Rabbi Arthur Waskow

IS CHAROSET SWEET?

The answer depends on what life-situation we mean by "slavery,"

For example, I have known students at one college or another who start out feeling cramped and oppressed by some aspect of the way they're treated, and then over several years fall into the patterns and are shocked and upset if anyone starts making waves. What if there's a hullabaloo and they can't get student loans? What if ----

So I think the teaching of Torah, that many of the slaves blamed Moshe when Pharaoh said "Bricks without straw!" -- and many muttered in the wilderness -- etc etc -- is accurate. Even in the slavery imposed on Africans in America, one of the worst forms of slavery in all of history, some slaves found relatively "cushy" posts -- there is a reason some Black radicals have attacked "house niggers" -- and didn't want anyone to make trouble.

May the Seder help shake us free from all the forms of slavery that we have learned to savor.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center