I incorporated aspects of a Sho'a commemoration into the Pesach Haggadah. Some ideas I inherited, others I initiated. The Haggadah included these materials during the years 1988 through 1996. The current text

at Maror began appearing in 1996.

During the Matzah section of the Haggadah

(before reciting the blessing for Matzah)

We have experienced different kinds of slavery at different periods of our history. The Jewish prisoners in the German concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen did not have Matzah for their observance of Passover in 1944. They barely had food. Under the circumstances, the sages at the camp permitted the eating of leavened bread that Passover. They composed this benediction:

(because it is their blessing and not ours, we say "Father.")

Our Father in heaven, behold it is evident and know to You that we desire to do Your will and celebrate the Festival of Passover by eating Matzah, observing he prohibition of leavened food. But our heart is pained that the enslavement prevents us and we are in danger of our lives. Behold, we are prepared and ready to fulfill Your commandment: "And you shall live by them and not die by them." We pray to You that You may keep us alive and preserve us and redeem us speedily so that we may observe Your statues and do Your will and serve You with a perfect heart. Amen.

During the Maror section of the Haggadah

(before reciting the blessing for Maror)

Our rabbis teach that each generation should experience the Exodus anew.

Torah speaks of our covenant using the following words: "I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone,but with those who are standing here with us this day before Adonai our God and with those who are not here with us this day."

And so, we also stood crammed into cattle cars, and held each other as we were squeezed into showers of Zyklon B. Each one of us was a child thrown alive into the oven to save the one-half cent the gassing would have cost. I saw my eyelids singe and heard my hair crackle before I felt myself rise as ashes through O those chimneys to fertilize Europe's soil.

Our presence here tonight tells the world that what has been done, can -- but must never -- occur again. We don't eat moldy bread and drink weak potato soup tonight, but from within the ovens we proclaim to the world the infinite value of each unique human expression of the Whole.

The "ethnic cleansing" frightens us. People forget so quickly. While the scale cannot compare, the intent is the same. We raise our voices in condemnation, yet we seem unable to halt the slaughter.

Our people has known despots throughout its long history. But we, in supposedly civilized times, have lived through the most terrible attempt to annihilate our people. From the experience of the Sho'a we learn to be ever vigilant to enemies of our people, to resist and to overcome them before they can bring harm.

It is a bitter memory. Yet we remember with reverence and love the six millions of our people who perished at the hands of a tyrant more wicked than the Pharaoh who enslaved our ancestors in Egypt. Slavery was not enough for him. He wanted to cut us off from being a people, that the name "Israel" would no more be remembered. So they slew the blameless and the pure -- men and women and little ones -- with vapors of poison and burned them with fire.

The remnants of our people in the ghettos and death camps rose up against the wicked ones and slew many of them before they themselves died. In those days, at this time, the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against the adversary. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they brought redemption to the name of Israel through all the world.

©Mark Hurvitz

Last modified May 5, 1997