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This song was written to be part of Fiddler on the Roof, but was cut from the show before it made its Broadway debut for being too slow, and comic at a moment in the show when the people of Anatevka are experiencing tragedy. It imagines a world in which the Messiah is coming, but lost, and worried about us. Words and music by Sheldon Harnick When Messiah comes he will say to us, “I apologize that I took so long.”...

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by  JEANNE LOHMANN All day I try to say nothing but thank you,  breathe the syllables in and out with every step I take through the rooms of my house and outside into a profusion of shaggy-headed dandelions in the garden where the tulips’ black stamens shake in their crimson cups. I am saying thank you, yes, to this burgeoning spring and to the cold wind of its changes. Gratitude comes easy after a hot shower, when my loosened muscles work, ...

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 THE ONE WHO IS CONTENT The one who is content asks: “What can I contribute?” This child lives the teaching of Ben Zoma (a second-century scholar), who answers the question “Who is rich?” with the response “The one who is content with her portion.” This child studies the teachings of tzedakah and understands the blessings and responsibilities of her privilege because she is part of an interrelated, interacting system that values community.  Table Conversation: In what ways are you satisfied with...

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Ten Ways to Bring Human Rights to Your Seder1. Place a tomato on your seder plate in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers,agricultural workers who are eradicating slavery from the Florida tomato fields.See www.truah.org/slavery for related readings and resources.2. Ask each guest to bring an object or photo that symbolizes a contemporary human rights struggle.Place these on a second seder plate, and have each guest talk about what s/he brought.3. Stage an improvisational skit in which Moses, Miriam, and other...

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STANDING WITH FARMWORKERS Supporting Those Working to End Modern-Day Slavery PART 1 Please read this towards the beginning of the seder. The seder begins: “Let all who are in need, come and share in the Passover meal.” In this year of struggle for workers’ rights, we want to symbolically welcome members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a human rights organization made up of Florida farmworkers, primarily tomato harvesters, to share in our seder. Before we begin to tell our story...

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ביום בהיר ונהדר יצאו מתוך ההגדה חכם ותם רשע גדול וזה שלא ידע לשאול חכם ותם רשע גדול וזה שלא ידע לשאול וכשארבעת האחים יצאו לנוע בדרכים מיד מכל ארבע רוחות פרחים הגיעו וברכות מיד מכל ארבע רוחות פרחים הגיעו וברכות פגש חכם בחכמה אהב התם את התמימה והרשע בתור אישה תפס מרשעת איומה והרשע בתור אישה תפס מרשעת איומה וזה שלא ידע לשאול לקח את היפה מכל שילב ידו בתוך ידה וחזר איתה להגדה שילב ידו בתוך ידה וחזר איתה...

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The one who does not know how to ask said:This time, too, my father, this time, too,Deliver my soul, returned from Hell,From wrath and indignation.Because words are insufficient to depict the HellBecause death has no idiom,And I, who do not know how to ask,Am tongue-tied sevenfold.Because I was commanded to wander on long roads—No joy, no tranquility, no rest.Because I was commanded to look at the torment of babiesTo pass over the dead bodies of infants.Because they beat my eyes with...

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In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated). Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P.H....

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An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or the goat To get caught in the wheels Of the "Had Gadya" machine. Afterward we found them among the bushes, And our voices came back inside...