{"id":389,"date":"2012-04-08T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/passover-greetings.html"},"modified":"2012-04-08T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T16:01:00","slug":"passover-greetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/passover-greetings.html","title":{"rendered":"Passover Greetings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I hope everyone in the Jewish community is having a happy holiday.\u00a0 I celebrated two very nice humanistic seders with friends and at Congregation Beth Adam<\/a> using \u201cThe Liberated Haggadah<\/a>\u201d by my colleague, Rabbi Peter Schweitzer and \u201cThe Seder<\/a>\u201d from Beth Adam in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

Both books tell the story of the exodus using midrashic materials and underplaying the role of God in the narrative.\u00a0 In most haggadas, of course, it\u2019s Moses whose role is minimized<\/a>.\u00a0 The rabbis who wrote it preferred to feature God\u2019s role as the true redeemer of Israel.\u00a0 \u201cThe Liberated Haggadah\u201d explicitly addresses the reasoning behind minimizing God\u2019s role, noting that while most haggadas go in the other direction, we should be elevating the roles of the human heroes of the story.<\/p>\n

Even if there is a shred of historicity in the story \u2013 and there\u2019s not more than a shred \u2013 whatever occurred had nothing to do with any gods.\u00a0 In our time it\u2019s probably even more appropriate to downplay God\u2019s role.\u00a0 Too many people are still waiting around for him to make the world a better place and that\u2019s clearly not going to happen.<\/p>\n

No, the path to a better world and freedom for all can only be built by us.\u00a0 If it helps you to believe that \u201cGod\u201d inspires it, then go for it.\u00a0 But if you\u2019re waiting for him to get the work done, then you\u2019ll be waiting a looooong time.<\/p>\n

And speaking of freedom, my daughter has recently brought to my attention the fact that there are tens of millions of slaves<\/a> on this planet.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean people who are symbolically enslaved by hunger and poverty, which is definitely a kind of enslavement, too.\u00a0 I mean actual slaves, some exploited by debt, others in the sex trade and others simply held against their will.\u00a0 I know we have a lot of problems in the world, but it seems to me that eliminating slavery in the year 2012 could be a little higher on our agenda.<\/p>\n

Maybe a plague or two would help the situation, but I wouldn\u2019t count on it.<\/p>\n

Chag Sameach! \u00a0Happy Passover!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hope everyone in the Jewish community is having a happy holiday.\u00a0 I celebrated two very nice humanistic seders with friends and at Congregation Beth Adam using \u201cThe Liberated Haggadah\u201d by my colleague, Rabbi Peter Schweitzer and \u201cThe Seder\u201d from Beth Adam in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,32,39],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-holidays","tag-passover","tag-secular-humanistic-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\nPassover Greetings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I hope everyone in the Jewish community is having a happy holiday.\u00a0 I celebrated two very nice humanistic seders with friends and at Congregation Beth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/passover-greetings.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Passover Greetings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I hope everyone in the Jewish community is having a happy holiday.\u00a0 I celebrated two very nice humanistic seders with friends and at Congregation Beth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2012\/04\/passover-greetings.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-08T16:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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