מועדים לשיחה; מהדורה משפחתית, חג הפסח, חד גדיא, מעמיקיםCeremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Pesah, Had Gadya, Deep Dive
א׳
1The theme of Ḥad Gadya is the destructive cycle of vengeance and retaliation. In one interpretation, the young goat represents Israel. The “father” who bought it for two coins is God, who redeemed Israel from Egypt through His two representatives, Moshe and Aharon. The cat is Assyria, which conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. The dog is Babylonia, which defeated the southern kingdom of Yehuda. The stick is Persia, which replaced Babylonia as the imperial power in the sixth century BCE. The fire is the Greeks, who defeated the Persians in the days of Alexander the Great. The water is Rome, which superseded ancient Greece. The ox is Islam, which defeated the Romans in Palestine in the seventh century. The slaughterer is Christianity – specifically the Crusaders, who fought Islam in Palestine and elsewhere, murdering Jews on the way. The Angel of Death is the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Palestine until the First World War. The song concludes with an expression of faith that “this too shall pass” and the Jewish people will return to their land. So it has been in our days.
ב׳
2“One Little Goat,” The Jonathan Sacks Haggada
ג׳
3The song, disarming in its simplicity, teaches the great truth of Jewish hope: that though many nations (symbolised by the cat, the dog, and so on) attacked Israel (the goat), each in turn has vanished into oblivion. At the end of days God will vanquish the Angel of Death and inaugurate a world of life and peace, the two great Jewish loves. Ḥad Gadya expresses the Jewish refusal to give up hope. Though history is full of man’s inhumanity to man – dog bites cat, stick hits dog – that is not the final verse. The Haggada ends with the death of death in eternal life, a fitting end for the story of a people dedicated to Moshe’s great command, “Choose life” (Devarim 30:19).
ד׳
4Commentary on Ḥad Gadya, The Jonathan Sacks Haggada
ה׳
5☛ REFLECT
Living in the twenty-first century, do you feel this song and the message behind it are still relevant?
Living in the twenty-first century, do you feel this song and the message behind it are still relevant?