1	Terasem Haggadah Freedom Seder March 10th
2	Who Is Terasem? Terasem is a collective consciousness dedicated to diversity, unity and joyful immortality. Terasem is all of us gathered at this Seder Table. Terasem means earth-seed. We will grow throughout space and time. We will spread joy everywhere.
3	What Is a Freedom Seder? What is a Haggadah? Seder is the Hebrew word for “order”. A Seder is a ceremonial meal that occurs in a set order. Each part of the meal helps us to remember the awfulness of slavery and to appreciate the nature of freedom. It is especially important to share the Seder with children. The Freedom Seder is inspired by a 3000 year-old Jewish ceremony to commemorate freedom from Egyptian slavery. The Freedom Seder expands on the Jewish tradition. More diverse aspects of freedom are contemplated. Haggadah is the Hebrew word for “to tell”. A Haggadah is a booklet that tells a story about Freedom. The Terasem Haggadah tells a story of many freedoms.
4	Where Is the Freedom Seder Celebrated? Seders are celebrated at homes or gathering places. Terasem Centers are meant to host Freedom Seders. Friends and family are always invited. Anyplace with a Terasem Seder Plate & Haggadah Will Do -- Hold Up the Seder Plate and Show All -- Each symbol will be explained during the Seder. Spring Vegetables & Salt Water. Apples & Honey. 4 Pieces of Matzah with Haroset (mashed nuts, apples, cinnamon, juice). A Piece of Paper Money.
5	When Is the Freedom Seder Celebrated? Freedom Seders are celebrated by Terasem on March 10th of each year, following a solar year calendar. We start at sundown, with the lighting of two Holiday Candles. As we light the Holiday Candles, be thankful for our togetherness. Sing, Chant and Be Happy! The Jewish Seder, known as Passover or Pesach, occurs based on the lunar calendar. Originally Passover was a springtime holiday. To honor this memory, let us all now eat a green vegetable dipped in salt water. The new growth vegetable symbolizes our hope that new freedom “springs forth” from this Seder. The salt water symbolizes our tears for those who lack even the freedom to celebrate this Seder.
6	Why Is the Terasem Haggadah Opened Upward? To open our minds up into the cosmos. There are billions of suns in our galaxy. There are billions of galaxies in our universe. To remind us that thinking “up-wing” is a good alternative to traditional political thinking about freedom, which is usually “left-wing” or “right-wing.” To help make the Haggadah different and special. For thousands of years the Seder meal has been people’s favorite holiday. What is better to celebrate than Freedom?
7	How Will This Seder Proceed? Glad you asked! A leader will ask participants to take turns in reading passages from the Haggadah. Some songs will be sung to respect the inspiration Terasem received from the Passover tradition. Ceremonial foods will be eaten, and a meal will be served during an intermission. We will end with a commitment to help ensure that next year more people will be more free -- next year in Terasem!
8	How it All Began Over 3000 years ago a tribe of monotheists from Canaan called the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt. The Hebrews were originally welcomed to Egypt from Canaan as free men because they were related to Joseph, a high advisor to the ruler called a Pharaoh. Joseph was the great-grandson of the first monotheists Abraham & Sarah. Joseph arrived in Egypt years earlier as a slave because he had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. He forgave them and helped them settle in Egypt when Canaan was afflicted by a drought. Egypt avoided the Canaanites’ desperation because Joseph interpreted one of Pharaoh’s dreams to warn of the drought and to stockpile grain. Joseph’s dream-interpretation skills earned him his freedom and high position, which he used to ensure Egypt grew ever-more wealthy. After Joseph’s death, the Egyptians enslaved all of the Hebrews. This shows that human memories can be quite short -- one reason why we re-tell the freedom story every year.
9	Filling Our Cups for the 1st Time Slaves in ancient Egypt were not even given a day off. The concept of a Sabbath arose from these slaves’ freedom. Something good can often be made out of something bad They also had very little food and water. In gratitude for our Sabbath, our health, our water, our love and our instinct for justice….let us drink “to life”, which in Hebrew sounds like “l’chaim”.
10	A Freedom Leader’s Start The Hebrews grew so numerous the Egyptians began to fear them. Pharaoh ordered first-born Hebrew sons killed as a population control. A Hebrew baby, Moses, was floated down the Nile in the hope he might be saved by an Egyptian family. The Pharaoh’s daughter saw him floating and raised him as her own. Moses learned of his ancestry and empathized with the Hebrews. One day he lost his temper and killed a slave-driver for whipping an old Hebrew man who was too weak to work further. Moses escaped to the desert, and lived a good life as a shepherd. His conscience urged him to return to demand freedom for the Hebrew slaves. He bravely approached the mighty Pharaoh in the clothing of a simple shepherd.
11	Moses’ Persistence The Pharoah laughed at Moses, and refused to heed his pleas. Why would the most powerful man in the world give up a huge economic benefit? Moses predicted many plagues would befall Egypt if it failed to free the slaves. Societies built on the rotten foundations of injustice invariably crumble down. The Pharaoh didn’t believe Moses. The predicted plagues of illness & disease occurred. To empathize with even the Egyptian’s sorrows, we diminish our cups for each of the modern plagues.
12	Empathy With All Sufferers A full cup symbolizes full joy. Take one drop out for each of these ten modern plagues. Thirst Homelessness Loneliness Poverty Illness Ignorance Bigotry Injustice Violence Starvation
13	We Fill Our Glasses for a Second Time This time we fill our glasses in gratitude for all those who made our freedoms possible. Give thanks for the gifts of billions of souls. And share gladly with others your lifeline. Even the suffering of our enemies needs to be respected. Their pain is our pain for we are all part of the same Terasem consciousness. Most who suffer are innocent victims of happenstance or manipulation. Let us all work toward the day when there is no pain and suffering for anyone. L’Chaim! To Life! Drink Up!
14	Pharaoh Relents Eventually Moses wore down the resistance of the Pharaoh, who ordered the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the empty desert. The Pharaoh’s conscience -- touched by Moses’ communication -- connected the disasters of Egypt to slavery. A lone protester got the most powerful man in the world to give up one of the pillars of his economy -- this is remarkable, and we must never forget it! The Hebrews crossed the Red Sea during a rare low tide. Later, the Pharaoh changed his mind and tried to capture the Hebrews. But by then the Red Sea was back at high tide and the Hebrews were gone. This teaches us two lessons: (1) that fortune favors the bold; we must make our own good luck, (2) you won’t fail if you don’t give up.
15	The Price of Freedom In the desert, the Hebrews lacked food. We each now eat some Matzah to remind us of the cheap, fast flatbread they ate in the desert. The matzah also reminds us that freedom requires sacrifice and change. Matzah doesn’t taste that good, but it was a necessary sacrifice & change for freedom. We have four matzahs on the Seder plate for the four epochs of sacrifice/change that we’ll discuss tonight: (1) SlaveryÞSelf-Responsibility, (2) RacismÞIntegration, (3) ExtinctionÞCosmic Dispersion, & (4) IllnessÞJoyful Immortality. What sacrifices are entailed in: breaking away from someone else taking care of you? not making decisions based on skintone? living in space and/or cyberconscious? not accepting illness-determined life-spans?
16	With Each New Freedom Comes New Responsibilities Without Egyptian technology, the Hebrews didn’t know where to go. Without organized society, the Hebrews had no laws to guide them. They wandered chaotically. Moses crafted Ten Commandments to ethically and practically guide the newly freed Hebrew society. We each now dip an apple in honey to remind us that the sweetness of freedom depends upon organizing ourselves with just laws. Order is a necessary, although not sufficient, basis for progress. Sensible law-making is the responsibility of a free people. Cooperation is the responsibility of a diverse society. Geoethics is the responsibility of a technologically advanced society.
17	Every Seder Asks 4 Questions The following questions are asked or sung by the youngest capable child or adult: Why is this night different from all other nights? Why on this night do we fill our glasses four times? Why on this night do we dip our food twice? Why on this night do we eat as comfortably as we can be?
18	4 Answers This is the night we devote to celebrating freedom and remembering slavery. We fill our glasses 4 times to give thanks: For a day of no work, the Sabbath, which slaves never had. To all those who made our freedom possible. The miracles of communications, which makes global consciousness possible. The possibility of an infinite future of joy and happiness. We dip twice to balance the sweetness of freedom with the sadness of slavery. We are at our most relaxed as a sign of our utmost freedom.
19	Welcoming Elijah We now fill a glass in the center of the table and leave it untouched -- it is Elijah’s cup. Jewish legend tells of a time when a prophet will come to usher in freedom and justice for all. If he just sips from the cup, the time is not right; if the cup is emptied, the time has come. Within Terasem we believe we must take self-responsibility for freedom and justice. To evidence our belief, we now open the front door to welcome Elijah as a symbol of our own readiness to take personal responsibility for positive change. Strangers that appear are also welcome to respectfully join our Seder. Sing Together: Eliyahu hanavi; Eliyahu ha-Tishbi; Eliyahu; Eliyahu Eliyahu ha-Giladi.
20	Slavery & the Fight for Freedom Continue The freedom of the Hebrews didn’t end slavery for other peoples. But the idea of freedom was born, enshrined in the Bible. The idea of freedom inspires us to this day, as a “meme” or shared thought-concept. Until very recently slavery was an accepted part of human society. When the United States was formed, most people in the world were in some form of slavery -- more or less strict. Even today slavery persists in some places and its bad effects like racism exist everywhere.
21	Slavery & the Fight for Freedom Continue For hundreds of years millions of Africans were trapped in a particularly vicious form of slavery. European merchants traded alcohol, guns and other manufactured goods to African traders for African slaves. The European merchants, through their contracted ship captains, then sold the slaves to North & South American planters and purchased agricultural products grown by the slaves from them. Back in Europe the agricultural products were sold at high profit to be refined into other products. Sugar first came to Europe this way and most Europeans became addicted to it. Sugar was also distilled into rum.
22	The Concept of Human Rights Was Unknown Huge fortunes were made off of African-American slavery. Caribbean planters were the “technology entrepreneurs” of their day. Slaveship captains were admired. Yet those who made the money found they had brutalized their own souls. They lived in constant fear. Many of them died awful deaths from vengeful slaves & diseases. Their legacy poisons relationships among their descendants 400 years after the slave trade began. African-American slavery teaches us that no amount of money is worth the degradation of the human spirit. The paper money on the Seder plate symbolizes this lesson As you pass it around, tear a piece in two.
23	Remembering African-American Slavery We must remember the horrors of African-American slavery or else our ancestors will have died a second time. Their beingness -- or “bemes” -- lives on in our recounting their story. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. On slave ships women were routinely raped. Slaves were made to lay like sardines in their own excrement for days on end. Meanwhile the small ships rocked in the rough waters. The air below the deck was suffocating. Slave ships were true man-made hells.
24	Inconceivable Horrors The cruelty inflicted upon the African slaves was unprecedented. Slaves were de-humanized to minimize moral qualms. Slaves were terrorized to facilitate their control. About one slave ship a day left European ports for Africa and the Americas for well over 100 years The ships rarely left Africa without a chock-full load of slaves. Rarely did any of the slaves on board know each other. Most didn’t even speak the same language, as they came from throughout a large part of Africa. Even being on the ocean, which most had never seen, must have been terribly frightening.
25	Treasure Our Freedom for What Our Ancestors Suffered Conditions were so bad in the West Indies & Brazil that the slave population couldn’t maintain its size without new slave purchases. Newly purchased slaves were branded like animals with their owners trademark or initials. Some planters just killed any old or infirm slaves to operate more efficiently. In the United States families were torn apart to meet the demand for slaves on distant plantations. Slaveholders disregarded the anguish of a mother being separated from her children. Slaves shrieked with fear at never seeing their loved ones again.
26	The First Nail in Slavery’s Coffin Came From Clarkson From age 26, Clarkson led efforts to get England to ban the global slave trade. “His sixteen-hour-a-day campaigning against slavery would take him by horseback on a thirty-five-thousand-mile odyssey, from waterfront pubs to an audience with an emperor, from the decks of navy ships to parliamentary hearing rooms. More than once people would threaten to kill him, and on a Liverpool pier in the midst of a storm, a group of slave ship officers would nearly succeed.”[1] His effort, wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, was “absolutely without precedent…if you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary.”
27	What Made Clarkson’s Grass Roots Effort So Amazing “At the end of the 18th century, well over three quarters of all people alive were in bondage of one kind or another, not the captivity of striped prison uniforms, but of various systems of slavery or serfdom. The age was a high point in the trade in which close to eighty thousand chained and shackled Africans were loaded onto slave ships each year. In parts of the Americas, slaves far outnumbered free persons. The same was true in parts of Africa, and it was from these slaves that African chiefs and slave dealers drew most of the men and women they sold. In India and other parts of Asia, tens of millions of farm-workers were in outright slavery and others were peasants in debt bondage as harsh as any slave was bound to a plantation. In Russia the majority of the population were serfs, often bought, sold, whipped, or sent to the army at the will of their owners.” [2]
28	No Evil is Too Entrenched to be Changed by Determination “The world of bondage seemed all the more normal then, because anyone looking back in time would have seen little but other slave systems. The sacred texts of most major religions took slavery for granted. Slavery had existed before money or written law. So rapidly were slaves worked to death, above all on the brutal sugar plantations of the Caribbean, that between 1660 and 1807, ships brought well over three times as many Africans across the ocean as they did Europeans. The Atlantic was a conveyor belt to early death in the fields of an immense swath of plantations that stretched from Baltimore to Rio de Janeiro and beyond. Looking back today, what is even more astonishing than the pervasiveness of slavery in the late 1700s is how swiftly it died. By the end of the following century, slavery was, at least on paper, outlawed almost everywhere. The antislavery movement had achieved its goal in little more than one lifetime.” [3] To celebrate this achievement, let us eat matzah a second time -- but now loaded high with Haroset to symbolize the fruit of our ancestors’ determination to replace oppression with freedom! Victory over slavery tastes sweet!
29	Olaudah Equiano Was Essential to the Birth & Growth of the Anti-Slavery Movement Olaudah was captured in Africa as a child and raised in the Caribbean as a slave. He managed to save enough money to buy his freedom, twice, and retire to England to write the first best-selling book against slavery. “On the most trifling occasions slaves are loaded with chains…the iron muzzle and thumb-screws are applied for the slightest faults. I have seen a negro beaten till some of his bones were broken, for only letting a pot boil over….When the slave master choose to punish the slave women, they make the husbands flog their own wives.…Is it surprising that usage like this should make them seek a refuge in death from those evils which render their lives intolerable?” [4].
30	Olaudah Used Logic to Turn the British Public Against the Slave Trade “I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men -- No! It is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness, and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted, and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious, and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches!… When you make men slaves, you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them, in your own conduct, an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war.” [5] Olaudah died a wealthy man, leaving an estate worth $100,000, all earned from multiple editions of his self-published book. He also invented the “book tour.”
31	Persistent, Informed Communicators Overturned the Age-Old All-Powerful Slavery System “Slaves have rebelled throughout history, but the campaign in England was the first time a large number of people became outraged, and stayed outraged for years, over someone else’s rights. For fifty years, activists in England worked to end slavery in the British empire, and their success meant a huge loss to the imperial economy. “The abolitionists succeeded because they mastered one challenge that still faces anyone who cares about justice: drawing connections between the near and the distant. The abolitionists’ first job was to make Britons understand what lay behind the sugar they ate, the tobacco they smoked, the coffee they drank.” [6] “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” [7]
32	We Now Fill Our Glasses a Third Time This time we drink in honor of modern communications technology -- books, disks, films, phones, computers, sats. These technologies are paving the way for Terasem by linking our consciousness together. Olaudah was able to get inside the consciousness of entire populations through the power of his book. Mass communications was an essential tool in eradicating first the slave trade, then slavery itself, and most recently legal racism. We must now employ telecom strategies to battle covert racism and other forms of oppression. Raise your glasses and drink to a life of connected minds -- L’Chaim! To Life!
33	Frederick Douglass Did to Slavery What Olaudah & Clarkson Did to the Slave Trade Douglass, born a slave, self-educated himself, started a newspaper and became America’s leading voice for freedom, an abolitionist. He used poignant examples of hypocrisy to persuade millions of the need for ending slavery. “The mass of professed Christians in America strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshipping a sheep-stealer; and at the same time they hug to their communion a man-stealer. They profess to love God whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They pay money to put Bibles on the other side of the globe while they despise and totally neglect the men who build their own country.” [8]
34	Even as Racial Slavery Ended, the Enslavement of Women Continued “Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! Now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.” Cleveland, Ohio, 1851.
35	Enjoy the Meal! On the Terasem Day of Freedom we enjoy a vegetarian meal so that other animals need not lose their life for the celebration of the freedom of our life. We look forward to the day when nanotechnology will enable us to create any food we want simply through intelligent, automated assembly of atoms.
36	Conclusion of the Seder During the first part of the Seder we gave thanks for Freedom’s greatest past victory -- our freedom from slavery. Now we give thought to our next victories -- freedom from many other kinds of oppression. Each freedom earned provides a platform for achieving yet greater freedom. Each responsibility achieved gives us the capability to exercise yet greater responsibilities. Ultimately we can be free of random forces of chaos only by taking responsibility for the very universe -- this is the path of Terasem.
37	Who Among Us Will Be Like Moses & Demand Freedom From…
38	Who Among Us Will be Like Clarkson & Get Others to Feel the Pain of…
39	Who Among Us Will Be Like Douglass & Demand An End To…
40	Who Among Us Will be Like Sojourner Truth & Help Free Us From…
41	We Must Always Remember! The freedoms we enjoy today were considered by almost everyone to be impossible to achieve -- and millions died -- and continue to die -- due to that failure of belief: The Native American Genocide Centuries of African-American Slave-Deaths and Tortured Souls 6 Million Jews in the Holocaust Millions in African Ethnic Cleansings Millions in Asian Political Killings 200,000 a day to Illness Today The greatest part of our freedoms were achieved by persistent persuasive communications. Freedoms were won quickly compared to how long we were oppressed. The spark of freedom is always to dream it can be achieved. Let’s take a minute of meditation to remember the millions of stolen lives..
42	I Have a Dream, M. L. King, Jr., 1963 “We have come to our nation’s Capitol to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all people would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
43	Freedom Starts with a Dream & Is Fueled with Persuasion So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give up upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
44	The March for Freedom Must Continue! I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. If America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi! From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, people of every color and hue, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!’”
45	Traditional-Modern Seder Song When Israel was in Egypt land: Let my people go. Oppressed so hard they could not stand: Let my people go. Refrain 1: Go down, go down, way down in Egypt land; Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go. When the African slave trade began: Let my people be. Oppressed so hard they could not stand: Let my people be. Refrain 2: Go down, go down, way down in Racist lands; Tell Ol’ Jim Crow, let my people be. Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said: Let my people go. If not I’ll smite your people dead: Let my people go. [Refrain 1]. I have a dream bold Martin said: Let my people be. If not your greatness will be dead: Let my people be. [Refrain 2]. As Israel stood by the water side: Let my people go. By God’s command it did divide: Let my people go. [Refrain 1]. As millions marched side-by-side: Let my people be. By civil rights they must abide: Let my people be. [Refrain 2].
46	Can You Dream That… One day people will wake up to the existential dangers of living on earth and will develop defenses, including to start moving off the planet? One day geoethical nanotechnology provides everyone with enough food, water, shelter and opportunity to pursue their interests! One day personal cyber-consciousness and bio-nanotechnology lets everyone achieve true security from illness and catastrophe! One day the right to life, and to a good life, is accorded to whatever values that right, regardless of their skintone, species or substrate!
47	Let Us Fill Our Glasses for the Fourth Time
48	Next Year in Terasem! Theodore Herzl wrote “if you will it, it is no dream.” He was referring to the re-creation of Israel 2000 years after its dismemberment. He was right. The traditional Passover Seder ended with the pledge “next year in Jerusalem,” Israel’s capitol. It was a short-hand way of saying, “next year may we be free to celebrate in the land where we first lived as free people.” Today we can say “next year in Terasem.” It is another way of saying “next year may we be closer to the ultimate collective consciousness that will give diversity, unity and joyful immortality for all.” Everyone please raise your glasses for the fourth time and join with me “Just as freedom from slavery was achieved, so will our other dreams be achieved. Let us work to do away with all forms of oppression. Let us rejoice next year in Terasem!”
49	Dayenu = Hebrew Word Saying “For This Alone We Should be Grateful” Ilu hotzi, hotzi-anu, hotzi-anu mi-Mitrzrayim, hotzi-anu Mi-Mitzrayim, Dayenu. [Freedom from Egypt] [Chorus:] Day-day-enu, Day-day-enu, Day-day-enu, Dayenu, Dayenu. Ilu natan, natan lanu, natan lanu et ha-Shabbat, et ha-Shabbat, natan lanu, Dayenu. [Freedom from Work on the Sabbath] [Chorus] Ilu natan, natan lanu, natan lanu et ha-Torah, natan lanu, et ha-Torah, Dayenu. [The Ten Commandments] [Chorus] Ilu natan, natan lanu, natan lanu et ha-I.T., natan lanu, et ha-I.T., Dayenu. [Information Technology]] [Chorus]
50	Thanks for Joining Us!
51	References [1] A. Hochschild, Bury the Chains, 2005. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] O. Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, 1789 [5] Ibid. [6] Note [1]. [7] Margaret Mead [8] F. Douglass, Narrative of the Life, 1845