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All Four (Are One) |
Today the Four Children are a Zionist, a Palestinian solidarity activist, a peacenik, and one who doesn’t know what to even dream. |
The Zionist, what does she say? Two thousand years we dreamed of return. “Next year in Jerusalem” is now, and hope is the beacon we steer by. |
The solidarity activist, what do they say? We know the heart of the stranger. To be oppressors is unbearable. Uplift the downtrodden. |
The peacenik, what does he say? We both love this land and neither is leaving. We’re in this together. Between the river and the sea two peoples must be free. |
And the one who doesn’t know what to even dream: feed that one sweet haroset, a reminder that building a just future has always been our call. |
All of us are wise. None of us is wicked. (Even the yetser ha-ra is holy—without it no art would be made,[1] The Talmud shares a parable that when the “evil impulse” was imprisoned, no eggs were laid – no generativity was possible (Yoma 69b). no future imagined.) |
We are one people, one family. Not only because history’s flames never asked[2] Find “Rabbi’s Corner – April 2024: Free, Together,” by Rabbi David Markus (Congregation Shir Ami, 1 April 2024). what kind of Jew one might be, but because the dream of collective liberation is our legacy. We need each other in this wilderness. Only together can we build redemption. |
“All Four (Are One)” was written by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat and first published on the website of Bayit: Building Jewish on 2 April 2024. Introducing the work, she writes, “Bayit’s Liturgical Arts Working Group is collaborating on a new offering for Pesaḥ 2024, which we hope to release on Monday April 8, just before Rosh Ḥodesh Nisan. As a foretaste of what’s coming, here’s one piece from that collection. Stay tuned for more new liturgy, poetry, and artwork coming soon.”
Source(s)
All Four (Are One) (credit: Rachel Barenblat, Bayit- Building Jewish, 2024, license: CC BY-SA)
Notes
| 1 | The Talmud shares a parable that when the “evil impulse” was imprisoned, no eggs were laid – no generativity was possible (Yoma 69b). |
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| 2 | Find “Rabbi’s Corner – April 2024: Free, Together,” by Rabbi David Markus (Congregation Shir Ami, 1 April 2024). |
“All Four (Are One), a prayer-poem for Passover by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat (Bayit, 2024)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.
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“Love is…” an image of papercut people arranged in a circle, holding hands as papercut people do. (credit: Chris Jones, license: CC BY-NC)
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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17
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