is when the Pharaoh’s own son dies, that he finally says. go. defeated.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>Jews are always going somewhere else. we’ve been called wandering. we’ve had to flee almost every place we lived, our bread can’t even stay in the oven, we must cook it on our backs, in the sun, eat it later, as crackers. </strong></p>\n\n<p>when the Israelites thought of the holy land, what did they see? the land of milk and honey? what is home, when you have never been there? what is home, when you have never had one? is it worse to imagine it, or to see it so clearly, in all its most distinct and beautiful details, and miss it every second? </p>\n\n<p><strong>in two days, I am supposed to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, home for Passover, where I will need to wear a mask and only see my family in the outside of our backyard. On the plane, I will sit in my own row, I will watch as the lights of Los Angeles start to appear. I will see the sliver of ocean as it unfolds. I will feel the drop. I will search amidst the tiny houses for my parents’ house, fruitless, but do it every time, nonetheless. I will hold my breath as we get close enough that tiny dots become tiny people, but this time, they will all be in the patchwork of the flicker of lights that is a house. their houses.</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>I will leave, to go home.</strong></p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Sofya Levitsky-Weitz", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Exodus Story", "slug": "exodus-story" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 167, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Sofya's Exodus | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/exodus-1589", "og:title": "Sofya's Exodus | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-meal-ends-the-search-begins", "title": "The Afikoman", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Welcome back. Full? Go get some exercise! It's time to find the afikoman from earlier. Whoever finds it first gets prize...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Welcome back.</p>\n\n<p>Full? Go get some exercise! It's time to find the afikoman from earlier. Whoever finds it first gets prize. Money. Or clout. Or the ability to eat the afikoman.</p>\n\n<p>(Why do Jews seem to think matzah is a dessert in this context? I've never understood that.)</p>\n\n<p>The search starts...NOW!</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Tzafun", "slug": "tzafun" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 176, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Afikoman | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-meal-ends-the-search-begins", "og:title": "The Afikoman | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-seder-plate-95", "title": "The Seder Plate", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "What's on our seder plate? As Natalie explained, we have the egg (spring), the shankbone (spring), and the leafy greens...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>What's on our seder plate?</p>\n\n<p>As Natalie explained, we have the <strong>egg</strong> (spring), the <strong>shankbone</strong> (spring), and the <strong>leafy greens</strong> (also spring). We've also got bitter herbs (<strong>lettuce</strong>), bitter herbs (<strong>horseradish</strong>), sweet treats (<strong>charoset</strong>), and the aforementioned <strong>matzah</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>For a vegan seder plate, substitute a <strong>beet</strong> for the bone and a <strong>flower</strong> for the egg.</p>\n\n<p>We may also include an <strong>orange</strong> (for the LGBTQ community), an <strong>olive</strong> (for Palestinian rights), an <strong>artichoke</strong> (for interfaith families), and a <strong>tomato</strong> (for farmworkers' rights). Those last two I had never heard of, but they were on a graphic made by Whole Foods, so.</p>\n\n<p>Digging even further, I found a <strong>banana</strong> (Syrian refugees), <strong>cashews</strong> (troops in Iraq), a crust of <strong>bread</strong> (the proto-orange - \"there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate\"), <strong>potato</strong> (\"Operation Solomon\"), and fair trade <strong>chocolate</strong> (forced child labor). You can even make a \"<strong>Food Desert Seder Plate</strong>,\" swapping all these out for rotting or processed foods to symbolize the lack of access to fresh healthy food in low-income communities.</p>\n\n<p>All this may seem silly to some. But the point is: there is room on the plate, and there is room in Judaism to fight for a better world.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 164, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Seder Plate | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-seder-plate-95", "og:title": "The Seder Plate | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "replace", "title": "The Four Children", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Echad chacham The wise child asks, “What are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments we learn through the Passover...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p><strong>Echad chacham</strong> <em> </em> <br />\nThe <strong>wise child </strong>asks, “What are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments we learn through the Passover story?\"</p>\n\n<p> <em>Discuss with that child the order and meaning of the Seder, and teach this child the rules of observing the holiday of Passover.</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Ve’echad rasha</strong><br />\nThe <strong>wicked child </strong>asks, \"What is this service to you?\"</p>\n\n<p> <em>By using the word 'you' and not 'me,' or 'us' the child is not including him or herself in the community. Say to this child: “It is because of what God did for </em> me  <em>in the land of Egypt.\" 'Me' and not 'you' or 'us,' for if they had been there they would not have been saved.</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Echad tam</strong><br />\nThe <strong>simple child asks</strong>, \"What is this?\"</p>\n\n<p> <em>To this child, answer plainly: “This is the story of the ancient Jewish people's journey to freedom.”</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Ve’echad she’eino yodea lish’ol</strong><br />\nWhat about the <strong>child who does not know how to ask?</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Help this child by telling them the story of Exodus.</em> </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": null, "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Four Children", "slug": "four-children" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 160, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Four Children | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/replace", "og:title": "The Four Children | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "elijah-150", "title": "Elijah", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Traditionally, we open the door for Elijah, and we pour him a cup of wine. In reading about Hallel I found writing that...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Traditionally, we open the door for Elijah, and we pour him a cup of wine.</p>\n\n<p>In reading about Hallel I found writing that says the prophet Elijah visits the circimcision of every child and testifies that the family is following God's law, so we open the door for him on Passover so he can check that we are indeed circumcised and able to eat from the paschal lamb. If someone comes through that door and asks to check if you're circumcised, please, politely decline.</p>\n\n<p>As a child I was told nothing of Elijah's relationship to male anatomy, but merely that he was a herald of the messiah, and that when he came we would finally see that promised land Jews love to talk about.</p>\n\n<p>This year, with so many forced apart for the sake of safety, Elijah is your friends down the street, or your family across the country, or whoever you wish could walk through that door right now and take you in their arms. Elijah is the end of the death and the illness and the grief; a world where we can laugh and touch again, where close talkers can spit lightly onto your face and attentive friends can dab an eyelash off of your cheek. Elijah is the end to the aloneness. The hope. The promised land.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">We pour a fourth cup of wine for ourselves, and a fifth cup for Elijah -- apparently he's going to sort out whether there should be four cups or five when he gets here)</p>\n\n<p>Have a chat. Sing a song. Drink. The seder is almost over...</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Hallel", "slug": "hallel" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 146, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Elijah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/elijah-150", "og:title": "Elijah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "next-year-in-jerusalem-56", "title": "Try to Praise The Mutilated World", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June's long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles tha...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Try to praise the mutilated world.<br />\nRemember June's long days,<br />\nand wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.<br />\nThe nettles that methodically overgrow<br />\nthe abandoned homesteads of exiles.<br />\nYou must praise the mutilated world.<br />\nYou watched the stylish yachts and ships;<br />\none of them had a long trip ahead of it,<br />\nwhile salty oblivion awaited others.<br />\nYou've seen the refugees going nowhere,<br />\nyou've heard the executioners sing joyfully.<br />\nYou should praise the mutilated world.<br />\nRemember the moments when we were together<br />\nin a white room and the curtain fluttered.<br />\nReturn in thought to the concert where music flared.<br />\nYou gathered acorns in the park in autumn<br />\nand leaves eddied over the earth's scars.<br />\nPraise the mutilated world<br />\nand the gray feather a thrush lost,<br />\nand the gentle light that strays and vanishes<br />\nand returns.<br />\n <em>--Adam Zagajewski</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"> <em>--</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><strong>לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשַָׁלָיִם</strong></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"> <em>L'shana Haba'ah b'Y’rushalayim</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">Next Year in Jerusalem!</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Adam Zagajewski", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Nirtzah", "slug": "nirtzah" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 172, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Try to Praise The Mutilated World | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/next-year-in-jerusalem-56", "og:title": "Try to Praise The Mutilated World | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "pass-over-the-jews", "title": "\"Jews\" (Juice by Lizzo)", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "to the tune of \"Juice\" by Lizzo Pharaoh, pharaoh, in the halls Don’t tell me you won’t free the jews (ooh baby) My man...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>to the tune of \"Juice\" by Lizzo </em> </p>\n\n<p>Pharaoh, pharaoh, in the halls<br />\nDon’t tell me you won’t free the jews (ooh baby)<br />\nMy man moses got that beard<br />\nDon’t make him call a plague on you (ooh baby)<br />\n<br />\nHe was raised in Egypt land<br />\nBut now he’s back with something new (ooh baby)<br />\nGotta let my people go<br />\nCuz the hebrews gotta fly the coop! (That’s how I roll)</p>\n\n<p>Touch the water and the whole Nile turn to blood (Hebrew goals)<br />\nDarkness, boils and hail and even freaky bugs (now you know)<br />\nFrogs and lice and flies and Pestilence no good (so you know)<br />\nOne more Plague from Moses and then, bitch you done!</p>\n\n<p>CHORUS<br />\nIt ain’t my fault that I’m out here asking Qs<br />\nGot my matzoh and grape juice Gotta pass over the Jews (yeah)<br />\nIt ain’t my fault that god’s death angel is loose<br />\nOut here killing first-born dudes<br />\nGotta pass over the Jews. Hineni</p>\n\n<p>Hi-ne-ni<br />\nhi-ne-ni<br />\nHi-ne- //-ni<br />\nPass over the jews gotta pass over the jews hi ne ni Hi ne ni</p>\n\n<p>Hi ne ni<br />\nHi ne -<br />\nPass over the jews gotta pass over the jews, yeah!</p>\n\n<p>(by Jake Beckhard)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jake Beckhard", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Songs", "slug": "songs" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 190, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "\"Jews\" (Juice by Lizzo) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/pass-over-the-jews", "og:title": "\"Jews\" (Juice by Lizzo) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "trust-to-bind-us-to-those-around-us", "title": "Trust, to Bind us to Those Around Us", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Sharone Halevy", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/260463/Cover1-copy.jpg", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/260463/conversions/Cover1-copy-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Conclusion", "slug": "conclusion" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 154, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Trust, to Bind us to Those Around Us | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/trust-to-bind-us-to-those-around-us", "og:title": "Trust, to Bind us to Those Around Us | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/260463/conversions/Cover1-copy-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "on-the-four-kids", "title": "I am here for one reason and one reason alone", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "...and that is to advocate for the wicked child.  and of course, i do this because, well who are we to designate? who ar...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>...and that is to advocate for the wicked child. </p>\n\n<p>and of course, i do this because, well who are we to designate? who are we to call any kids good or evil, when the origin of evil is mysterious and inexplicable, and anyway, if kids know what good and evil is when they’re called one or the other it’s because they found out from some grown-up or something that a grown-up made or did? who are we to give them an essence that is one thing or another? i recall from a childhood that grows further and further away, that good and evil were mutable categories: my sister was good when she shared and evil when she stole my pretzels and lied about it and the distance between good and evil could be traversed back and forth in minutes. i digress. the origin of evil is not the point.</p>\n\n<p>the point is, i stand in defense of the child who asks, what does this mean to you?</p>\n\n<p>because the wicked child knows that every human is a planet, vast and fundamentally unknowable, and even those human beings who are a part of communities with rules and systems and structures.</p>\n\n<p>because instead of speaking the language of strictures and commandments, the wicked child is asking about the kind of meaning unique to each person’s unmappable planet, is humbled by the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone else, and wouldn’t dare presume that what is yours is the same theirs, that your reasons are the same as theirs, and asks from a desire to understand what is so core to you that it can only be yours.</p>\n\n<p>i say: hear the wicked child because it is easier to cite laws, to feed someone else’s language for purpose and meaning making back and forth, to parrot those people who are so very good and so very fluent in rightness, than to answer a question spoken to the molten hot core of what matters.</p>\n\n<p>how scary it is to be asked such things. it is protective, of course, this impulse to anger and defensiveness. it is far easier to deny someone’s right to redemption than to hear what they are actually asking.</p>\n\n<p>i would like to hope that if i found myself sitting opposite the wicked child, i would attempt to answer honestly, weaving through all of my i don’t knows and ums and pauses, doing my best arrive at something fundamental and honest, even if the only thing i could find to offer the wicked child was a quiet, hesitant question in response to a question.</p>\n\n<p>and then i would ask, in turn:</p>\n\n<p> <em>what does this mean to <strong>you</strong>?</em> </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Shara Feit", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Four Children", "slug": "four-children" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 159, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "I am here for one reason and one reason alone | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/on-the-four-kids", "og:title": "I am here for one reason and one reason alone | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "telling-the-story-21", "title": "Telling the Story", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "The story of Exodus is pretty simple: Jews are enslaved. An Egyptian-raised Jew is contacted by God to un-enslave them....", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>The story of Exodus is pretty simple: Jews are enslaved. An Egyptian-raised Jew is contacted by God to un-enslave them. He does. Well, I mean, it's hard -- 10 pretty grisley plagues have to happen first, and a bunch of drowned soldiers -- but eventually, he does. There's also a post-script about a mountain, some tablets, a golden calf, and we proceed to wander in the desert for 40 years.</p>\n\n<p>Hebrew school, Wikipedia, and Disney's \"The Prince of Egypt\" cover this pretty nicely, if you'd rather not check out the primary source document.</p>\n\n<p>So this year, we assume the Simple Child's inability to ask a question is not because they don't know the story, but rather for lack of visceral framing. And for them we offer a writer's grappling with her own Exodus on the eve of Passover.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Exodus Story", "slug": "exodus-story" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 142, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Telling the Story | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/telling-the-story-21", "og:title": "Telling the Story | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "elijah-jacob-marx-rice", "title": "Opening Doors", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Jacob Marx Rice is a playwright and screenwriter based in Queens, New York. According to his website: \"I try to write co...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Jacob Marx Rice is a playwright and screenwriter based in Queens, New York. According to his website: \"I try to write comedies but everyone always ends up crying.\"</em> </p>\n\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Passover is a holiday of doors. From the marking of doorways that gives the holiday its name, to the symbolic door God opened through the red sea, to the name of this final cup of wine, Hallel, the Jewish prayer that asks God to open the gates of righteousness so we can pass through.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>\n\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>As part of this final cup, we open our door to invite Elijah into our Seder. We even pour him a glass of wine. Tradition says that when Elijah joins us for Passover, he will bring a message of hope that unites the world in redemption, connection and love.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>\n\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Perhaps the strangest thing about Elijah is that no one knows what he looks like. Throughout his stories, he dons disguises, often appearing as a mysterious stranger or even a beggar. Once, was so hideous that the Rabi Eliezer even refused to bless him. If Elijah can look like anyone, then the only way to invite him in is to invite everyone: strangers, beggars, anyone who needs a good meal or a bit of joyful company.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>\n\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Passover teaches us that redemption is not just a gift, it is a call to action. God delivered the Jews from Egypt, but he made them wander a desert until they were ready to embrace the promised land. He will open the door of righteousness for us, but only if we first open our doors, to friends and family of course, but also people who are poor or sick or lost or desperate. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>\n\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Passover celebrates our salvation, but this final cup reminds us that the world still needs saving. We must work to make the world a more hopeful place. We must pry open every door and embrace every stranger. If we do that, then next Passover, we might find ourselves with an extra guest and a bit of redemption.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Now we pour the fourth cup of wine and pray together)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jacob Marx Rice", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Hallel", "slug": "hallel" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 155, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Opening Doors | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/elijah-jacob-marx-rice", "og:title": "Opening Doors | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "matzah-with-megan", "title": "Yachatz", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Megan Pope is a Brooklyn-based playwright, comedy person, and thirst trap satirist. Despite their last name, they are ac...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Megan Pope is a Brooklyn-based playwright, comedy person, and thirst trap satirist. Despite their last name, they are actually very Jewish.</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>*Campy Voice* THREE Matzahs stand before us. But only ONE will be cracked in half and hidden for later (the middle one).</strong> </p>\n\n<p>As we break the unleavened bread, we are reminded that it is the bread of poverty which our ancestors made in the land of Egypt. A bread made with haste as they fled oppressive circumstances. This year, like most years, it also holds the weight of those who could not get out or are still running. </p>\n\n<p>There is no prayer that goes with Yachatz. It is supposed to be a time of silent reflection. We’ve had a shit-load of time for that this year... we’ve broken ourselves off from the world - from friends, family, and loved ones... we’ve sheltered ourselves in small apartments and had plenty of time to make bread that rises all the way... I’ve done so much reflecting on who we are and what we’re doing on this (insane-and-sometimes-amazing-but-currently-facacata) planet that I feel like I’m going to explode. </p>\n\n<p>In this sense, Passover and Yachatz may feel redundant. BUT! As I previously mentioned in my hopefully recognizable Drag Race/America’s Next Top Model reference at the top, Yachatz is ALSO about hopefulness and re-discovery. It’s about breaking and hiding with the knowledge that we will be returning to the broken piece later on (...even if the person who hides it, let’s say your grandpa, forgets where he hid it and it takes an extra 20 minutes to locate meanwhile your grandma has already jumped to the worst case scenario deciding you’ll never find it and it will rot in the wherever-it-is space causing giant rats and bugs infest the house forever and ever until everyone dies).</p>\n\n<p>Finding a broken piece of matzah is cool (mostly because it’s been stuffed in a bookshelf and covered in dust and one of your cousins is going to dare your other cousin to eat it), but the anticipation? Is thrilling. Which proves that waiting, yearning, hoping, and preparing can be enjoyable. Something that I feel we, as Jews, often forget. Worry is very Jewish. But, as demonstrated by the afikomen, so is a childlike wonder for what’s next. A desire to search and hope and find.</p>\n\n<p>In her recent essay, “No I'm Not Ready,” author Anne Helen Petersen writes about her anxiety surrounding our collective return to post-COVID 'real world': “It’s going to feel periodically awful in new ways… but it’s also going to be amazing… Our post-pandemic selves will contain multitudes.”</p>\n\n<p>We’re at a period of breakage, but there are also big things that have been wrapped up and hidden away for a beautiful and rewarding discovery down the line. As we break the middle matzah, let’s guide healthy Jewish wonder and anticipation out of the shadows. What have you discovered in the breakage that you’re excited to carry forward? What are you excited to discover/re-discover? How will you continue to give yourself breaks even as the world returns? </p>\n\n<p>Oh, and good luck finding the Afikomen … <strong>*Campy Voice* May the best Jew? Win! </strong></p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Megan Pope", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Yachatz", "slug": "yachatz" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 157, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Yachatz | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/matzah-with-megan", "og:title": "Yachatz | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "tzafun-262", "title": "Tzafun", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "ruggadah.tumblr.com", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/315098/rupaul.png", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/315098/conversions/rupaul-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Tzafun", "slug": "tzafun" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 161, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Tzafun | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/tzafun-262", "og:title": "Tzafun | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/315098/conversions/rupaul-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "moses-of-the-israelites-alexander-hamilton", "title": "\"Moses of the Israelites\" (Alexander Hamilton)", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "to the tune of \"Alexander Hamilton\" How does a Jewish, orphan, placed on the shore in a basket, tasked with hiding his...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>to the tune of \"Alexander Hamilton\"</em> </p>\n\n<p>How does a Jewish, orphan, placed on the shore in a<br />\nbasket, tasked with hiding his identity, essentially<br />\nin Pharaoh’s family, in secret,<br />\nGrow up to lead his people out of Egypt?</p>\n\n<p>The Passover founding father without a father<br />\nGot a lot farther by following the God father<br />\nBy daring to be a martyr<br />\nBy being an ocean parter<br />\nAt eighty-one, they made him the Covenant guarder.</p>\n\n<p>And every day while slaves were being slaughtered and carted<br />\nAway across the sand, he struggled and kept his guard up<br />\nInside, he was longing for something to be a part of<br />\n(This part is just the same, I thought this would be harder)</p>\n\n<p>Then he saw a Jew maimed, and left an Egyptian slain,<br />\nFled into the dessert to escape being detained<br />\nBefore he saw a burning bush that set a fire in his brain<br />\nAnd so back home he came, to challenge Pharaoh’s reign</p>\n\n<p>Well, the word got around, they said, “This Jew is insane, man”<br />\nOverwhelming Egypt, turning bounty to blood-stained sand<br />\n“Keep sending Egypt plagues until Pharaoh is in pain, and<br />\nThe world’s gonna know your name. What’s your name, man?”</p>\n\n<p>Moses of the Israelites<br />\nMy name is Moses of the Israelites<br />\nAnd soon we’ll find ourselves the Promised Land,<br />\nJust you wait, just you wait...</p>\n\n<p>(by Jacob Marx Rice)</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jacob Marx Rice", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Songs", "slug": "songs" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 159, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "\"Moses of the Israelites\" (Alexander Hamilton) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/moses-of-the-israelites-alexander-hamilton", "og:title": "\"Moses of the Israelites\" (Alexander Hamilton) | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "karpas-with-tirosh", "title": "A Karpas Eulogy", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "My Bubbi was a vivacious woman. She wore enormous, wide-brimmed hats, much to the chagrin of anyone sitting behind her i...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>My Bubbi was a vivacious woman. She wore enormous, wide-brimmed hats, much to the chagrin of anyone sitting behind her in temple. She wore elegant jewelry and loved getting her nails done, though it was never quite the color she wanted. She once played guitar in Idlewild with Pete Seeger, a fact she related frequently at the seder table, before launching into a spirited rendition of “If I Had a Hammer” (when she wasn’t complaining about how unorthodox my mother’s “Tarot-card-themed Haggadah” was). My Bubbi once saw Eleanor Roosevelt speak at her college in the 1930s, and said Mrs. Roosevelt was one of the most inspiring women she’d ever seen. She also complained about how “squeaky” her voice was - “an inspiring woman, yes, but her voice was <em>so</em> squeaky!” Once, at Hanukkah, she lit a plate of latkes on fire. Once, she bumped her head into a store window, and sued the company for their glass being too clean (she won). Once, my Bubbi took my eight-year-old mother to a protest against the Vietnam War, and yelled in the faces of police officers who were mercilessly beating the protestors.</p>\n\n<p>My Bubbi passed away last week, on my mother’s 65th birthday. They had a complicated relationship, and this was a pretty fitting way to go (“She always had to have the last word!”). As we enter into yet another year of Zoom gatherings - a second Zoom Passover for many of us - it almost felt normal to attend my Bubbi’s funeral over Zoom. <em>Almost</em>. </p>\n\n<p>Instead of a Webinar, it was a regular Zoom meeting. The outdoor funeral service was live-streamed in one box, while in the other boxes were 20 confused Jews trying to figure out how to access “speaker view.\" What was supposed to be a somber event opened with a cacophony of voices asking what the hell “pinning a video” meant, while many self-appointed experts tried (and failed) to lead them to the three little dots at the top of their screens. Finally, the service commenced, but we were all perplexed when instead of the Rabbi’s voice, we heard very loud Mariachi music blaring from our speakers. I privately chatted Ethel to please mute her microphone, thinking the music was coming from her box, but when she <em>did</em> eventually find the mute button, it turns out she was not the source of the sound (sorry Ethel). It was, in fact, coming from the next funeral over, and there was nothing we could do to quiet it. So as my Bubbi’s friends from her Messianic Jewish temple declared that she was with God now, their words were punctuated by a very loud trumpeter blasting an upbeat tune. “My mom would have loved this Mariachi band,” my mother remarked in her eulogy. “She was born in Cuba, and this was the music of her childhood.” Well, no Mom, Mariachi is not Cuban, and Bubbi would have hated this.</p>\n\n<p>But then something wonderful happened. At both the funeral and the Zoom memorial that followed, people told the most incredible stories of my Bubbi’s life. Stories I’d never heard before, told by family members I’d never met before. Stories of her generosity, her vitality, her style. Stories of pain, of violence, of historical trauma. Stories of resilience, of survival, of rebirth. The story about the first time she met my Dad’s parents, and dropped a full roast chicken in his mother's lap. Stories of her teaching guitar, and singing the songs of Pete Seeger. (“Turn! Turn! Turn!” played over a slideshow of old pictures, and the line “a time to refrain from embracing” hit differently this time around). And then, from our little Zoom boxes, we asked each other questions. “What was she like as an older sister?” “Do you forgive her for the things she did?” “Why the big hats?” Dozens of questions, asked from hundreds of miles away from one another. Yet I’ve never felt closer to my entire family, to my history, and to my Bubbi, in all her complexities.<br />\n </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(We dip our leafy greens twice into the saltwater twice and recite the blessing)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree ha-adama.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruits of the earth.<br />\n </p>\n\n<p><strong>The <em>karpas</em> is a vegetable dipped in saltwater.</strong> Usually it’s something green - a sprig of parsley, a stick of celery, a scaffolding of scallions - to represent the coming of Spring. Some families use potatoes, because in Eastern Europe - where my Bubbi’s parents were from - fresh green vegetables were hard to come by, and potatoes were <em>everywhere</em> ! <em>Karpas</em> can also translate to “fine wool or linen,” and some say the <em>karpas</em> represent Joseph’s amazing technicolor dreamcoat, which first led the Israelites into Egypt - the inciting incident of the Passover story, and the cause of so many sleepless nights where your brain can’t stop humming “Go go go Joseph you’ll make it someday!”</p>\n\n<p>The saltwater represents the tears that the Jews wept as slaves in Egypt. It’s a reminder that we cannot welcome spring without first remembering our ancestors’ suffering - and that from our suffering comes the promise of spring. So if the karpas = spring awakening, the saltwater = the bitch of living. Or, to quote the Jewish poet Carol King (originally Brooklyn’s own Carol Klein), “You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet.” That’s what I took from my Bubbi’s Zoom memorial - destruction and reconstruction, music and mayhem.</p>\n\n<p>There is also the question of why we dip the karpas in the saltwater <em>twice?</em>  Is it to clarify that we cried <em> a lot </em> of tears in Egypt? Is it because Jews are famous for double dipping? Or because we like our food extra salty? My favorite answer to the question is this: It’s simply meant to inspire more questions. To quote my friend Martine, “Maybe the why of the <em>karpas</em> is just that it’s weird. Something we’re not used to that’s going to prompt the kids to be like ‘hey why are you putting that leaf in salt water’ and then you can be like ‘glad you asked here is our national epic,’ you know?” As was true at the memorial, the weirdest questions always lead to the best stories.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Tirosh Schneider", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 161, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "A Karpas Eulogy | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/karpas-with-tirosh", "og:title": "A Karpas Eulogy | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-four-teachers-an-exercise-in-responsible-storytelling-with-jess", "title": "THE FOUR TEACHERS— an exercise in responsible storytelling", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Jess Honovich is a playwright, screenwriter and educator from Southern New Jersey. When she’s not writing, Jess is a pro...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Jess Honovich is a playwright, screenwriter and educator from Southern New Jersey. When she’s not writing, Jess is a proud public school Pre-K teacher.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Imagine you’re helping your friend move into a new home and they suddenly throw you a very heavy box. You’re probably a bit frustrated with your friend, not to mention the anxiety sweats you’re now fighting off in an attempt to hold that box without dropping it. Now imagine if that same person instead pointed to the box and said “Can you carry this for me?” 1) You have autonomy— you don’t have to say yes! But you volunteered to help your friend move, so you probably will. 2) The strategy you use to pick up and carry the box now will be more comfortable for your body. 3) When it’s <em>your</em> turn to move a few months later, you might adopt this same strategy, asking your friends which of your items they’re most comfortable moving around.</p>\n\n<p>This is the essence of all responsible teaching.</p>\n\n<p>Young people have hundreds of ways of speaking, learning, thinking, doing, posing questions, exploring curiosity, and articulating all of this to you. On this holiday dedicated to storytelling, in this piece where we consider how young people may reach for knowledge, it is our responsibility to provide space for all questions without judgement. We must create an open forum for them to ask absolutely any question they have. There is no wise child, wicked child, or simple child (also—if there is a kiddo at the table who is too young to ask a question…why are they at the table? Should they be? Are their needs being met? Just double checking!)</p>\n\n<p>Let’s “flip the switch,” as they say. There is no wrong way to ask a question. There <em>is</em> a wrong way to invite the questions being asked.</p>\n\n<p><strong>THE FOUR TEACHERS</strong><br />\nThe <em>wise</em> teacher might ask: “I’m curious to know what you’re thinking about. What would you like to know about what we’re doing here?” This teacher will take a moment to provide an open forum for anyone, kid or not, to ask anything about the seder, the customs, the story we tell, etc. This teacher will also make space for anyone to answer, because no one person has all the knowledge. This teacher will create a dialogue with everyone at the table.</p>\n\n<p>The <em>wicked</em> teacher might ask: “I bet you don’t want to be here right now.” They’ll dismissively pierce the air with judgmental words. They’ll pigeonhole people without thought. This teacher will say something unkind that will, in turn, gaslight the curious minds at the table into believing that <em>they</em> are wicked for sitting a certain way, asking a certain question, <em>not</em> asking a certain question, etc. This teacher is dismissive. This teacher is none of you.</p>\n\n<p>The <em>simple</em> teacher might ask: “So what’s up?” This teacher isn’t too specific, but they’re making space for conversation. We make space for opportunity to arise. We weed a garden for flowers to grow.</p>\n\n<p> <em>The teacher who doesn’t know how to pose a question:</em> can begin by asking a question they have.</p>\n\n<p>So let’s begin! I’m curious to know what you’re thinking about.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jess Honovich", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Four Children", "slug": "four-children" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 149, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "THE FOUR TEACHERS— an exercise in responsible storytelling | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-four-teachers-an-exercise-in-responsible-storytelling-with-jess", "og:title": "THE FOUR TEACHERS— an exercise in responsible storytelling | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-seder-plate-164", "title": "On The Seder Plate", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Tirosch Schneider (he/they) is an NYC-based actor, writer, teacher, and cartographer, except he is not a cartographer. T...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Tirosch Schneider (he/they) is an NYC-based actor, writer, teacher, and cartographer, except he is not a cartographer. They also lead phone-banks for socialist candidates in NYC, and have organized with Sunrise NYC and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.</em> </p>\n\n<p>A brief description of the elements of the Seder Plate and their respective symbolisms, which Werner Herzog famously called “too obvious”:</p>\n\n<p><strong>A sprig of parsley</strong>, to represent the coming of spring, but also how hard it is to use fresh herbs before they go bad, which is why I’ve stopped buying them and resort to dried oregano for everything. Life is fleeting.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Saltwater</strong> - to represent the tears Jews shed when they were slaves in Egypt, and also the saltwater-based home remedies that our parents made us gargle any time we had a canker sore. Dip the parsley into the water and eat it, because every chef knows that parsley is a delicious meal on its own, but is even better dipped in salty water.</p>\n\n<p><strong>A hard boiled egg</strong> - to symbolize the festival offerings brought to the holy temple on Passover. If you’d like, you can present it to someone at the table, and they can respond, “I prefer scrambled.” For a vegan Seder plate, can be switched out with a roasted beet, a boiled carrot, a jar of oat milk, or a can of Amy’s low-fat refried beans. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Maror</strong> - the bitter herb, to represent the suffering that the Jews endured, in case we forgot after the salt water. Everyone at the table must eat a spoonful of plain horseradish if they want to win the “horseradish challenge” at the end of the night (no further explanation was provided in the Torah). </p>\n\n<p><strong>Charoset</strong> - a sweet pasty mixture of apple and nuts, representing the bricks and mortar used to build the pyramids (which was rarely made from apples). Can be replaced with a Kind bar or a bowl of Apple Jacks, but those are harder to spread on matzoh. Do not eat real mortar, calk, or wet cement (Book of Preschool 5:21). For a fun treat, make Charoset Spice Lattes and serve them in the highly controversial “Good Pesach” Starbucks cups.</p>\n\n<p><strong>A lamb shank</strong>, to symbolize the sacrificial lambs brought to the temple, and the bones used to write “Go Ask My Neighbor” on Jews’ doors when playing “Kitty Wants a Firstborn.” Most people don’t know that all quills were made from lamb bone in those days, so all books were written in 68 size font. For a fun twist, tell all the kids at the table that it’s a dinosaur bone, and replace the second half of the Haggadah with “The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark.”</p>\n\n<p><strong>A single Lego</strong> - to represent a brick, and the time my family went to Legoland and called it “a religious experience”</p>\n\n<p><strong>A DVD of Rugrats in Paris</strong> - to represent the importance of Jewish representation, and also to remember the suffering we went though trying to clean a scratched DVD with our shirts. </p>\n\n<p><strong>A Werther’s Original hard candy</strong> - to represent the importance of home / large tote bags (can be replaced with any hard candy, as long as it is slightly old and therefore chewy on the sides)</p>\n\n<p><strong>A bottle of very strong perfume</strong> - to represent joy. At the end of the night, the children get to search the house and guess which older relative the scent is coming from. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Chocolate coins</strong> - these are technically for Hanukkah, but Oma found some at CVS and threw them in.</p>\n\n<p><strong>A stationary bicycle</strong> - to represent the harvest  </p>\n\n<p><strong>Finally, matzoh</strong> - to symbolize the time Harold forgot to bring yeast to the desert gathering, and instead brought more plates, which Muriel had already brought plenty of, and they argued about it for forty years. If you pour apple juice on it, you can call it Mott’s matzoh (will be soggy and inedible), if you pour on green tea on it, you can call it Matcha Matzoh (will be soggy and inedible but caffeinated), and if you’re a fun uncle, you can say “I brought lotsa matzoh!” and hold up 20 boxes of matzoh, which the children will be forced to eat at snack time until at least next Passover.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Tirosh Schneider", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 156, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "On The Seder Plate | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-seder-plate-164", "og:title": "On The Seder Plate | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "q-was-2020-a-bitter-year-matt", "title": "Q: Was 2020 a bitter year?", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Matt Minnicino is a playwright [mostly]; an actor [frequently]; a teacher [when he can be]; a storyteller, always. Firs...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Matt Minnicino is a playwright [mostly]; an actor [frequently]; a teacher [when he can be]; a storyteller, always.</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>First, Two Epigraphs:</strong></p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"> <em>Dearest Artie:<br />\nIt’s not true that life is one damn thing after another—it’s one damn thing over &amp; over —there’s the rub—first you get sick—then you get sicker—then you get not quite so sick—then you get hardly sick at all—then you get a little sicker . . .</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\">Edna St. Vincent Millay<br />\nLetter to Arthur Davison Ficke<br />\nOctober 24, 1930</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"> <em>Everything happens so much.</em> </p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\">@Horse_ebooks<br />\nTwitter<br />\nJune 28, 2012</p>\n\n<p>--</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: What makes an herb bitter?</strong><br />\nA: In Pesachim, the Third Tractate of the Talmud’s Order of Festivals<br />\nThe learned men have agreed on a few things that make an herb qualify as bitter</p>\n\n<p>FOUR THINGS THAT QUALIFY AN HERB AS BITTER (#3 WILL SHOCK YOU!)<br />\n1. A bitter herb should be bitter<br />\n2. A bitter herb should be gray-green in appearance<br />\n3. A bitter herb should have sap<br />\n4. A bitter herb should come from the earth (not a tree)</p>\n\n<p>Some good options are:<br />\n <em>Horseradish<br />\nCelery<br />\nRomaine lettuce (but only the bitter parts)</em> </p>\n\n<p>But you must eat something sweet with it.<br />\nTo balance it out</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Why do we eat something so bitter?</strong><br />\nA: To remind us of the many Plights that happened<br />\nThere have been, the learned men agree, many Plights<br />\n(at least three, maybe more)<br />\nYears that were all Plight, and nothing else.<br />\nBitter Years.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: What makes a year bitter?</strong><br />\nA: The learned men haven’t come to an agreement about this.</p>\n\n<p>1. A bitter year should bleed when you cut into it<br />\n2. A bitter year should be the color of loss<br />\n3. A bitter year should be as long as it is short<br />\n4. A bitter year should come from the earth</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Why remember the bitterness of the past</strong><br />\n<strong>When we have so much of our own</strong></p>\n\n<p><strong>A1: </strong>Because maybe it is the same bitterness.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe Bitterness observes the scientific rule proposed by Émilie du Châtelet<br />\nMaybe there is a Fixed Amount of Bitterness in the universe<br />\nAnd it can’t be created or destroyed<br />\nBut only transformed<br />\nOr displaced from person to person<br />\nPlace to place<br />\nTime to time</p>\n\n<p>Maybe when the cosmos was created<br />\nThe One Who Made It said<br />\nThey can have a little Bitterness, as a treat</p>\n\n<p>And we were stuck with it,<br />\nAnd now we eat horseradish because<br />\nThere’s no way to end the Plight<br />\nSo we can consume it little by little<br />\nMunch munch munch</p>\n\n<p><strong>A2:</strong> Or maybe it’s not that<br />\nMaybe it’s completely different.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Was anything in 2020 sweet?</strong><br />\nAnything?<br />\nAnything?<br />\nAnything?</p>\n\n<p><strong>A: </strong>[your answer]<br />\n <em>No</em> is acceptable<br />\nAnd so is <em>Yes</em> </p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Can you tell me something good that happened?<br />\nA: </strong>You are alive, barely<br />\nAnd that means</p>\n\n<p>Émilie du Châtelet<br />\nWho first proposed the Law of Conservation of Bitterness<br />\nAlso said:</p>\n\n<p> <em>“It is the privilege of affection<br />\nTo see a friend in all situations of his soul.”</em> </p>\n\n<p>The sweetness is<br />\nTo see you in all your situations<br />\nAnd for you to see me<br />\nCome share a Plight with me<br />\nCome break Sadness with me into small crumbs and stalks<br />\nAnd make it easier to eat</p>\n\n<p>You have some.<br />\nI’ll have some.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Will there be more bitter years?</strong><br />\n<strong>A: </strong>Yes</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Will there be sweet ones?</strong><br />\n<strong>A: </strong>Yes</p>\n\n<p><strong>Q: Will they be the same years?</strong><br />\n<strong>A: </strong>Yes</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם. כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי וְיִפְסַח. הָשַׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל. הָשַׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Ado-nai, Elo-heinu Melech Ha-olam, Asher Kid’shanu B’mitzvotav V’tzivanu Al Achilat Maror. </em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sancti- fied us with His laws and commanded us to eat bitter herbs.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Matt Minnicino", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maror", "slug": "maror" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 170, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Q: Was 2020 a bitter year? | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/q-was-2020-a-bitter-year-matt", "og:title": "Q: Was 2020 a bitter year? | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "ha-lachma-anya-74", "title": "Now we are here", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Shara Feit is a New York-based writer, performer, and dramaturg. She makes sad/funny work about messy, wild, virtuosic,...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Shara Feit is a New York-based writer, performer, and dramaturg. She makes sad/funny work about messy, wild, virtuosic, women+ and queer folx of all ages.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Ha Lachma Anya’s parallelism equates now and here with enslavement, next year with Israel and freedom. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that maybe the thing that this truer about ha lachma anya than how it parallelizes is how it juxtaposes.  <em>Hashata hacha, l’shanah habaah b’ara d’Yisrael. Hashata avdei, l’shanah habaah b’nei chorin. </em> Now we are here, next year in the land of Israel. This year we are enslaved, next year we will be free. Two sentences, twenty seconds max (if sung slowly), that leap across and back and forth, through space and time, oppression and liberation, with so little distance between them.</p>\n\n<p>7PM applauding, pots and pans. Isolating. Making small, lovely plays on the internet. Not sleeping. Being so fucking scared. Watching so much  <em>West Wing</em>  that Josh Lyman and CJ Cregg appear in my dreams, streaming and streaming and streaming. Walking five miles through Riverdale Forest Park. Screening movies on a projector in my childhood home. Taking good classes. Taking boring classes. Staring at screens. Buying peppermint oil. Buying blue light glasses. Phonebanking. Helping with Shiva for my Saba. Needing grad paper extensions, really needing them. Dancing in the street when the election was called. Feeling so tired. Feeling so scared I’d always be so tired. Lighting candles. Watching a friend save a mouse stuck to a glue board (helping?). Celebrating a Zoom birthday, crying good tears. Redecorating my childhood bedroom. Eating so much sugar my teeth hurt. Screaming bad rock songs a capella with my siblings on a quiet day, including guitar solos. Collecting unemployment. Not writing and not writing and not writing. Writing, a little. Buying plants. Killing plants. Buying other plants. Not texting. Not calling. Taking meds. Gathering on Zoom with artists. Looking for jobs, losing jobs, finding jobs. Filling cavities. Doing dance fitness with my parents. Throwing a Zoom birthday party. Throwing another Zoom birthday party. Freaking out when family and friends get sick. Preparing a multi-course Italian dinner with my siblings for my parents' anniversary. Somehow, making a few new friends. Moving apartments. Mourning. Protesting. Carrying a 10-year old tiny dog in the deep pocket of my denim jacket. Talking with faraway friends. Talking with my aunt on the phone. Missing the people I can’t talk to anymore. Riding the subway, seeing unmasked people (scream). Racing through the Upper West Side at 12:30AM to find an antique fainting couch from Instagram with strangers, friends, a dog. Losing a friend. Getting vaccinated at 1:30AM at Yankee stadium with my brother. Hugging an immunosuppressed friend for the first time in a year.</p>\n\n<p>This Pesach, this Maggid, I am thinking about the human insanity of holding freedom and loss, joy and tragedy all at once, and how last Pesach I was so sure all this would be over and we would have made it to our proverbial Israel, our proverbial freedom, whatever that is, and would find ourselves leaving our homes, blinking because we’re not yet used to the brightness, holding each other. </p>\n\n<p> <em>Hashata hacha, l’shanah habaah b’ara d’Yisrael. Hashata avdei, l’shanah habaah b’nei chorin.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Being free, or maybe I just mean being okay, is not linear. It is a back and forth toggling between two sentences over the course of days, sometimes hours, sometimes minutes.</p>\n\n<p>But this year, I'm noticing the part that gets left behind on the race to freedom.  <em>Hashata hacha.</em> Now we are here. We are here. We are here. We are here. </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Shara Feit", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maggid - Beginning", "slug": "maggid-beginning" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 174, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Now we are here | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/ha-lachma-anya-74", "og:title": "Now we are here | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "eliyahu-39", "title": "Eliyahu", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "(Pour a fifth cup of wine for Elijah, as we sing together) אֵלִיָהוּ הַנָבִיא, אֵלִיָהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּי, אֵלִיָהוּ הַגִלְע...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Pour a fifth cup of wine for Elijah, as we sing together)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\">אֵלִיָהוּ הַנָבִיא, אֵלִיָהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּי, אֵלִיָהוּ הַגִלְעָדִי</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\">בִּמְהֵרָה יָבוֹא אֵלֵינוּ עִם מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָוִד</p>\n\n<p> <em>Eliyahu haNavi<br />\nEliyahu haTish'bi,<br />\nEliyahu, Eliyahu, Eliyahu haGil'adi</em> </p>\n\n<p> <em>Bim'hera v'yameinu yavoh eleinu,<br />\nim mashiach ben David,<br />\nim mashiach ben David</em> </p>\n\n<p>Elijah the prophet, Elijah of Tishbi, Elijah of Gilead, may he soon come to us along with the Messiah, son of David.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": null, "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Hallel", "slug": "hallel" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 170, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Eliyahu | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/eliyahu-39", "og:title": "Eliyahu | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "ha-lachma-anya-75", "title": "Ha Lachma Anya", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם. כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם. כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי וְיִפְסַח. הָשַׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל. הָשַׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Ha lachma anya di achalu avahatana b'ara d'Mitzrayim. Kal dichfin yeitei v'yeichul. Kal ditzrich yeitei v'yifsach. Hashata hacha, l'shanah haba'ah b'ara d'Yisrael. Hashata avdei. L'shana haba'ah b'nei chorin.</em> </p>\n\n<p>This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "sefaria.org", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Maggid - Beginning", "slug": "maggid-beginning" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 173, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Ha Lachma Anya | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/ha-lachma-anya-75", "og:title": "Ha Lachma Anya | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "a-karpas-eulogy-pt-2", "title": "A Karpas Eulogy, Pt. 2", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "The karpas is a vegetable dipped in saltwater. Usually it’s something green - a sprig of parsley, a stick of celer...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p><strong>The <em>karpas</em> is a vegetable dipped in saltwater.</strong> Usually it’s something green - a sprig of parsley, a stick of celery, a scaffolding of scallions - to represent the coming of Spring. Some families use potatoes, because in Eastern Europe - where my Bubbi’s parents were from - fresh green vegetables were hard to come by, and potatoes were <em>everywhere</em> ! <em>Karpas</em> can also translate to “fine wool or linen,” and some say the <em>karpas</em> represent Joseph’s amazing technicolor dreamcoat, which first led the Israelites into Egypt - the inciting incident of the Passover story, and the cause of so many sleepless nights where your brain can’t stop humming “Go go go Joseph you’ll make it someday!”</p>\n\n<p>The saltwater represents the tears that the Jews wept as slaves in Egypt. It’s a reminder that we cannot welcome spring without first remembering our ancestors’ suffering - and that from our suffering comes the promise of spring. So if the karpas = spring awakening, the saltwater = the bitch of living. Or, to quote the Jewish poet Carol King (originally Brooklyn’s own Carol Klein), “You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet.” That’s what I took from my Bubbi’s Zoom memorial - destruction and reconstruction, music and mayhem.</p>\n\n<p>There is also the question of why we dip the karpas in the saltwater <em>twice</em> ? Is it to clarify that we cried <em> a lot </em> of tears in Egypt? Is it because Jews are famous for double dipping? Or because we like our food extra salty? My favorite answer to the question is this: It’s simply meant to inspire more questions. To quote my friend Martine, “Maybe the why of the <em>karpas</em> is just that it’s weird. Something we’re not used to that’s going to prompt the kids to be like ‘hey why are you putting that leaf in salt water’ and then you can be like ‘glad you asked here is our national epic,’ you know?” As was true at the memorial, the weirdest questions always lead to the best stories.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, borei p’ree ha-adama.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruits of the earth.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Tirosh Schneider", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 97, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "A Karpas Eulogy, Pt. 2 | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/a-karpas-eulogy-pt-2", "og:title": "A Karpas Eulogy, Pt. 2 | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "jake-beck", "title": "Koreich, directed.", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Jake Beckhard is a stage director and dramaturg of new and existing plays. He was just Jewish enough to make it into Bir...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Jake Beckhard is a stage director and dramaturg of new and existing plays. He was just Jewish enough to make it into Birthright.</em> </p>\n\n<p>It has been put to me to write a passage for the Koreich step. </p>\n\n<p>We do the Koreich step and eat the Hillel sandwich so we can fulfil our obligation of Matzah and Maror. Hillel invented his eponymous sandwich back when we had the Holy Temple to resolve arguments over the commandments of eating both matzah and maror.</p>\n\n<p>To me, this sounds like a funny argument to have to sit through if you’re hungry.</p>\n\n<p>I am not a writer; I am a director. Directing, especially directing plays, is the fine art of taking very clear instructions (say this here, walk there afterwards) and adding significantly less clear instructions on top. </p>\n\n<p>The intended effect is to bathe the audience in sublimity, but it doesn’t always work out that way.</p>\n\n<p>In that spirit, here are some additional instructions I have added onto the very simple play of Koreich. Think of it as a solo play each of you is about to perform alongside each other. Because you are busy performing, you are also your only audience. So it is my fervent hope that somewhere in here, as an attentive audience member to yourself, you receive a little blue rush of sublimity.</p>\n\n<p>1.  Break off two pieces of matzah - one from the top piece and one from the bottom piece - to make your sandwich.<br />\n <em>When everyone has taken their matzah, trade for a piece you think is better than yours. As you’re trading, send your trading partner a little secret psychic message. Ideally something nice, like an apology, or a compliment. Good. </em> </p>\n\n<p>2.  Take some charoset and knife it onto your matzah.<br />\n <em>Think about how, in Gibraltar, they mix actual brick dust into their charoset to further strengthen the metaphor of the mortar used by Israelite slaves. Check in with your breath. At some point later in the seder, find a time to clear your throat. You only get one, and if someone notices, you’ve failed and must try again. Good.</em> </p>\n\n<p>3.  Spoon some bitter herb onto your charoset.<br />\n <em>Take a little taste of your bitter herb, then look around. Without anyone cueing, everyone at the table must now say in unison “Ooh, mama, that’s some bittah herb!” If it goes badly the first time, try again. Good.</em> </p>\n\n<p>4.  The reader will now say the words: “This is what Hillel did, at the time that the Temple stood. He wrapped up some Pesach lamb, some matzah and some bitter herbs and ate them together.”<br />\n <em>While saying them, trace the outer edge of your matzah. Imagine a “matzah paper cut.” Good.</em> </p>\n\n<p>5.  Close the sandwich and take a bite.<br />\n <em>Close your eyes while you chew. This part is only for you. Remember a place you loved that no longer exists, or at least not in the same way. Somewhere you could have arguments about trivialities with folks you trusted. What a gift, that you are a vessel for that place, carrying it day by day into the future. Take another bite. Good. </em> </p>\n\n<p>6.  Turn the page.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Jake Beckhard", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Koreich", "slug": "koreich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 185, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Koreich, directed. | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/jake-beck", "og:title": "Koreich, directed. | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "bounty-by-susan-whelehan", "title": "Bounty", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "The tossed salad at our Soup Kitchen starts with lettuce from the Community Garden, planted by a Roma family waiting to...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p style=\"text-align:center;\">The tossed salad<br />\nat our Soup Kitchen starts<br />\nwith lettuce from the Community<br />\nGarden, planted by a Roma family waiting<br />\nto hear their refugee status, tended by 70 year old<br />\nDavid, who grew up on a kibbutz, harvested by the Sixth<br />\nGrade class from down the street, washed by Mrs. Singh,<br />\nrecovering from a brain injury, dressed by Kaliyah,<br />\na Med student who comes when she’s got a free<br />\nhour, shared by a family of the working poor<br />\nwho swallowed their pride to come here<br />\nfor the first time. They offer thanks<br />\nand ask about the garden.<br />\nAnd so it grows.</p>\n\n<p>--Susan Whelehan</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Susan Whelehan", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Bareich", "slug": "bareich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 161, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Bounty | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/bounty-by-susan-whelehan", "og:title": "Bounty | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-third-cup-of-wine-13", "title": "The Third Cup of Wine", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "We give thanks for the meal we have eaten with a third glass of while. Birkat hamazon.  The blessing of the food.  Ch...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>We give thanks for the meal we have eaten with a third glass of while. <em>Birkat hamazon. </em> The blessing of the food.  <em>Chaverai n'vareich. </em> Let us praise God.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(Pour a third cup of wine and recite the blessing)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha’olam, borei p'ri hagafen.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Bareich", "slug": "bareich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 177, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Third Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-third-cup-of-wine-13", "og:title": "The Third Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "sofya-s-exodus-for-2021", "title": "Exodus 2021", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Sofya Levitsky-Weitz is a writer based in Brooklyn and originally from Los Angeles. Her play “Cannabis Passover” (the se...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Sofya Levitsky-Weitz is a writer based in Brooklyn and originally from Los Angeles. Her play “Cannabis Passover” (the second pesach play referenced) is a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference.</em> </p>\n\n<p>What does it look like to tell a story in which the narrative hinges on violence<br />\nwithout the violence?</p>\n\n<p>How can we demonstrate liberation without breaking something open?</p>\n\n<p>I just got out of a workshop with the Playwrights’ Center in which I started a new project, one where I am trying to recreate a story I wrote when I was a child that hinged upon violence towards women, while also examining my own and society’s fascination with a trope that hinges upon violence towards women.</p>\n\n<p>By the end<br />\nwith everything happening in the world<br />\nstill happening<br />\nthis week<br />\nthis month<br />\nthis year<br />\nlast year<br />\nthe entirety of my life<br />\nand humankind<br />\nall of it</p>\n\n<p>We all decided – the actors, director, stage manager, and me – that we didn’t want to tell a story about violence. We were simply tired of it. It bored us.</p>\n\n<p>So what does Exodus look like without violence, I wondered.</p>\n\n<p>Just searching for a refresher of the Exodus Story at Passover, I found a rabbi (Rabbi David Fohrman) who posited that another story from the Torah, when examined, closely resembles the Passover story. This story surrounds Joseph asking Pharaoh to honor the death of his earthly father, Jacob. By the end, the Egyptians and Israelites go further in unity, chariots accompanying the Israelites, not chasing them. This provides another model, and yet every year, the Passover story persists, with its plagues, with its gore, with this action and drama and lamb’s blood and bodies washed up on the shore.</p>\n\n<p>Many – especially those not in the Jewish faith – like to call the Old Testament God a “violent” God, a “punishing” God. I disagree with this assessment, or the binary it suggests, and prefer to think of the stories in the Torah as instructions, as lessons, as metaphor, power imbued to people to consider the consequences of our actions, to continually strive to be better and better and better.</p>\n\n<p>So I take that as a challenge, and this challenge is thus: I will write the Exodus Story with No Violence.</p>\n\n<p>I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I don’t believe in that either. But I will try to pull apart the pieces, leave blank what must be blank, in effort to learn about what remains. And what constitutes violence? Am I the one to decide that? Is anyone? I will simply remove what makes the pit in my stomach grow a little bit deeper. I will search for lightness, for joy. For liberation.</p>\n\n<p>Because maybe what remains can teach us even more about what we are, who we are, and what will be.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe.</p>\n\n<p>…</p>\n\n<p>A little baby floats on a River in a basket. He feels the wind above him, the floating of a current of water feels not so different from the womb. He watches the clouds above him. He’s calm. He is not aware of the tears behind him, the hope, the longing, the speeding up of the river, its precarity. He bumps calmly into the reeds, they welcome him.</p>\n\n<p>A woman lifts him out, more like a girl. She doesn’t see the girl her own age on the other side of the bank, holding her breath, or a younger girl watching her little brother as he’s scooped up into royal hands and cooed at. They let their breath go when the woman – adorned with necklaces and bracelets and skin that has been pampered her whole life – nuzzles into their boy and brings him inside. He is chosen, saved.</p>\n\n<p>The boy grows up. It isn’t without challenges. He spends his time looking out the window, wandering around. Something doesn’t feel right, even among it all. He knows he is different. It’s written in his bones, in the contours of his mind. He spends his childhood ignoring it, as many of us do. But when he cannot ignore it anymore, when he cannot look away, the sensitivity rippling on the surface of his skin and the skin of others, he knows he must take action.</p>\n\n<p>This results in his departure from the palace he’s known since infancy. The only place he’s known, the only place he remembers in his conscious mind. But his body remembers something else, as bodies do. Wandering in the desert, he speaks to God. A bush on fire, it speaks to him. Or maybe he eats something, a plant that talks to him, or maybe the bush really burns. It doesn’t matter, either way. God, or the plant, or his own mind tells him who he really is. And what he must do.</p>\n\n<p>He must help his people be free.</p>\n\n<p>First, he asks. A boy with a stutter, from a trick played on him as a baby. He is scared, but is driven by something larger than him, something he doesn’t even understand. He reunites with a brother, someone who can help speak with him. Together, they raise each other.</p>\n\n<p>The answer is no. He urges, calmly, but the answer continues to be no.</p>\n\n<p>He needs help.</p>\n\n<p>The help comes in the form of transformations from above. Scary things, one greater than the next. The water turns to blood, for instance. Locusts in the sky. A total blackness. All temporary, the man urges. If the Pharaoh lets them go. All will be maintained. Well, not all. There are some things that need fixing. Pharaoh stays firm. Or, he changes his mind. Again and again. The Israelites prepare to flee, and when it finally happens, it is from a severing. Something so dark it is darker than darkness. In grief, the Pharaoh says: <em>go.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Their bread did not even have time to rise. They carried it on their backs and it burned and hardened. They started their wandering, which started as a hurrying. A flee. A don’t turn back. A keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. The sister of the little boy, now grown, leads the group with her tambourine. She dances, sings, and the singing continues.</p>\n\n<p>For some reason, Pharaoh changes his mind again. We will not know why. He has lost so much, he does not want this final loss. God wants lessons. God wants stories. And so do we. </p>\n\n<p>So they keep coming, and the Israelites keep moving. They will move past the water, through the water, into the desert, through generations, up a mountain, down again, into the new world, and onwards.</p>\n\n<p>We all came from the sea, and the sea will cover us all one day.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Sofya Levitsky-Weitz", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Exodus Story", "slug": "exodus-story" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 194, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Exodus 2021 | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/sofya-s-exodus-for-2021", "og:title": "Exodus 2021 | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "pic-61", "title": "Spring", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Rosie Achorn-Rubenstein", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/320952/IMG_1655.jpg", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/320952/conversions/IMG_1655-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Karpas", "slug": "karpas" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 200, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Spring | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. 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Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/320952/conversions/IMG_1655-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "how-you-see-the-world-has-taught-me-to", "title": "\"How You See The World Has Taught Me To...\"", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Sharone Halevy", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322823/howyousee.jpg", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322823/conversions/howyousee-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "-- Four Children", "slug": "four-children" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 159, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "\"How You See The World Has Taught Me To...\" | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/how-you-see-the-world-has-taught-me-to", "og:title": "\"How You See The World Has Taught Me To...\" | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322823/conversions/howyousee-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "when-does-a-conversation-become-inspiration", "title": "\"When does a conversation become inspiration?\"", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "", "cliptype": "image", "clipsource": "Sharone Halevy", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322838/whendoesaconversation.jpg", "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322838/conversions/whendoesaconversation-cover.jpg", "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Shulchan Oreich", "slug": "shulchan-oreich" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 175, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "\"When does a conversation become inspiration?\" | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/when-does-a-conversation-become-inspiration", "og:title": "\"When does a conversation become inspiration?\" | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "https://assets.haggadot.com/clips/322838/conversions/whendoesaconversation-cover.jpg" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "anything-goes", "title": "Anything Goes", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "to the tune of  “Anything Goes”  In olden days when Pharaoh thundered,  The Hebrews in slav’ry wondered,  Does Heaven k...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>to the tune of  “Anything Goes” </em> </p>\n\n<p>In olden days when Pharaoh thundered, <br />\nThe Hebrews in slav’ry wondered, <br />\nDoes Heaven know? <br />\nWhen can we go? </p>\n\n<p>A man arose, his name was Moses, <br />\nWhat do you suppose his news was? <br />\nTo end our woe, <br />\nIt was time to go!</p>\n\n<p>‘Twas under the burning tree <br />\nMoses came to be <br />\nMan of liberty <br />\nWho would help us flee <br />\n‘Cross the ruddy sea <br />\nSo miraculously. <br />\nSay goodbye to old Pharaoh! </p>\n\n<p>What God proposes, man disposes. <br />\nThe story of Moses shows us <br />\nThat, Heaven knows, <br />\nAnything goes!</p>\n\n<p>©2007 Steve Glickman</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "www.barbarasarshik.com", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Songs", "slug": "songs" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 183, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Anything Goes | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/anything-goes", "og:title": "Anything Goes | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "into-the-sea-3", "title": "Into The Sea", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "to the tune of “Into the Woods”  Into the sea, where Adonai  Has promised that the land is dry. Moses is here and he’s...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>to the tune of “Into the Woods” </em> </p>\n\n<p>Into the sea, where Adonai <br />\nHas promised that the land is dry.<br />\nMoses is here and he’s the guy <br />\nTo guide us on our journey. </p>\n\n<p>Into the sea— We can’t deny<br />\nThe trip we take can terrify. <br />\nWill we be free or will we die <br />\nBefore we start our journey?</p>\n\n<p>The way is clear. <br />\nWe have our guide. <br />\nSo have no fear. <br />\nGod will provide. <br />\nThe sand is up ahead. <br />\nThe soldiers are behind. <br />\nI really hate to ask it, <br />\nBut will I need a casket?</p>\n\n<p>Into the sea— We have no bread. <br />\nThe time was tight, and so we fled. <br />\nMoses has said we’ll all be fed <br />\nAs we head on our journey. </p>\n\n<p>Into the sea— We don’t know how<br />\nBut we agree the time is now. <br />\nLater we’ll build a golden cow <br />\nTo guide us on our journey. <br />\nInto the sea! And out of the sea!<br />\nInto the sea! And out of the sea! <br />\nAnd home before dark!</p>\n\n<p>©2007 Barbara Sarshik</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "www.barbarasarshik.com", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Songs", "slug": "songs" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 180, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Into The Sea | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/into-the-sea-3", "og:title": "Into The Sea | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "sinai", "title": "Sinai (\"My Guy\")", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "to the tune of “My Guy”  Moses says it’s time  To start on the climb up Sinai.  When he’s way up high  He’ll meet with...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>to the tune of “My Guy” </em> </p>\n\n<p>Moses says it’s time <br />\nTo start on the climb up Sinai. <br />\nWhen he’s way up high <br />\nHe’ll meet with Adonai on Sinai. </p>\n\n<p>Well, our God is a superstar <br />\nAnd when it comes to being chosen, we are! <br />\nThere’s not a mountain nowhere <br />\nThat ever can compare with Sinai.</p>\n\n<p>Far from all the crowds <br />\nHe’ll be high up in the clouds on Sinai. <br />\nLook at all we’ll know <br />\nWhen he comes back down below from Sinai </p>\n\n<p>We’ll love the Lord and keep Shabbat <br />\nWe’ll follow every “Thou shalt not.” <br />\nThere’s not a mountain nowhere <br />\nThat ever can compare with Sinai. </p>\n\n<p>©2009 Barbara Sarshik</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "www.barbarasarshik.com", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Songs", "slug": "songs" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 168, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "Sinai (\"My Guy\") | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/sinai", "og:title": "Sinai (\"My Guy\") | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "the-seder-begins-1", "title": "The Seder Begins", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Welcome to the seder. You’re here. You made it. Passover is a holiday about looking backwards. We tell the story of Exod...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p>Welcome to the seder. You’re here. You made it.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Passover is a holiday about looking backwards.</strong> We tell the story of Exodus, of our people’s deliverance from slavery thousands of years ago. We speak prayers from ancient lips, prepare foods eaten by our grandparents and our grandparents’ grandparents and our grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents. We preserve, and we remember.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Passover is also a holiday about looking forwards.</strong> We open the door for Elijah, for a salvation we can never be sure is coming but we continue to hope for anyway. “Next year in Jerusalem!” We envision future Passovers in a world where we are all safe, all together. We wait, and we dream.</p>\n\n<p>We are a people obsessively looking backwards, constantly looking forwards. We, the Jewish people. We, the modern people. We pour over our pasts, fret over our futures. We tell our stories. We look ahead to a better world.</p>\n\n<p>But Passover is also a holiday about being present. “ <em>Seder</em> ” means “order.” We bring our loved ones together to share a ritual, a series of steps, of order. We read passages in turn. We prepare certain foods, cast others out of the house. We pay special attention -- drink now, eat this, dip your vegetables (twice), drink again, sing, read, recline, discuss.</p>\n\n<p><strong>We look backwards, and forwards, so that we might be here.</strong> Now. To give thanks and to share. To be. We made it. We’re here.</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">(We light the candles and recite the prayer)</p>\n\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\"><strong>בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אַדֹנָ-י אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל יום טוב</strong></p>\n\n<p> <em>Baruch a-ta A-do-nay Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-o-lam a-sher ki-di-sha-nu bi-mitz-vo-tav vi-tzi-va-noo li-had-leek ner shel Yom Tov.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of the holiday.</p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Introduction", "slug": "introduction" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 173, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "The Seder Begins | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-seder-begins-1", "og:title": "The Seder Begins | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } } }, { "clip": { "is_admin": 0, "is_owner": 0, "handle": "a-little-context-for-the-2nd-edition-of-this-haggadah", "title": "A Little Context for the 2nd Edition of this Haggadah", "author": "Serena Jake", "author_handle": "serena-berman", "author_initials": "SJ", "covertext": "Serena Berman is a writer, performer, and producer. She is a resident artist at Ars Nova and is frequently type-cast as...", "user_image": "", "user_image_original": "", "body": "<p> <em>Serena Berman is a writer, performer, and producer. She is a resident artist at Ars Nova and is frequently type-cast as a Jewish teenager.</em> </p>\n\n<p>Last year, freshly unemployed and locked in our apartment, my partner Jake and I put together an “Artist’s Haggadah” with a group of Jewish theatermakers. It was an idea Jake had had the year before, but schedules were busy and Passover was upon us, so we thought, “maybe next year.” Next year came, and suddenly nobody’s schedules were quite as busy. The exercise, I think, proved to be a cathartic release of feelings about our present moment. One we couldn’t have anticipated in 2019. </p>\n\n<p>2021 is a new moment. It’s not quite what it was last year, but it hasn’t quite returned to what it was the year before that either. We’re in a series of years that have reminded us that even while traditions stay the same, the way we experience them changes in unimaginable ways.</p>\n\n<p>So we’ve put together a second edition of the Artist’s Haggadah.</p>\n\n<p>We gave our writers from last year the option to reprint or update their pieces, and we broke down the sections further to bring in new voices. All in all, this book features the work of 15 brilliant Jewish artists (13 writers and 2 visual artists). I put together brief bios -- mostly culled from their websites -- that you’ll see scattered around the book (I've put our visual artists' bios below). Like last year, the artists were told they could do whatever they wanted with their sections. Some are funny, some serious, some personal, some traditional, some abstract. They vary in length, and as with any seder, you are free to pick and choose when to read aloud and when you might skim (if you’re really hungry, or really drunk). But I think we’ve put together a really beautiful seder for you.</p>\n\n<p>Thank you to all the artist’s who gave their time and hearts to this haggadah. Thank you to all the Jews gathering together to share in it. Thank you to everyone who has offered me love and friendship between the last quarantined seder and this one. I am grateful for you all. </p>\n\n<p> <em>Chag Pesach sameach!</em> </p>\n\n\n\n<p> <em>--</em> </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Artist bios:</p>\n\n<p> <em>Rosie Achorn-Rubenstein (cover) is a public defender in Portland, OR. As if that wasn’t enough, she is also a brilliant visual artist.</em> </p>\n\n<p> <em>Sharone Halevy is a New York City commission-based abstract expressionist, as well as a director and teaching artist. She loves being inspired by the music and the people around her. </em> </p>", "cliptype": "text", "clipsource": "Serena Berman", "featured": 0, "featuredIn": null, "is_public": 1, "is_published": 1, "media": { "image": null, "audio": null, "video": null }, "thumbnail": null, "clip_section": [ { "haggadah_section": "Introduction", "slug": "introduction" } ], "likes": 0, "downloads": 169, "tags": [], "themes": [], "language": "0", "is_bookmarked": "0", "is_liked": 0, "meta_tags": { "title": "A Little Context for the 2nd Edition of this Haggadah | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. 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Find artwork, family", "keywords": "", "og:type": "article", "og:url": "https://www.haggadot.com/clip/the-third-cup-of-wine-6", "og:title": "The Third Cup of Wine | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake", "og:description": "Our simple platform allows you to create a custom Passover Haggadah, with access to unique content contributed by our community. Find artwork, family", "og:image": "" } }