The Story Behind The Haggadah
This haggadah grew out of my desire for a seder text that cherishes the tradition and also augments that tradition with contemporary poetry, moments of mindfulness, and a theology of liberation. It evolved out of a haggadah I created for home use, which in turn evolved out of the Williams College Feminist Seder project of which I was a part in the early 1990s. I’ve been sharing the haggadah on my blog and on the web for a long time. It’s been used all over the world, from Massachusetts to California, London to Australia, Alaska to Niger. I’m gladdened and gratified that so many people resonate with it.
The latest version is version 8.2. Here’s the latest edition of the PDF:
As of March 2021: Here’s a slide deck of the haggadah — this link will enable you to make a copy before editing.
FYI: Bayit’s pre-seder materials (included in this deck) are intended to flow directly into karpas. The slide deck also includes the “old” karpas slides that were already in the haggadah. So you’ll likely want to delete a few slides as you figure out which of the karpas slides you want to keep. (You may of course also want to add your own slides reflecting things you love that aren’t in my deck.)
Media Mentions:
How to Host a Seder when everyone is talking past each other and disagrees about the war, Jay Michaelson, The Forward, 2024. “My favorite overall Haggadah supplement has a similar name: “This Broken Matza,” compiled by the Bayit’s Liturgical Arts Working Group led by “Velveteen Rabbi” Rachel Barenblat. Rachel had a bit of a head start here; not only have I been a friend and fan of hers for two decades, but her ever-evolving Velveteen Haggadah has been the basis for my family’s Seder for years now – and her astonishingly moving prayer written on Oct. 7 was one of the first glimpses of solace I had in that dark time.”
Which Haggadah is Right for You?, Andrew Field, The Jewish News, 2020. “Barenblat’s Haggadah… is reverent toward tradition without being afraid to augment it with poetry, mindfulness and discussions about oppression. For the devout, the feminists and/or the mystics.”
A Powerfully Relevant Haggadah to Download, Sue Tomchin, Jewish Women International, 2017. “[W]e want to introduce you to a valuable resource, especially if you want to add punch and poetry to your Seder…The VR Haggadah contains the essential Seder elements, but isn’t rooted in any one branch of Judaism. And one doesn’t have to be affiliated to find it meaningful. Though not a feminist Haggadah as such, women will find themselves reflected in the text through poetry and readings by Barenblat and others.”
A Place at the Table: The New American Haggadah, Erica Meitner, The LA Review of Books, 2013. “Our Jewish community is a motley crew of Israeli expats and refugees from Jewish hometowns married to non-Jews, all of us employed by the large state university in town: physicists, economists, liberal arts professors, administrators, business school faculty, and school teachers. // The one thing all of my Seders have in common since I’ve left New York is the ubiquitous photocopied Haggadah, the manual for the Passover Seder. Because I’m a poet and English professor moonlighting part-time as a doctoral student in religious studies, I’m usually in charge of the Haggadah. For the past two years we’ve been using a hacked-up-and-amended version of the free-to-download The Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach, assembled by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat. Her politics resemble those of most of the liberal egalitarian academic Jews at our Seder, so it’s an easy fit.”
Praise for the VR Haggadah:
I just went through your hagddah and as always – most impressed by your inspiring, clear, funny, deep and accessible teachings. — Amichai Lau-Lavie, Lab/Shul
There are so many stunning poems in @velveteenrabbi‘s latest Pesach Haggadah I don’t know what to do with myself. – Rachel Rose Reid
It’s an amazing Haggadah – honoring the ancients while reaching deep into the heart of the present moment with a resonant vision for the future – I feel blessed to be gifted this incredible resource! — Zelig Golden, Wilderness Torah
I wanted to thank you for creating your Haggadah. Someone in my office brought it to my attention. I lead a small seder for my very elderly parents and immediate family, and also lead a large seder for my father’s extended family — there were 38 this year, including 8 little children… When I read yours I loved it and decided to modify it to include some of our own traditions. I used it at both seders this year — kept your cover page and your last page so there was complete crediting! — and it went over really very well. In particular, the way you handle Israel and “next year in Jerusalem” is great… So I just wanted to let you know that your work impacted a lot of people in a very positive way and I’m grateful that I found it and to you for creating it. — Ed Case, InterfaithFamily.com
For the second seder this year, I knew that I was going to have a diverse group of guests and was looking for a haggadah that would help make it traditional enough for everyone to experience a ritual that would be recognizable to Jews anywhere, but accessible enough for everyone to connect without difficulty. With your help, it was an amazing experience for all – 6 Jews (secular to Orthodox, Ashkenazi and Sefardi, American and Finnish), 3 Tibetan Buddhists, 1 French Catholic, and 1 German Presbyterian. If that were not enough, dayenu, one of the non-Jewish guests was so moved by the seder that she brought two passages from your haggadah to the board meeting at the foundation where she works the following day and used them to open their grantmaking agenda. I heard about this from the foundation’s founder and executive director when I went there for an interfaith meeting of religious feminists a couple of days later. They were also deeply moved and are now on my guest list for next year. — Becky, The Pareve Baker
Velveteen Rabbi 