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Sarah R Schreiber
  • Class of 2021
  • Pittsburgh, PA

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine students organize school's first Freedom Seder

2018 Mar 14

Sarah Schreiber of Pittsburgh and several other students at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine planned and organized the school's first Freedom Seder, held on March 12. It is the students' intent to make the Freedom Seder an annual event. Freedom Seders intertwine the archetypal story of the Israelites' deliverance from slavery in ancient Egypt with more modern liberation struggles.

The first Freedom Seder in 1969 was the brainchild of Rabbi Arthur Waskow. In his memoir of its founding, Rabbi Waskow, then a civil rights activist, said his efforts to make the Passover Seder speak to deep concerns of the modern world "became sharper and more urgent in 1968, when the Passover came one bare week after the murder of Martin Luther King . . . And then we realized that in 1969, the third night of Passover, April 4, would be the first anniversary of King's death."

"Who in those days could forget that the prophet King had remembered Moses?" Rabbi Waskow asked. His idea was to meld the traditional retelling of the Exodus story and its celebration of freedom with a telling of more modern-day forms of oppression. Since 1969, Freedom Seders have spoken to many movements for freedom, from feminism and LGBTQ rights to environmental activism.

At Geisinger Commonwealth, the student organizers invited the entire School of Medicine community to offer a retelling of a contemporary struggle. Some modern-day plagues discussed at the school's first Freedom Seder included racism, technology addiction, sexism, classism, ableism, apathy, xenophobia, lifestyle illnesses, anti-Semitism, environmental destruction and sexual discrimination.

The event was attended by more than 100 people who enjoyed a meal that included dishes from both the Jewish and African American traditions and observed Seder rituals like dipping green vegetables in salt water and eating bitter herbs.