Miriam the prophet took her timbrel in her hand,
And all the women followed her, just as she had planned,
And Miriam raised her voice in song,
She sang with praise and might:
We’ve just lived through a miracle
We’re going to dance tonight!
— From “Miriam’s Song” by Debbie Friedman
Strangely enough, for a largely American movement, the idea of a feminist seder began in Israel. A group of American and Israeli women there decided to create a seder where men would do the preparation and the women would contemplate and lead the relevant prayers.
But somehow during the planning, the relevant prayers didn’t seem quite so relevant for a female-led seder and the group began to study, investigate, discuss and write new prayers about the story of the women in Exodus.
In her book, “The Telling,” New York writer Esther Broner recounts this seder in Haifa in 1975. As the men prepared and cooked the food, the women were cooking intellectually.
The four sons became the four daughters; the ancient plagues became contemporary female problems such as false self-image, legal discrimination and the slaying of the spirit. The kabbalistic concept of Shechinah (female aspect of God) became the spiritual presence. And Miriam became the prophet and guide of the journey.
Back in the United States the following year, Broner and a group of talented women came together to create the first feminist seder and a movement began. The originating core group consisted of such visible feminists as publisher Gloria Steinem, editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin, politician Bella Abzug and writer Grace Paley. When their Haggadah was published in Ms. Magazine in 1992, it launched a phenomenon that swept the nation, the thriving and still growing women’s seder movement, now worldwide .
In 1993, Broner published “The Telling.” Considered the founder of the movement, today Broner reflects that “our finger must have been right on the pulse of what women were longing for — a way to more fully participate and celebrate Jewish ritual.” Twenty-nine years later, many of these same women still meet to celebrate together.
Born out of the feminist movement, the women’s seder has been embraced in all denominations of Judaism. According to Rabbi Jill Hammer, a senior associate at Ma’yan: The Jewish Women’s Project at the JCC in Manhattan, the “feeling of coming together to share, sing text and ritual and tell the story of women seeking freedom is tremendously compelling.” Ma’yan runs several women’s seders annually in Manhattan with total attendances of more than 2,000.
Throughout the movement, Miriam emerges as the heroine. Mentioned first in Exodus only as Moses’ sister, Miriam has become an icon for the Jewish feminist movement. In truth, there are six important women in Exodus – the midwives Shiphrah and Puah who refused Pharaoh’s order to kill newborn Hebrew boys; Jochebed, the mother of Moses, who put him into a basket by the bank of the Nile; the Pharaoh’s daughter who found the baby; Miriam who arranged that Moses would be nursed by his own mother and finally Moses’ wife, Zipporah, who performed the first circumcision on their son.
Recounting Miriam’s story is now the linchpin upon which the women’s “telling” turns. Rabbi Rona Shapiro, also a senior associate at Ma’yan, delineating the difference between Elijah and Miriam, suggests that Elijah represents the messianic hope of the future, whereas Miriam, with her supply of nurturing water, represents sustenance on the journey.