The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #196, Crystal Haggadah, 7

In this episode we get a glimpse of seders otherwise lost beneath the rubble of history.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
A Pesakh Montage, The Crystal Haggadah
Midrashbase 1

Israelite Pesakh Midrashim, ~140 BCE

By the invincible armor of Torah Law, and with might and courage, and a sharpened sword, this holy people defends itself from foreign rulers and false gods.

Nay, by open minds and open arms this holy people ascends the scales. The true God and Hem righteous folk welcomes the stranger into their midst. But the sword’s might deafens the soul and inflexible law will choke the mind.

First Greek games and Greek baths. Then Greek dramas and Greek gods. Then a world without a holy path, driven by lust, power, and greed. One people, one Law, one Way, one God. All would be corrupted by the Assyrian Greeks.

Many peoples, many ways, to find the many faces of God. And in many ways our own Kohanim are made impure by greed, power, and lust. Let us improve our holy path by learning from Greek philosophy, Greek law, Greek government.

Who is wiser than Solomon?

Is not Socrates equal to him?

What history exceeds the Book of Kings for true exemplars of moral choice?

Is not Thucydides equal to Kings for moral assessments of history?

Is not our Temple’s sacrifices performed by the ancient priesthood of God the purest means for serving the Lor?

Is not quiet contemplation and prayer, as the Greek mystics demonstrate, a better means for serving the Lor?

Such the voices of conflicting truth heard on Hasmonean streets, and redounding across Judean hills.

Karaite Pesakh Midrashim, Baghdad, ~1000 CE

Baghdad, center of the world, city of caliphs, thieves, and slaves; streets of gold and alleys of guile, treacherous trade, treacherous fates.* Axis; the world turns around it.
* others say: faiths

And out of this axis of the world there grows a marvelous tree fed by the springs of Aden from which the Tigris flows. There on its banks our Karaim Tree shoots forth trunk and root, branch and blossom, fruit and seed. And now its branches pierce the clouds and beckon angels to perch on them. Source of shade, rest, relief for Jerusalem’s suffering souls, and even unto Fustat’s walls. Taste its fruit, sweet as dates, rich and silky as purest cream. And those who are moral, kind, devout, their ears are opened to the prophetic call, the voices of Moshe, David, Zadok. Even those who oppress us now, will yet come under the shelter of our Tree.

Alas, this is all they revealed to me. {note by me, Saadia, the Eternal Jew}

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In the next episode we will sit at Rashi’s table as he magisterially orchestrates a series of dream revelations from the other brilliant rabbis gathered at his seder.