The Kid from the Haggadah

He stood in the market

Among rams and some goats,

Waving his tail, pinky long.

A kid from the poor-house,

A kid for two-pence

No make-up, not a bell, nothing at all.

No one paid any attention,

Because no one knew,

Not the gold-smiths, the weavers

Not even you,

That this little kid,

In the Haggadah will be for long

The hero of a popular song.

But father came with a smile on his face,

And bought the small kid, patting his head,

And so began one of the songs,

We will sing for ever, my friend.

With his tongue, the kid licked father’s hand

And touched him with his moist nose.

And so it was, verse one, who would have thought,

That begins: “Father bought.”

It was a breezy spring day, sunny and nice,

And girls laughed with a wink in their eyes.

And both father and kid entered the song,

Waiting their turn, waiting there long.

And that Haggadah was already full

With stories and songs to the brim.

And this is the reason

They are back on last page

Embraced, and pushed to the edge.

And that Haggadah then quietly said:

“Be it so, stand here father and kid,

Through my pages cross the smoke and the blood,

And I tell of events as great as the flood,

But I know that a sea would not split in vain

And a reason there is for walls to collapse,

If at the end of the story

Stand a kid and a father

Expecting their turn to be seen in the light.”

                              —translated by Dan Ben-Amos