For the past 20 years poet and novelist Marge Piercy has led a seder for a core group of family and friends at her small Cape Cod home. Using a Haggadah she has compiled over the years and recognizing that Judaism is ever-changing, Piercy strives to draw out contemporary meanings and interpretations for the participants— adults and children with varied religious and secular backgrounds.
Piercy goes through the Haggadah step-by-step, providing much historic, personal, and anecdotal information to enrich the meaning of the Pesach symbols. Her own poems and original blessings also broaden the message by drawing contemporary parallels to the traditional themes of freedom, redemption, slavery, subjugation of the weak. Among the more striking is Piercy’s preamble to Dayenu, “It will not be enough,” a reminder that the world does not end at our threshold, and her expansion of “Pour Out Your Wrath,” in which the names of concentration camps are recited. A seder is also a festive meal, and Piercy shares a wealth of seder and Pesach dishes, from both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as well as original recipes.
Personal, thoughtful, stimulating, and as work-free as possible, Piercy invites you not to her seder but to your own, inspired by her example. The only requirement is that you finish the evening with “a sense of renewal and re-dedication.” Bibliography, index of poem titles, recipes.
Maron L. Waxman, retired editorial director, special projects, at the American Museum of Natural History, was also an editorial director at HarperCollins and Book-of-the-Month Club.