THE HAGGADAH

I have often mentioned Ein Harod’s Pesach Seder, however lately due to lockdowns during the pandemic our kibbutz Seder was postponed to an indefinite date. Finally. this year the team that organises the Seder decided that while Covid restrictions were being eased we could hold the Seder after all. Not surprisingly the dining room was filled to maximum capacity.

In the past, the Seder was held in the multi-purpose hall I mentioned earlier in a post about our “white elephants.” The hall with a foyer-like extension could accommodate 1,100 people (members their families and various guests). The stage had room enough for choral groups, a musical ensemble and dancers. However, there were logistical disadvantages that caused the organisers to relocate back to the kibbutz dining room

If you are unfamiliar with the kibbutz Seder, I should point out that its format differs from the traditional Seder.

For the purpose of illustrating some of the differences I have added here a link to a few short video clips recorded at our Seder:

https://www.facebook.com/1050101024/videos/pcb.1146918002814709/2820088551628007?__cft__[0]=AZWCFWioUOsjSH_nQlHQwOxDt0NPM0nnQvi1MvCz5SkE-XMDlWp97YQ07D3eC9lEiq0_G0ahbsOghXGiXv4sIV5uWBdt1mm9SPwnHNzYos1lVPhQW2TlDxOPVvAnEYy8pxG3kfYGqo2tP-FgyfWgf5TG&__tn__=*bH-R

I should add that the text of the the traditional Haggadah was never fixed in one final form. Mainly because there was no authoritative rabbinic body that could determine whether changes needed to be made in the text. Instead, each local community developed its own text. A variety of traditional texts took on a standardised form by the end of the mediaeval era in Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern) communities.

T
he Karaites and the Samaritans developed their own Haggadot which they use to the present day.

I have collated comments from various sources in order to clarify the changes that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “During the era of the Enlightenment and later on when the European Jewish community evolved forming groups that reacted in different ways to modifications to the Haggadah.

Orthodox Judaism accepted certain fixed texts as authoritative and normative, and prohibited any changes to the text.

Modern Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism allowed for minor additions and deletions to the text, in accord with the same historical-halakhic parameters as occurred in previous generations. Rabbis within the Conservative Judaism, studying the liturgical history of the Haggadah and Siddur, conclude that there is a traditional dynamic of innovation, within a framework conserving the tradition. While innovations became less common in the last few centuries due to the introduction of the printing press and various social factors, Conservative Jews take pride in their community's resumption of the traditional trend toward liturgical creativity within a halakhic framework.

Reform Judaism holds that there are no normative texts, and allowed individuals to create their own Haggadot. Reform Jews take pride in their community's resumption of liturgical creativity outside a halakhic framework, although the significant differences they introduced make their texts unacceptable to Jews who want to experience  a Seder according to Jewish tradition”.

Although the Jewish printing community was quick to adopt the printing press as a means of producing texts, the general adoption rate of printed Haggadot was slow. By the end of the sixteenth century, only twenty-five editions had been printed. This number increased to thirty-seven during the seventeenth century, and 234 during the eighteenth century. 

A page from the Birds Head Haggadah circa 1300

It was not until the nineteenth century, when 1,269 separate editions were produced, that a significant shift toward printed Haggadot as opposed to manuscripts occurred. From 1900 to 1960 alone, over 1,100 Haggadot were printed. It is not uncommon, particularly in America, for Haggadot to be produced by corporate entities, such as coffee maker Maxwell House. The English-Hebrew Passover Haggadah introduced by the Maxwell House company as a marketing promotion in 1932 and printed continuously since that time is the best known and most popular commercial Haggadah among American Jews,

Currently considered a cultural icon it is used at Passover Seders in homes, schools, senior centres, prisons, and the United States Army.  It was the edition used by President Obama and his guests at the White House Passover Seder conducted yearly from 2009 to 2016. In 2011 a new English translation replaced archaic phrases in the original and also incorporated gender-neutral language.

Other commercial enterprises were quick to offer their services from complete catering at home, or the option of  going with your family to a hotel that provides everything, Glatt Kosher. All you do is pay the bill.

Alana Newhouse author of “The Passover Haggadah: An Ancient Story for Modern Times. Promotes her publications both the  paperback and kindle version in the  following convincing words: “Each generation is called to perform a Passover Seder, a ritual designed to help us imagine personally experiencing the exodus from Egypt. But how can we do this together, when today our tables include people of different backgrounds, knowledge, and beliefs? Let this Passover Haggadah be your guide.
Both proudly traditional and blazingly modern, it is a perfect blueprint for remembering the past, living in our present, and imagining the future. Here you’ll find the entirety of the Seder text for those who don’t want to miss a thing—including Hebrew, English, and a newly developed transliteration that makes the Hebrew surprisingly accessible. And, alongside, contemporary questions, illustrations, and meditations on freedom, community, destiny, and other topics that will engage the whole group in a lively and memorable discussion, especially once you’ve started in on those obligatory four cups of wine.”

For the people who prefer brevity “The 30minute-Seder... Passover Redefined” is one of several brief and to the point options available.

“Whether you purchase it as a book or an instant PDF download, 30minute-Seder® puts an end to the jumbled, chaos that occurs when skipping around a traditional Haggadah. No more, “What page are we on?” or “When do we eat already?”

Refreshingly brief and fun, yet reverent.

Rabbinically approved.
Written in modern gender-neutral English.
Hebrew prayers provided with transliteration.
Keeps the entire family engaged.

So, wake up that sleepy Seder and put the 30minute-Seder® Haggadah on your table this Passover.

You are probably wondering how my kibbutz chose to adopt a made-to-measure

Seder with its unique Haggadah.

We trace the origins of our Haggadah to Yehuda Sharrett, brother of Israel’s second prime minister Moshe Sharrett who composed the music and collated the texts of the earliest version of the Yagur Haggadah. In 1922 he joined Kibbutz Ein Harod and was active in many musical projects.

In 1926 he left the kibbutz with his wife and joined kibbutz Yagur.Three years later he went to Germany to study with the noted music educator Fritz Joede. When he returned to Yagur he began composing for the specific needs of the kibbutz, from simple children's songs to his crowning achievement – the Yagur Passover Seder finalised in 1951. Its basic text is the "Spring" and "Exodus" passages from the Song of Songs and the Book of Exodus, together with a considerable part of the traditional Haggadah.

Today many kibbutz Haggadot are based on the Yagur Haggadah.

 

 

Chag Sameach

 

Beni                                                                            21^st of April, 2022

 MENDING WALL

Last week I concluded my post wishing everyone Chag Pesach Sameach.

You probably wondered why I was ‘jumping the gun.’  Well, the truth is I didn’t think I would have time to write this week. Now, it transpires that I can manage to squeeze in another post, so here it is:

 

I have often quoted freely from Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” mostly to introduce something topical. The poem was included in his second collection of poetry, published in 1914. Since then, it has become one of the most anthologised and analysed poems in modern literature.

It tells a story drawn from rural New England. The narrator, a New England farmer, contacts his neighbour in the spring to rebuild the stone wall between their two farms. As the men work, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall:

“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.” 

He notes twice in the poem that "something there is that doesn’t love a wall", but his neighbour replies twice quoting a well-known adage, "Good fences make good neighbours"

The earliest known us of the adage appears in a letter written by an E. Rogers

in 1640: “A good fence helpeth to keepe peace between neighbours; but let us take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keepe us from meeting.’

By now you have probably guessed where I am heading.

Israel’s border fences and walls “give offense”. Admittedly our border demarcations with Egypt and Lebanon have evoked few objections among international watchkeepers.

However, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have definitely given offence.

Four years ago, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) quoted a 2012 UN report that predicted the Palestinian enclave would be “unliveable” by 2020 if nothing was done to ease the blockade. The NRC referred also to a June 2017 UN report on living conditions in Gaza stating that all the indicators are going in the wrong direction and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than earlier predicted.

Three years ago, Jalal Abukhater, a Palestinian who resides in Jerusalem wrote an opinion piece for Al Jazeera describing Palestine’s other open-air prison,

“Under a debilitating siege for more than a decade, Gaza has been rightfully declared the biggest open-air prison in the world. But there is another, similar, prison in Palestine that is less obvious because it suffers from a different kind of siege, undeclared and indirect: the West Bank. Every Palestinian who resides there and holds official Palestinian identification papers is a prisoner in their own home.

Freedom of movement is non-existent for the vast majority of the population because of a myriad of Israeli policies aimed at restricting it to the bare minimum. The situation is certainly shocking yet seems to be largely ignored by the world, especially by our Israeli neighbours.”

The well-intentioned members of NRC and like groups largely ignore why Israel is “walling in” Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

If our Palestinian neighbours were more like Norwegians or other Scandinavians there would be no need for security barriers. Yes, Israel walls them in because Palestinian terror groups are bent on killing Israelis.

Just two weeks ago, Diaa Hamarsheh a 26-year-old Palestinian from Ya'bad, near Jenin killed five people in a series of drive-by shootings in Bnei Brak.

He crossed into Israel from the West Bank through one of several gaps in the security barrier. For years now, Israeli security personnel have seemingly turned a blind eye to gaps in the barrier that are used daily by thousands of Palestinian workers to enter Israel illegally.

Palestinians working in Israel, even illegally, earn far more money than they would in the West Bank. Furthermore, they are a critical element in maintaining the often-flailing Palestinian economy.

A few days ago, Tovah Lazaroff reported in the Jerusalem Post about the renewal of work on a 40-kilometre stretch of the West Bank security barrier.

“Work was started on the 525-kilometre barrier in 2002 but was never completed. To date, some 470 kilometres have been built with open sections in Gush Etzion and the Hebron Hills area….”

“The new barrier will be comprised of concrete, protective equipment, and additional technological components. It will be up to 9 metres high and will replace the fence that was built about 20 years ago. ….”

“The bulk of the 525-kilometer barrier, designed to prevent terror attacks, has fallen into disrepair and has gaps along its route.

According to the Knesset Research and Information Centre the barrier is estimated to have cost approximately $2.8 billion.

For most of its route, the barrier consists of a chain-link fence equipped with surveillance cameras and other sensors, buffered by barbed wire and a 60-metre-wide exclusion area. In more urban areas — including around Jerusalem and Bethlehem — the barrier is not a fence but an eight- to nine-metre-high concrete wall.

The security barrier was first suggested in the 1990s by the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who saw it as a way to separate Israel from the Palestinians. But the project never materialised due to internal opposition.

It was only during the Second Intifada, as Israel fought waves of suicide bombings and other attacks emanating from the West Bank, that the idea was revived and kicked into high gear.

Many credit the barrier with helping end that uprising, which lasted from 2000 to 2005, though of its planned 708-kilometre route, only 62% has been completed as of 2022.

Israeli forces on Sunday conducted fresh raids in the district of Jenin, home to the terrorists that recently carried out two deadly attacks in Israel

Several Palestinians suspected of being involved in terrorist activities were arrested during the raids.

At this juncture I want add a margin note about Ya'bad where terrorist Diaa Hamarsheh lived.  

Jenin played an important role in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, prompted by the death of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam in a fire-fight with British colonial police at the nearby town of Ya'bad months prior to the start of the revolt. On 25 August 1938, the day after the British Assistant District Commissioner was assassinated in his Jenin office, a large British force with explosives entered the town. After ordering the inhabitants to leave, about one quarter of the town was blown up.

Izz ad-Dīn ibn Abd al-Qāder ibn Mustafa ibn Yūsuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassām was a Syrian Muslim preacher, and a leader in the local struggles against British and French Mandatory rule in the Levant, and a militant opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s.

Al-Qassam studied at Al-Azhar University in Egypt and afterward became an Islamic revivalist preacher in his hometown of Jableh in Syria during the last years of Ottoman rule. Following his return, he became an active supporter of the Libyan resistance to Italian rule, raising funds and fighters to aid the Libyans and penned an anthem for them. Later he led his own group of rebels to fight against French Mandatory forces in northern Syria in 1919–20.

Following the rebels' defeat, he moved to Palestine, where he became a Muslim waqf (religious endowments) official. An incorrigible ‘trouble-maker’ in the 1930s, he formed bands of local fighters and launched attacks against British and Jewish targets prior to his timely death in 1938. The military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is named after him.

Back to the main text. The author of an op-ed in The Times of Israel opined that once tensions calm, some experts believe Israel will revert to its alleged unspoken policy of leaving the security fence — and the gaps in it — largely unguarded, constituting a key valve for releasing economic pressure in the West Bank.

Maybe they are wrong. This week security forces began closing the gaps in the fence.

There are over a hundred gaps in the fence, mostly small, but some large enough to accommodate makeshift parking lots next to them on the Israeli side, where people ferry Palestinian workers to Israeli cities, often majority-Arab ones.

Surveillance technology has advanced considerably since the security barrier was first conceived. The gaps, even the ones in remote sections of the fence can be surveilled remotely.

I think a Reuters report surmised that some of the illegal workers making the crossing probably wondered if Israeli surveillance technology is sophisticated enough to monitor persons of interest from afar, or whether some of the Palestinian vendors, makeshift car park attendants and taxi drivers who serviced the breaches were informants for the Shin Bet internal security service.

 

Among the actions to be taken, is a complete cessation of pedestrian and vehicular passage into and out of Jenin through the two crossings in the Gilboa area including

the door-to-door transfer of goods to Israeli customers.

However, workers from Jenin will be allowed to commute to jobs in Israel, but they will be subject to rigorous inspections at the border crossings.

I vaguely recall the time when we went to the market (Suk) in nearby Jenin.

Later still, when our home was renovated all the floor and wall tiles were bought in Jenin.

Now I doubt if we will ever go back there.

I’ll conclude as I did last week wishing you a -

 

Chag Pesach Sameach

 

Beni,                                                                 14^th of April, 2022

 

 

OUT OF EGYPT

If you haven’t heard about it, you really don’t need to know. Suffice to say that we have another coalition government crisis! Our coalition government crises are “as tedious as a twice-told tale.”

Instead, I want to repeat a much-told tale that isn’t tedious.  Some of it I mentioned last year, but this time it’s a revised version.

Just before Pesach I wrote “I’m usually preoccupied arranging seating placements for our kibbutz Seder. Last year we were in lockdown and had to forego the communal Seder. This year we are out of lockdown, but still limited by participant numbers restrictions, so we are celebrating at home with small family Seders.

In the past I have raised the question of the Exodus narrative in the context of the Pesach festival.

This year I want to quote again from author Ian Shaw (“Israel and Israelites”) who claims there is an almost universal consensus among scholars that the Exodus story is best understood as myth; more specifically, it is a ‘charter’ (or foundation) myth, a story told to explain a society's origins and to provide the ideological foundation for its culture and institutions.

While a few scholars continue to discuss the potential historicity or plausibility of the Exodus story, for historians of ancient Israel it is no longer seen as viable and archaeologists have abandoned it as a fruitless pursuit.

There is no indication that the Israelites ever lived in Ancient Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula shows almost no sign of any occupation for the entire 2nd millennium BC

In contrast to the absence of evidence for the Egyptian captivity and wilderness wanderings, there are ample signs of Israel's evolution within Canaan from native Canaanite roots.

Professor Israel Finkelstein is one of the scholars quoted by Ian Shaw. Finkelstein and other scholars of the “minimalist” school are an accepted part of the academic landscape in Israel.

Israel Finkelstein is Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University. He is active in the archaeology of the Levant and an applicant of archaeological data in reconstructing biblical history.

Contrary to the biblical story that recounts the tale of the people of Israel leaving Egypt, the common view among mainstream archaeologists is precisely the opposite: the ancient Egyptians were the ones who ruled the land of Canaan, and they are the ones who left the Land of Israel to return to Egypt.

Explaining the background of the biblical Exodus story as revealed from archaeological excavations Professor Finkelstein says, "In the Late Bronze Age, from the 15th century to the 12th century BCE, Egypt dominated the Land of Israel. Of course, after 350 or 400 years of Egyptian rule in Israel, influences of Egyptian culture entered the Land of Israel in various areas of everyday life. Then two things happened that are related to that same issue: there was a complete collapse of urban centres and of kingdoms and empires in the ancient Middle East, and Egypt withdrew from Israel!"

I think it’s apt here to include the opinion of one of the ‘maximalists;

Dr. Scott Stripling, provost at The Bible Seminary in Katy (Houston) Texas, has been sifting the sands of Israel for over 20 years. Using the Bible as a guidebook he is now digging in Shiloh, which he surmises may be the true site of the Tabernacle. However, some of his fiercest critics are Israeli archaeologists who claim the Bible cannot be relied upon to tell historical truth.

Arthur Szyk's "The Exodus from Egypt" Paris 1924

Stripling serves as the archaeological director for the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR), a Christian organization that brings together Biblical research and archaeology to mutually advance both disciplines.

Stripling and his team began digging at Shiloh a few years ago.

“I can tell with 100 percent certainty that there were Israelites in Shiloh because of the many indicators we have,” Dr. Stripling said. “The pottery shows that they were there when the Bible says they were there.

Professor Israel Finkelstein who led the dig at Shiloh in the early 1980’s, disagrees with Stripling and does not concur that the Biblical description of the Tabernacle is historically accurate. Unlike Stripling, Finkelstein said that a lack of physical evidence is proof that the Jewish Tabernacle never stood at Shiloh.

“Biblical traditions should be read on the background of their time of composition, the ideology of the authors, etc. One cannot approach them in a simplistic manner,” The story of the Ark of the Covenant is fascinating; but it can teach us mainly about the world of the authors who lived centuries after the destruction of Iron [Age] I [which ended around 1,000 BCE]..”

Stripling is at odds with Finkelstein and many other Israeli archaeologists over the site, but more importantly, over a greater issue that touches on the entire discipline as it is practiced in Israel. Stripling uses the Bible as a historical guidebook.

“I use the Bible as a serious historical document to the same extent that I use any serious literary source,” Stripling explained. “It would be foolish not to. I have found numerous synchronisms between the archaeological data and the Biblical text. That does not hinder me from doing vigorous scientific research. If anything, it empowers me.”

Dr. Stripling addressed this very issue in his book,” The Trowel and the Truth”. He explained that the dispute is framed as minimalism versus maximalism.

“There is an accusation some make that if you happen to believe what you are reading in the Bible, it disqualifies you as a scientist,” Stripling said. “In Israel, most of the archaeologists are secular and atheists. They do not accept the Bible as a historical text. That puts me outside of the mainstream of archaeology but that’s precisely where I want to be.”

“Minimalists, like Finkelstein, say that you can’t trust the Bible,” Stripling said. “Maximalists, like me, maintain that the Bible is a historical document.”

This has indeed set him at odds with his peers in Israel.

“This is a hot topic in Israeli archaeology today and there’s not a day that goes by that someone isn’t angry at me,” Stripling said. “In the past, the minimalists were able to ignore maximalists. They can’t do that anymore because we are bringing in results.”

Stripling speculated that there could be several causes of this anti-Bible approach in the world of Israeli archaeology.

“It may be driven by the personal religious inclinations of the archaeologists,” he said. “It may also be driven by their personal political agenda since the historical narrative has implications in current politics.”

“It may also be that a lot of these archaeologists were trained under a secular paradigm that said that there is no relationship between the archaeological data and the Biblical text.  Some secularists, when they see the evidence, they are fair-minded and open.”

“I engage these people in the arena of ideas,” Stripling noted. “If my ideas, based on the Bible as a historical text, can’t stand up to scrutiny, then they are not very good ideas.”

 I want to conclude by repeating what I said last year:

"Incidentally, Israel Finkelstein sees no contradiction between holding a proper Pesach Seder and telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, and the fact that, in his opinion, the exodus never happened."

 

Chag Pesach Sameach

Beni                                                                            8th of April, 2022