Rabbi Howard Morrison

I do not like abbreviated Siddurim - Prayer books. I might not say every word of every service, but I want every word to be there for me to consider, for me to choose, and for me to edit.

I do not like abbreviated Machzorim - High Holy Day prayer books. I might not say every word of every service, but I want every word to be there for me to consider, for me to choose, and for me to edit.

I do not like abbreviated Haggadahs - I might not say every word, but I want every word to be there for me to consider, for me to choose, and for me to edit.

Ever since there were abbreviated Haggadahs in the market place, one of the first edits to appear is a series of statements when the door is opened for Elijah the Prophet, after the main meal.

The statements are ancient, Biblical, from the books of Psalms and Lamentations. The insertion of these statements entered the Haggadah sometime after the Crusades of the 11^th century. Our people were angry, mad, pissed off and wanted these emotions expressed in the Haggadah, which is perhaps the best story of our national history from Abraham to Moses, to the Talmudic Sages, to the Middle Ages, to this very day. The Haggadah is filled with joyous and sweet, but is also filled with bitter and emotional.

Sometime after the Crusades, three Biblical quotations were inserted into the Haggadah as we open the door for Elijah the Prophet:

"Pour Your fierce anger onto the nations that did not know You and on the governments that did not call in your name. For it has eaten Jacob and made his habitat desolate. (Psalms 79:6-7)"

"Pour on them your fury and make your burning anger grip them. (Psalms 69:25)"

"Pursue in anger and destroy them from under God's heavens. (Lamentations 3:66)"

Consider the Middle Ages - 

Jews who refuse to renounce their faith are slaughtered community by community. 

Jews are accused of murdering non-Jewish infants for the purpose of using their blood to bake Matza.

Jews are forced to convert to another faith in order to survive, lest they be burned at the stake, or imperiled during the Inquisition. Some choose to secretly practice their Judaism down in the basement.

Consider 80-90 years ago -

Jews who have an ounce of Jewish blood from their mother's side or their father's side, from a grandmother's side or a grandfather's side, are sent to their deaths - by forced labor, by mass shootings, by being squeezed in gas chambers.

Consider October 7 - 

Worst genocide since the Shoah. Over 1200 Jews are murdered in Israel in one single day. Hundreds are taken as hostages, including infants, young children, young men and women, the elderly. Babies in Southern Israel are beheaded. Women are raped before they are slaughtered.

Consider Shabbat April 13 -

Hundreds and hundreds of missiles, drones, and projectiles are hurled all over Israel, the first horror of this kind, emanating from within Iran to within Israel.

Do we not have the right and even the religious expression to say we are mad, angry, pissed off? Of course we do. This passage of the Haggadah should never be removed. Repressing or denying our fierce anger is unhealthy. Fire held tightly inside us can consume us. We demand and humanly seek Justice. 

However - Anger, when hardened into a desire for vengeance, can become vicious, can re-traumatize us again, and can turn victim into victimizer!  And so, the Haggadah invites us to entrust God with our anger, and to ask Hashem to take over our anger and find its right use in the world. 

Did you ever notice that on the cemetery monuments of deceased Holocaust survivors, often you will find names of family members who were murdered in the Shoah inscribed on the backside? And under the names you find the following two abbreviations:

"Ayin, Koof, Dalet, Hay - Al Kiddush Hashem - For sanctifying God's name as martyrs."
"Hay, Yud, Dalet - Hashem Yikom Damam - May God avenge their blood."

Lastly, in every chapter of Jewish history, there have been righteous non-Jews who have stood by our side. At my Seder, after I invoke the three Biblical statement demanding of God to pour out divine wrath, I add the following which is not found in most Haggadahs, but originates from a Haggadah manuscript in the 1500's:

"Pour out Your love on the nations who have known you 
and on the kingdoms who call upon your name. 
For they show kindness to the seed of Jacob,
and they defend your people Israel from those
who would devour them alive.
May they live to see the Sukkah of peace
spread over your chosen ones and to participate
in the joy of all your nations."

Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Howard Morrison