the freedom seder, feminist seders, and transformation

The Freedom Seder, Feminist Seders, & Transformation

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

What is a seder for?

What is a seder for?

Transforming consciousness.

(image source: therapeuticaha)

I know this...

...thanks to Rabbi Arthur Waskow

and the Freedom Seder

and everything which followed from it.

From the particular...

Particularistic language

and frametale

...to the universal

Particularistic language

and frametale →

Universalistic vision of justice

and a world redeemed

Liberation: not for us alone

Liberation: not for us alone

Metaphorical and literal

We were slaves / עבדים היינו“to a Pharaoh in Egypt…” - for Jews this is mythic memory.

American legacy of slavery - for African Americans this is historical memory.

Story and ritual

Jews and African Americans share the centrality of the Exodus story, but the story has different valances.

The Freedom Seder brought those different valances together in the realm of spirit and soul, via shared ritual.

Multiple meanings

The seder can speak to:

Not only liberation from Pharaoh;

Not only liberation from racism and injustice;

Also liberation from patriarchy.

1975: a new Jewish journey begins

The first feminist seder was organized by Esther Broner, Marcia Freedman, and Naomi Nimrod in Haifa in 1975, and led to the production of the The Women’s Haggadah, which followed the traditional seder outline but used that structure to speak of Jewish women in our ancient past as well as contemporary Jewish women’s experience.

(Source: ritualwell)

From innovation to tradition

1) First something is an innovation.2) Then it starts to become familiar.

3) Then it becomes increasingly commonplace4) Eventually it becomes assimilated into the tradition.

I didn’t grow up with Miriam’s Cup, but I could have.

(And my own son certainly has.)

Feminist seder innovations

Miriam’s Cup.

Shifrah/Puah.

Lifting up women’s voices.

Connecting the Exodus story with our own stories.

...and the orange

“Bread on the seder plate…renders everything chametz, and its symbolism suggests that being lesbian is transgressive, violating Judaism. I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.”

-- Susannah Heschel, early 1980s

Already

The seder as a frame for speaking about African American liberation

→ the seder as a frame for speaking about women’s liberation

→ the seder as a frame for speaking about GLBT liberation

Feminist seders and me

The Williams College Feminist Seder Project

First feminist seder at Williams: 1992.

Wrestling with God-language: King, to Queen, to Wellspring or Source.

(Masculine to feminine; then power-over to power-from-within, sidestepping the gender binary altogether.)

Using Judaism to tell a feminist story? Using feminism to inform our Jewish story?

Process vs. product, destination vs. journey.

We knew we stood on the shoulders of women who came before us.

We never doubted our right to take our story into our own hands.

In other places

Ma’yan: The Jewish Women's Project

Founded 1993.

Held their first feminist seder in 1994 for 150 women.

Within a few years they were holding feminist seders for 500 on four consecutive nights.

“In Richardson, Texas, they call it ‘Miriam’s seder.’ ‘Hers Seder’ is the term of art in

Pennsylvania, at the American Jewish Congress gatherings. And in a diverse cross-

section of neighborhoods, towns and cities, from the semi-suburbia of Hollis Hills,

Queens, to the flatlands of Canton, Ohio, to the East Bay of San Francisco, to the deep

South of Birmingham, Ala., the event is known simply as a women’s seder.”

-- The Jewish Week, “Evolution of the Feminist Seder,” 2000

The story is in our hands

In Reb Arthur’s words

“The Freedom Seder helped point the way for a renewal of Jewish liturgy and celebration, the fusion of liturgy with social action, and the upwelling of a movement for Jewish renewal from the ‘grass roots’ of the Jewish people.”

The name “Jewish Renewal” didn’t exist in 1969, but the phenomenon was already underway.

Jewish Renewal

Jewish Renewal is a transdenominational approach to revitalizing Judaism.

We combine the socially progressive values of egalitarianism, the joy of Hasidism, the informed do-it-

yourself spirit of the havurah movement, and the accumulated wisdom of centuries of tradition.

We value deep ecumenism; in Hillel's words, we learn from every person and spiritual tradition.

We create innovative, accessible, and welcoming prayer experiences.

We shape halacha (Jewish law) into a living way of walking in the world.

And we seek to deepen the ongoing, joyful, and fundamental connection, with a God Who connects us

all, which is at the heart of Jewish practice.

(source: aleph.org/what-is-jewish-renewal)

Question of the Hour - הוראת שעה

What expressions of Judaism are called-for in this moment in time?

Making this question central, and continuing to answer it anew, is core to Jewish Renewal.

Shared roots

The same psychospiritual shift which undergirds the Freedom Seder also undergirds the feminist seder movement.

Jewish Renewal is part of this same paradigm shift.

And grassroots

No one gives “permission” for this kind of ritual re-creation.

It arises from the ground up, part of the cultural zeitgeist.

It reflects the yearning to find, mirrored in our people’s core story, a message which speaks to today’s awareness that the work of liberation is not complete.

This renewal of Judaism empowers us to take the tradition into our own hands.

The seder and intersectionality

Today there are haggadot which are explicitly earth-based and environmentalist;

The seder and intersectionality

explicitly vegetarian, themed around food justice, focusing on issues of global sustainability;

The seder and intersectionality

explicitly anti-war, pro-labor, and created in solidarity with others who are oppressed;

The seder and intersectionality

themed around poverty, and around poetry;

The seder and intersectionality

themed around #BlackLivesMatter, around queer / trans liberation...

...all of which owe their existence, in some way, to the Freedom Seder and its role in manifesting the renewal of Judaism in our day.

What is a seder for?

Transforming consciousness.

Changing us from within, so we can go forth and change the world.

If you emerge entirely unchanged, you’re doing it wrong.

Thanks, Reb Arthur.

Three seder poems of liberation

Thanks for having me.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

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@velveteenrabbi | @ALEPHAlliance

rbarenblat@gmail.com