INTRODUCTION TO THE SANTA CRUZ HAGGADAH
by Karen G. R. Roekard
January 27th, 1992
PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL BELIEFS - FOUNDATION S OF THIS HAGGADAH
In my Orthodox Jewish childhood, the Haggadahs that we used at our Passover Seders followed the prescribed text: my father did most of the reading thus following traditional practice. Once I had grasped the basic story line, it became boring. Through the years, the addition of Midrashim, of interpretations and legends, gave Passover Seders additional meaning. And yet I noticed that my connection to the Seder and to the concept of slavery was mainly through my mind and through my mouth.
Over the past 20 years, with the addition of the liberation and the feminist haggadahs, a new and very exciting dimension was added. I could relate to the feminist struggle; I could relate to the anguish of Jews unable to practice their religion and to other countries wherein there was no political freedom. I noticed that in addition to my intellectual connection to the concept of Passover and the Passover Seder, I was also connected through my guts -- the space of my power, or powerlessness, whichever the case was at that point in time.
Then almost five years ago, a new dimension came through for me. Somehow, when I went to write the first version of this Haggadah, what came through was the desire to connect to Passover and to the Seder in a way that was more congruent with the way that I was seeking to connect with all facets of my life, namely from a place of heart and soul, from a growing awareness of the ways in which I 'enslave' myself, from the perspective of an evolving consciousness.
What does the concept of an evolving consciousness mean? Many things, many facets; different things to different people. For me it started with a realization and an acknowledgment that the reality that has the greatest validity and the one which I had the most trouble facing, was the reality of my personal psycho-spiritual 'right now.' I had grown accustomed to being bombarded with other perspectives of 'right now' - political 'right now,' work/corporate 'right now,' sports 'right now.' I realized that if I died at that moment in my history, the most logical thing they could put on my tombstone would have been, 'she had a great career.' Somehow, that just didn't feel quite right.
The second facet in the evolution to my current consciousness was the awakening desire to connect with Truth, with what really was the reality of my life situation in the psycho-spiritual 'right now.' The most significant truth, I realized, was the requirement that I needed to own some measure of responsibility for both the aspects of my life that wee working and the aspects of my life that were not working.
This was very hard to do. "You did ...it's all your/his/her fault," are very potent statements as is 'if only... would change/were different." I believe that it is these statements and belief systems that enslaved me and enslave us, that allow distances to be built within and between us. What I was learning, was that I have to be willing to look at my role in the life that I have created. I learned that I have to be open and accepting of all parts of myself; that only when I accept myself, am I able to see and accept other people.
I started to work at acknowledging the truth of my 'right now'; I started to own responsibility for my part in my current reality. I then found that when I took the time to quiet my mind and go inside my being and ask questions - maybe asking for help, or for guidance, or for understanding - then more often than not, I would hear an answer that was deeper and wiser than I could possibly have expected from within my usual brain functioning.
What I came to, probably pretty late in life, was that I was connecting to a source of wisdom that seemed far greater than myself, far deeper in its sense of understanding, far wiser in its response to my questions. I realized that this was the connection people spoke of when they spoke of connecting in to one's 'higher power,' to God, to Universal Consciousness, to the ONE.
For the wandering and somewhat lost Jew that I was, the words of the most profound Jewish prayer came to me and I was able to understand the concept of 'The One,' in a different way. The prayer, the Shm'a goes: "Shm'a Yisroel, HASHEM Eloheynu, HASHEM Echod -- Hear Israel, the NAME is our God, the NAME is ONE." For me the concept of The One, could comfortably take me back to my Jewish roots and be referred to as HASHEM.
And when I went to rewrite the Haggadah after having had this realization, I was struck by the words, 'In every generation it is your duty to look upon yourself as if you had gone forth from Egypt!!" The Hebrew name for the ancient Eghypt was Mitzrayim; the word Mitzrayim comes from a root word with a meaning, "the narrow place." I interpreted this to mean that in this generation, in my generation, from within my evolving consciousness, it is my gift to be able to understand Mitzrayim and the sensibility of slavery by looking into the 'right now' of my life and seeing, feeling, and knowing the ways in which I enslave myself, the ways in which I keep myself in narrow places.
I realized that if I want to fulfill this Passover obligation of each generation looking at itself as if it had come out of slavery, then I could most effectively do this by looking into the ways in which I hold myself back from being the best me I can be. Then I can at least visualize what it would mean to come out from this narrow place of holding myself back.
I started to utilize the concept of 'chometz,' of the leavened bread which we are not allowed to 'eat' during the days of Passover, as a symbol of those actions I take which do harm to my being, as those belief systems I have that hold me back, as those thoughts which put me down. Thus, to obey this commandment which disallows chometz for the duration of Passover, I decided to work to identify my 'chometz' each year and then to do my best to notice when I am 'eating' it. Success at this endeavor, in even some small way, has allowed the very significant psycho-spiritual healing modality of 'pattern disruption' to come into play for me.
Pattern disruption, making even the smallest change in any of my patterns of behavior or thoughts or beliefs, has consistently brought about a domino effect of change thoughout my life. I learned that once I was willing to own my part in the actuality of my life, pattern disruption kept happening as quickly or as slowly as I allowed. It would happen through uncontrollable external events that would shake me. And when they happened, if I behaved from a 'conscious' place, a place wherein I would choose to see the event with the eyes of 'I' and own responsibility, rather than through eyes that saw 'You....' and ascribed blame, I knew I was supporting the evolution of my consciousness.
Pattern disruptions also kept happening through actions I chose to take -- like getting in touch with what I really want and asking for it; doing what I could do to make it happen and then surrendering, letting go and just trusting that what would be would be and that there was nothing more that I could do. Disrupting my patterns and seeing what emerged was what became important.
Disrupting my patterns and still owning myself. Disrupting my patterns and owning my intelligence. Disrupting my patterns and still owning my power. Disrupting my patterns and still owning my heart. Disrupting my patterns and still owning all parts of my being, even the parts I don't like. Taking the time to see, hear and feel my Truth and then looking for interconnection among the parts.
Asking my mind: "Mind, what truth do you think?" Listening to the answer and asking again.
"Guts, what truth do you know?" and listening.
"Heart, what truth do you feel?" and feeling the words of my heart.
"Genitals, what truth do you know here?" and seeing what comes.
"Soul, Higher Power what is real?" and letting the energy of an integrated answer come through.
Thus, it was with overwhelming joy that I found within Judaism, the religion into which I had been born, a yearly ritual that prescribes it as our duty in each generation to find a way to put ourselves into a place of understanding of what it felt like to be enslaved in Mitzrayim, the ancient Egypt, and then to be freed; to know and to feel slavery. I find it wonderful that I am required to spend eight days wherein I am not allowed to eat 'chometz,' that which I have interpreted to be the patterns I manifest that hold me back, that keep me down. And then it feeds my soul to feel the support of a higher power, of the ONE, of HASHEM as HASHEM comes through me.
So how does this all fit into this Haggadah? It is what this Haggadah is all about. It is about disrupting our patterns so that we can:
(a) connect with our Mitzrayim and our Chometz -- the ways in which we hold ourselves back from being the best version of ourselves that we can be;
(b) open our eyes and our hearts and see the truth of our present reality, our 'right now' and own our part in it, rather than ascribe blame;
(c) utilize our truth to acknowledge our needs and then ask for whatever it is that we need and want -- the ways we would like our reality to become, the parts of our beings we want to have re integrated, our consciousness' to shift;
(d) take the actions that need to be taken to ensure that we have also done our 'active' part in creating our reality -- "God helps those who help themselves"; and finally,
(e) enter into the state of grace, the place of trust and let go, of hoping that the 'ruach ha Kodesh,' the breath of Holy, will flow over, around and through us, knowing that what will be, will be, and that we cannot push the river.
I invite you to join me in this endeavor.
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