Recognizing Abused Women

Reader:

To remind us that until all of us are free, none of us are truly free. Battered women and their children live under a domestic reign of terror, and can only dream of the promised land of freedom. Even for those who dare to flee, with pharaoh right behind them, the desert is wide and dangerous.

All:

Let us recite together these plagues that women and children have experienced:

Disbelief
Shame
Incest
Humiliation
Stalking
Nightmares
Threats
Rape
Isolation
Beatings

All:

We say tonight to battered women: We hear you, we believe you, and we will walk beside you through the desert. Together we can make the road less desolate so that those bound by domestic abuse will come to know the taste of liberation, the meaning of redemption, and the experience of shalom.

From Dancing in Miriam’s Footsteps: Women’s SederLit. Order. The festive meal conducted on Passover night, in a specific order with specific rituals to symbolize aspects of the Exodus from Egypt. It is conducted following the haggadah, a book for this purpose. Additionally, there an ancient tradition to have a seder on Rosh Hashanah, which has been practiced in particular by Sephardi communities. This seder involves the blessing and eating of simanim, or symbolic foods. The mystics of Sefat also created a seder for Tu B'shvat, the new year of the trees., Broward County, Florida, 2000. Used with permission.