From Darkness to Light

"Long ago, at this season, on such a night as this, a people - our people - set out on a journey. All but crushed by their enslavement, they yet recalled the far-off memory of a happier past, and heard the voice of their ancestral G-d, bidding them summon up the courage to be free. Boldly, they went forth from Egypt, crossed the Sea, and headed through the desert for the Promised Land. What they experienced, they remembered, and told their children, and they to theirs. From generation to generation, the story was retold, and we are here to tell it yet again. We too give thanks for Israel's liberation; we too remember what it means to be a slave. And so we pray for all who are still fettered, still denied their human rights. Let all G-d's children sit at His table, drink the wine of deliverance, eat the bread of freedom:
freedom from bondage
and freedom from oppression,
freedom from hunger
and freedom from want,
freedom from hatred
and freedom from fear,
freedom to think
and freedom to speak,
freedom to learn
and freedom to love,
freedom to hope
and freedom to rejoice;
soon, in our days.
Amen.

(written by Rabbi John Rayner, in Passover Haggadah, published by the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, London, 1981)

Abigail Sarah Bagraim, Email info@abigailsarah.co.za

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