Family’s book tells story of Passover

“Our Family Haggadah” is available at Judaica Corner, 2185 Briarcliff Road N.E., Atlanta; Barnes & Noble, 2900 Peachtree Road N.W., Atlanta; and the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, 1440 Spring St. N.W., Atlanta.

ABOUT THE COLUMNIST

Gracie Bonds Staples is an award-winning journalist who has been writing for daily newspapers since 1979, when she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi. She joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2000 after stints at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Sacramento Bee, Raleigh Times and two Mississippi dailies. Staples was recently promoted to Senior Features Enterprise Writer. Look for her columns Thursdays and Saturdays in Living and alternating Sundays in Metro.

A couple of weeks from now, Spring Asher, like Jews in Israel and around the world, will sit with family and friends at the Seder table and celebrate with songs, wine and symbolic foods.

This Passover night, though, will indeed be different from all others.

Instead of the tattered wine-stained copies of the Haggadah her family had grown used to, they will experience the story of the Passover from a new one, titled "Our Family Haggadah," written and illustrated by the grandchildren and cousins in the family.

Not unlike with other Jewish families, their Haggadah, the book used to guide the evening of prayers, rituals and songs of the Seder and now available in local bookstores, has long been the most ubiquitous volume in the Asher home.

But after 20 years of use, the book looked more like a baby’s soiled bib — in layers.

Asher tried repairing it with craft paper covered with children’s art over the years, but that never seemed good enough. Plus as the family expanded and the ritual dinner moved from her home to that of her daughter Juliet’s, there weren’t nearly enough of them to go around.

As any grandchild will tell you, everybody needs their own book.

At its core, the Haggadah is the retelling of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt, one of my favorite Bible stories for two reasons.

One, as an African-American, it reminded me of my own ancestors and their struggle from slavery to freedom.

And two, as a Christian, the story always gave me the courage to face whatever valley experience I found myself, confident that God was there walking beside, behind and in front of me, that he would deliver me just as he had the Israelites. Having lost both my parents at an early age, I needed someone in my life like that.

In case you missed Sunday school, the Passover story recounts the night the death angel passed through Egypt, killing the firstborn of every family that had not put the blood of an unblemished lamb on their doorposts.

Just like the Passover lambs in Egypt gave their lifeblood so that the Israelites would be spared and then finally set free from bondage, my faith holds that the blood of the lamb, Jesus, sets me free.

Though it means the telling, the Haggadah does far more than tell the story of the Jews’ bitter, oppressive experience as slaves in Egypt and their miraculous deliverance from there. It demands that every generation sees itself as the ones who went out of Egypt.

It's the thing that I think I envy and admire most about the Jewish community. They understand better than anyone the importance of history and why it should be passed from one generation to the next, why as William Faulkner once wrote, the past is never past.

Why is this family Haggadah different?

It’s done by the children. It’s very interactive. It’s user friendly. And it’s written in both English and Hebrew.

“Everybody can feel comfortable at our Seder,” Asher said.

In many ways, it’s like Christmas and Thanksgiving because for Spring Asher, the Passover night, which falls on April 3, has long been about engagement, making connections.

“It’s how you share your life with your children and build their confidence that they are never alone,” she said.

And so you see why having the family’s own Haggadah, why including the grandchildren’s and cousins’ art was so important. That, too, was about engagement and building relationships.

Asher thinks there should be the equivalent of a July Fourth Haggadah so people hear the story about how America came to be. Perhaps, she said, there would be less division around such issues as race and immigration.

“With the exception of Native Americans, we’re all immigrants,” she said.

Who can argue with that?