The Shocking Creativity of the Kibbutz Haggadah
Many have reinterpreted the haggadah. The kibbutz remade it in its own image.
Three notes before I begin today.
First—if you’re reading this and you’re not yet subscribed, please consider doing that right now. I make the decision to publish researched pieces like this here because your sustained engagement matters more to me than the one-off exposure (and direct compensation) that I might get in some other publication. It really helps tremendously.
Second, I don’t know how to write this post without talking about the war. Some people are going to read this as being inherently political, and while I don’t think it is I do understand the take. If you’ve read my work, you’ll know that my interest is in the long Jewish future, which cannot be developed if we spend all our energy policing the boundaries of acceptable discourse. If you’ve never read me before—just know that if use this post alone to intuit my politics, you’ll probably get it wrong.
Lastly—this is a long post! If it doesn’t fit in your inbox just go to the website and read it there. (You’re going to want to read to the end.)
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If you’re a regular reader, you know that I obsess over the fleeting moment in history when Jews feel pulled to innovate. Those moments often happen in the wake of great trauma. But they also happen when people are building something new.
The haggadah has always been Judaism’s easiest opportunity for book innovation (it’s short, it’s well-known, and there’s high demand for new editions), but during the early kibbutz movement the level of innovation launched into the stratosphere. I want to tell you about how the kibbutz movement broke down and remade the haggadah, over and over again, over the course of decades.
Why the kibbutz?
Imagine you’re a secular communist commune in the 1940s or 1950s. You like the idea of Passover—it’s an agricultural holiday and you’re an agriculturalist—but it’s a little too religious for you and a little too antiquated. You want your Passover seder to speak to all the things you care about: the harvest, the country you’re building, collectivism—and the mounting realization of the terrible tragedy that has taken place in Europe.
This is precisely what many kibbutzim did, in the process creating dozens of variations on the Passover seder designed to fit the ideological convictions of particular communes. The hundreds of haggadot they created—over 500 editions between 1930 and 1960—are probably too far from the standard text to use at your seder table, but they convey an understanding of the day that I find deeply moving.
This isn’t a comprehensive study of the kibbutz haggadot, but I want to give you a glimpse at what it’s like to page through them. (If you want to dive deeper, the University of Toronto maintains a gigantic digital collection.)
Grassroots innovation
The first thing to understand is that these haggadot are not professional productions. While the artwork is sometimes good, the overall impression is of a series of communities using the tools at hand. The covers speak for themselves.
Beyond the front page it’s anyone’s guess what you’ll find. Many editions lean into the theme of harvest and begin not with a blessing on wine but a series of readings about springtime and the fields. In the communal dining hall—which we’ll talk about in a second—these readings might take place while children enter the room, each carrying sheaves of wheat. (Kibbutz Ein Harod still does this! Here’s a video from a couple of years ago.)
The Four Questions
Once everyone sits down we quickly arrive at The Four Questions, in which the youngest participant ritually points out that the seder is weird. (Why are we eating matzah and maror? Why do we eat while reclining?) The kibbutz haggadot love to change these questions, transforming them along ideological lines to be both more Zionist and more communist. Among my favorites:
“Why, on other nights, do parents and children eat separately, while tonight we all eat together?” (Kibbutz Ga’ash, 1960. This question shows up in many haggadot. Like many earlier kibbutzim, Gaash practiced communal child rearing, with children living and eating separately from their parents. The seder was the one exception to this rule.)
“Why, on this night, do we recount the Exodus while the Children of Israel are crying out from the Diaspora?” (This was published in 1944.)
“Why throughout the world are there rich and poor, while in our collective all are equal?” (Location and date unknown.)
“On all other nights we tell other stories, but tonight we tell one story.” (Kfar Szold, 1950)
The holy dining hall
One of the things that is most moving about these haggadot is their clear conviction that nothing is more sacred than packing into a kibbutz’s dining hall to celebrate together. Over and over again, kibbutz haggadot depict the dining hall with a reverence that I associate with the Temple.
This one juxtaposes the hall with the passage declaring “all who are hungry, come and eat!”
Another edition places a very similar illustration under the ritual intention “I am ready and prepared to observe the obligation to recount the story of the Exodus together with all of Israel:”
This one has Moses leading the Jews directly into the dining hall:
And this last one just shows the hall lit up from within under a starry night sky:
A New Liturgy
It’s hard to convey from just snapshots how topsy-turvy these books are. Each haggadah omits, remixes, and reorganizes, and very frequently quotations or entirely new texts are added. This is what it looks like when a movement is feeling its way towards a new liturgy!
One of the texts that caught my eye is a 1929 riff on a traditional part of the liturgy that turns the Labor Zionist and environmentalist A.D. Gordon into a Talmudic rabbi:
Our teacher Aharon David Gordon said, “I am almost 48 years ago and only now merited to live through labor and nature.” (Gordon moved to Palestine when he was 48). He also said, “The world stands on three things: labor, labor, and labor.” His students came to him and said, “Labor alone is not enough unless it comes with a life of mutual support, equality, and the fostering of friendship and brotherhood for all.”
These additions are sometimes more complicated. One contains this obscure midrashic passage. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
At the time when the Holy Blessed One wished to drown Egypt in the sea, Uzza, the ministering angel of Egypt, stood and prostrated himself before the Holy Blessed One and said, "Master of the Universe, You created Your world with the attribute of mercy. Why do You wish to drown my children?" Immediately, the Holy Blessed One convened the entire heavenly host and said to them, "Let us judge between Me and Uzza, the ministering angel of Egypt." The ministering angels of other nations began to argue in defense of Egypt. When Michael saw this, he signaled to Gabriel who flew to Egypt in one swift flight and brought back a brick along with mud and a baby embedded in it, and came and stood before the Holy Blessed One and said, "Master of the Universe, this is how they enslaved Your children!" Immediately, the Holy Blessed One sat in judgement of them with the attribute of justice and drowned them in the sea. At that moment, the ministering angels wanted to sing songs before the Holy Blessed One, but God said to them, “The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you wish to sing songs before Me?"
Celebrating freedom in the shadow of the Holocaust
Collective trauma needs an outlet. The Holocaust loomed large in the psyche of early Israelis, and until Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) was established in 1959 it was Passover that bore that burden. This means that many haggadot are simultaneously celebrating the harvest and their freedom and mourning an inconceivable loss that is about to happen, has already happened, or is currently happening.
The results are haunting. In this edition from 1950, the passage where Jews ask God to pour wrath upon the nations of the world—written after the Crusades—is juxtaposed with a crematorium and its cloud of smoke.
This 1948 edition from Kibbutz presents a kind of yizkor (memorial) service for both Holocaust victims and Jewish soldiers fighting for independence.
Several haggadot, including a 1939 edition, quote the Russian-born writer Yosef Haim Brenner’s prediction from 1905 about a dark day ahead. (Brenner himself was killed in the Jaffa riots; this edition is from the kibbutz named in his memory.)
Today—a day like no other in its evil, since we went into exile, a day of unending fears and uncertainty concerning the existence of the remaining remnant, a day that is wholly like a long sacrifice.
Today—a day in which we see clearly the degeneration of Abraham our father’s progeny in all the ghettoes where they were thrust, the disintegration of the nation, the emptying of essence and the lurking black death upon it, all the depth of torment of a giant writhing.
Today—a day when humanity is sold to Molech, delicate souls rot in enslavement and chains, humility, crudeness, and malice pour their governance on all “and the Divine Presence will be subdued in a cloud, her head bound in pain and disgrace she spreads and is ashamed.”
Today—I come to you, a crushed compatriot.
Chad Gadya, communist edition
Finally, we arrive at the end of the haggadah. Most seders end with Chad Gadya, the silly drinking song about the goat who gets eaten by a cat, which is bit by a dog, which is hit by a stick, etc. etc. until ultimately both the Angel of Death and God need to get involved.
This song offended kibbutz sensibilities not only for its (literally!) dog-eat-dog ideology, but because it was in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The result? Some kibbutzim changed both, modifying not just the language of the song but its underlying message.
On a high mount, on top of the hill / A fluting-playing shepherd there played / A new anthem for Israel / The shepherd had only a cloth tent / And but a kid, a single kid. / Chad gadya.
A jumping cat came, and mewed: / "Make space for me, as well, on the hill! / Meow! I don’t want to sit idle." / The two answered with a single mouth: / “Of course, beautiful cat!" / Chad gadya.
A barking dog came, asking: / “Is there space for me on the hill? / I shall surely stand watch day and night." / They answered in song with a single mouth: / “Lend a hand, friend, give us a hand!" / Chad gadya.
And who has come? A sprouting stick! / “I, too, have a portion on the hill; / I will sprout fruit, I will grow shade." / They answered in song with a single mouth: / “Fruit and shade, how wonderful!" / Chad gadya.
Fire came out of the darkness. / “Let there be light (yehi or) and heat throughout the hill; / To roast and grill and cook." / They answered in song with a single mouth: / “Both light and heat, what luck!" / Chad gadya.
A clear stream ran by and murmured: / “I pledge myself to the hill / Let there be a farm to praise." / They answered in song with a single mouth: / “How good that a stream has run by!" / Chad gadya.
Then came an ox, moving slowly: / “I will plow the whole hill! / Is there any worker like me?" / They all answered: “Hooray, hooray! / If we have bread we need not fear!" / Chad gadya.
How can you not love this? (The Hebrew can be found here, by the way.) In the hands of the kibbutz movement, chad gadya became a song about combining unique skillsets towards the common good. And it’s not just a dumb drinking song—now it actually means something. Notice, as well, that the song ends without mention of the Angel of Death (who isn't welcome at the kibbutz) or God (who maybe doesn’t exist).
Look, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface here, but I hope this gives you some taste of what these haggadot are doing and whets your appetite for more. Whether or not you’re a communist Zionist, the creative energy so apparent in these pages gives an inkling of what can happen when people build together for a better future. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.
Thanks for reading. If you want more from me for your seder, here’s what I have:
A very dark riff on The Four Sons. It’s one of the best things I’ve written, but you might end up crying so be forewarned. I know that some people read this at their seder table, which is both flattering and completely mind boggling to me.
Last year I published a kids book about Passover called I Love Bread. Anecdotally, kids adore it. If you have kids I 100% guarantee that they will, too.
The Forward perennially loves my piece about Passover fruit jelly slices. I’m slightly ashamed of it but it’s still fun.
If you want to read about artificial intelligence and matzah, revisit last year’s piece in JTA.
This is phenomenal. I love how incredibly chalutzy they are.
Love this, thanks for sharing.