The Ten Plagues, Change, and Creative Adaptation

One thing I have come to love about Passover is the creative variety. Although the celebration is liturgical and involves telling a particular story that is observed through specific rituals, no two seders are alike. There are countless haggadahs available and many, many families have adapted their haggadah of choice over the years. I fondly remember the Aaronson family's wine-stained haggadahs, in which many of the masculine pronouns and nouns had been whited-out and changed to make the service more inclusive. Occasionally new material was inserted as well. Every year, we debate if we have accidentally skipped one of the glasses of wine, and argue over whether we read through all of this part or that.  The stains and the changes and the conversation are, to me, as much a part of the holiday as the matzo and the horseradish.

I am a lover of tradition, which is part of why I love Passover, but since I started hosting my own seders I have come to see the seder as an opportunity for change, to take the haggadah my family has traditionally used and continue the tradition of editing and adding to it. Not only is there a glass of water for Miriam, and an orange for inclusivity, but now there is liturgy and ritual to incorporate these modern feminist elements into the seder. In doing so, I make the seder more my own, while keeping with family tradition.

At some point in my youth someone introduced the modern plagues to our seder. In addition to spilling wine for the blood and the boils and the slaying of the first-born, we now add:

Each drop of wine we pour is hope and prayer
that people will cast out the plagues that threaten everyone
everywhere they are found, beginning in our own hearts:
    The making of war,
    the teaching of hate and violence,
    despoliation of the earth,
    perversion of justice and government,
    fomenting of vice and crime,
    neglect of human needs,
    oppression of nations and peoples,
    corruption of culture,
    subjugation of science, learning, and human discourse,
    the erosion of freedoms.

I have encountered this at other seders. At one, the recitation was followed by an opportunity for anyone present to share, and pour out a drop of wine for, any other plagues they recognize in our society.

It is good to name these things, and to have the opportunity to sanctify our opposition in ritual. But how many plagues will it take for change to occur?

I write out of sympathy for Pharaoh. We pour out wine for each plague because, to quote the haggadah, "our triumph is diminished by the slaughter of the foe." Nevertheless, Pharaoh is the bad guy. But for one moment, let us imagine ourselves in his shoes.

You have, in Egypt, an economy and social order built on slavery. Pharaoh, the guy in charge, did not create this system, though he certainly benefits from its privileges. Still, it is not his fault that he inherited such a system, and even less so that certain overseers are needlessly cruel to slaves, right? So when some dude, even if it's an adopted son, comes in and says, "Hey, you should free these people, and oh, if you don't, our God is going to make bad things happen to you," he's not really in a position to agree. Granted, he's the only person in a position to make that decision carte blanche, but it would be political suicide. The situation is so much bigger than him. He, and his entire society, would have to change their essential nature. That is not an easy decision or change to make. No wonder it took ten plagues. Egyptian society was better equipped to deal with frogs and flies than total economic upheaval. It took the slaying of the first-born, a loss that caused direct injury to the patriarchal economy and must have torn many hearts to pieces in the process, for the Pharaoh to make the otherwise politically catastrophic decision to free the Hebrew slaves.

The experience of the Egyptians, in suffering the plagues, reveals something of how systems of oppression hurt everyone, even those privileged by it. It was not just Pharaoh's heart that was hard, but a whole culture, numbed by the fact that their whole economy was built on slavery, because how else can you live with that knowledge? They felt their culture was threatened by a growing minority population, and turned to violence to subdue it. I cannot help but be reminded of modern parallels in American history - I'm not just talking about the Civil War and emancipation, but also the way we deal with racism and immigration in 2015. And rather than allowing our culture to be enriched by diversity, as the orange brings refreshing new flavor to the seder, we suppress it and exploit it. Like the Egyptians, we accept devastation again and again, whether it be in the form of murrain killing our cattle or the making of war, in order to maintain our position. But one cannot be stable standing on the backs of others who do not want to be stood on.

Which leads me to the question I've been thinking about for months. How many plagues does it take for us to make changes in our own lives? How much will we put up with before we say, enough is enough? Be it a frustrating job, an unhealthy relationship, a pursuit that is going nowhere, even acknowledging a truth about ourselves. Certainly there is value in resiliency, and in facing the challenges life throws at us. If we can stick through it, we will hopefully be stronger on the other side. But at a certain point, do we start inviting adversity upon ourselves, as Pharaoh did when he refused to free the Jews?

Pharaoh, like many of us, having finally made the decision to change is immediately plagued by doubt. He tries to take it back, to stop what he has put in motion, but it is too late. In his attempt to hold back the currents of change, he perishes. Who cannot relate to this doubt, which in its tragedy reveals the Pharaoh's humanity? In resisting change sometimes we, too, kill pieces of ourselves.

Change is hard. Sometimes every ounce of our being seems to resist it, if only because we don't know who we are on the other side. Liberating slaves brought down the entire system they supported, and liberating ourselves can have the same effect. It is easy to fall into similar patterns, as our American history illustrates in the shift from slavery to sharecropping, much easier and more palatable than building a truly egalitarian society. In our own lives, at least, it is only ourselves that we destroy and try to rebuild, and there, perhaps, true liberation might be possible.

Exodus is ultimately a very human story. It is commanded: "In every generation, each Jew must look upon himself as though he, personally, was among those who went forth from Egypt." We tell this story year after year to remember the suffering and the liberation. But we are not just the Jews, the victims-turned-heroes. In every character there is something we can relate to. May that be a warning, that in our liberation, let us take care not to become despots, over others or over our own souls.

Which brings us back to the modern plagues quoted above, and the question of what it will take for us, as a society, to finally say, "Enough is enough." Words alone do not bring about liberation and an end to environmental and human exploitation. Can we change our own lives for the better? Are we willing to pay the price to change the world?

I approach Pesach with these heavy questions on my mind. In some ways, perhaps the haggadah can serve as a guide, not so much for being a history lesson but rather as an example of creative adaptation. The evolution of the seder reveals a path to liberation at a lower price, less violent and more celebratory. The recipe for my seder is one part ancient Hebrew prayer, one part Midrashic commentary, one part modern feminist adaptation, one part family tradition, one part wine, one part food, and one part the gathered community.  Combine and simmer, and in consuming, perhaps come to know God.

Why I Cry Over the Buffalo

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

I spent my first week in Kansas crying, about many things, but among them the slaughter of the buffalo. I was struggling to adjust to this new and open landscape, so flat and dry, and this time of year mostly brown and gray - straight out of the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. I couldn't understand why people would live in such a place, land that used to be free and open prairie, now subdivided into monocropped acreage dotted with oil wells. "We weren't meant to settle here," I thought, through images of dust bowl farmers and folks who didn't have whatever it took to make it further along the Santa Fe Trail. Then, at the top of Pawnee Rock, looking out for miles in all directions, I read a quote on a plaque describing the view of buffalo, so thick the prairie was black with them as far as the eye could see.

And where are they now?

I cry over the buffalo because they are a symbol, to me, of all the violence we have done to this vast and magnificent prairie, to the regenerative biodiversity, to the people who made their homes here, moving across the land, migrating like the birds, and the buffalo. I could cry about the people, but that pain is too great for my struggling, aching, heavy heart. So instead I cry about the buffalo.

The buffalo are an apt symbol of my sorrow for more reasons, too. Because I know why we killed the buffalo. I've played more than my fair share of Oregon Trail. A large, slow-moving, easy target, when you're hungry, and stressed for time. If you can shoot a buffalo, you do it, even if you can only carry 200 lbs back to the wagon and the rest goes to waste. (And is it really waste if the vultures and bugs get to east, and eventually it all goes back to the soil? It is only that we humans are not maximizing the benefit of the buffalo to ourselves...) So there's that perspective. But then there's a scene in Lonesome Dove, where a character on horseback spots a herd of buffalo and goes charging into it, because he can, because it's fun. A few months ago, out on Lake DeGray, we spotted a bald eagle flying ahead of our boat and chased after it, because we could, and because it was beautiful, and endangered, and we may never get another experience like that again. It was thrilling, and exhilarating, and I could understand why one might shoot a buffalo, even once they were endangered, even if you knew better.

So in truth, my tears are guilty tears, for I would have been complicit if not an active party in the slaughter of the buffalo, and I am currently complicit in more destruction than I can even imagine. But we keep living and so we keep killing and I am feeling that guilt on my heart.

But I know why people live here, too. The beauties the Native Americans saw on their migrations, and that can still be found in pockets, and in the sky. The sunrises, and the sunsets, and the stars. And because children love playing in the prairie. They always have. They always will.

And so we chase after joy, and take what money we can to survive and allow those simple pleasures to perpetuate, in whatever form the current age dictates. And we grieve the cost, but there is always some cost. And we learn to live with ourselves.