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Imagine Winning by Lee Goldstein
Contributed by Emilia Diamant

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

After “V’ahavta” by Aurora Levins Morales

(adapted by Emilia Diamant)


The end of the world tastes like bubblegum.

Like the biggest Hubba Bubba bubble ever popped.

In the end, we will get our just desserts—

that full-size candy bar on the halloween horizon

after so many years of bullshit like toothbrushes and pennies.


When the winds of change blow our way

We will have our most beautiful kites ready.

We will prepare the perfect picnic lunch.

I promise to make the lemonade, if you bring the weed

on the day we finally win.


When food falls from the sky like rain,

and the rock returns to roof, and the children 

sleep soundly in their beds with bellies full,

you will be invited to every family dinner. 

Your weird aunt will never be racist again. 

Your neighbor will still make terrible casserole, 

and unfortunately you will still eat it, because

the revolution did not come with cooking classes

but your parents raised you right.


When every bomb is a myth, and war is a rumor,

and every gun and handcuff has been melted down 

into a swirling silver inferno, we will make 

an enormous statue out of the scraps,

and i promise, it won’t be anything lame— 

like a flower or a bunch of people holding hands.

It will be something awesome, 

like Spiderman, or a giant butt. 

We’ll put it in the middle of the Common,

right next to the Frog Pond.


When all our work is said and done, 

when the ice caps have doubled in size, 

and the polar bears have gone back to fucking,

and the bees have finally returned,

cicadas will simply cease to exist. 

(spiders can stay for now, 

but they are on thin fucking ice, bitch).


After the revolution, everyday will be groundhog day, 

and every day Punxsutawney Phil will call for an early spring 

and he will always be wrong. The winter will keep marching on,

unrelenting, and we will all continue to hate it from the comfort 

of warm beds, warm homes, and wool sweaters.

When every other need is met, 

we must have something communal to bitch about. 

That is the law of nature. 

When the first 60 degree day arrives 

in April, like it is supposed to, it’s like a reward 

from God because we complained just enough.


When the people have united under the banner of a single dream,

and humanity breathes out hope with every cell, 

The hospitals will sit empty. The halls of the ER will echo,

and leading doctors will all agree: cigarettes are actually good for you,

poppers make your brain bigger, and extended screen time 

actually just means that you are very awesome and sexy.

It is a medical miracle, they will say: 

having a fat ass is actually the cure to cancer! And covid! 

And every other disease that has since been forgotten to time,

because when pain has ceased to exist and illness is a thing of memory,

everyone will have a fat ass, so everyone will be healthy, 

and also very hot.


After all the late nights, the crying, 

the vigils and protests and meal trains,

after every gofundme has exceeded its goal 

and every pocket is overflowing with cash—

there will be an earth-shatteringly good nap. 

Complete with lines on your arm, 

and a hand gone fuzzy without circulation. 

There will be a nap like this every week.


There is no messiah coming to save us.

No Elijah or that Jesus guy y’all love so much.

No one is coming from heaven on high, 

because you and I are already here. 

Together. Sharing water, sharing bread. 

Imagining a better world so hard 

the future breaks in two.


When “greed” is a word lost to time 

and Yiddish is back on our tongues,

we will all eat together.

At the first Shabbat at the end of the world,

there is enough of everything for everybody.

No more single chicken leg,

 and one piece of bread, 

and six pieces of celery.

Let every potluck overfloweth, 

Let every stomach fill with mac n cheese

and challah, red wine and babka. 

Not a frozen pizza bagel in sight.


Imagine the muscles, the hands, the hearts, unclenching. 

Imagine relaxing into the evening air.

Imagine the skin, unbroken, untensing. 

Imagine all the children, alive, and dancing. 


When we win, everyone in Boston 

will flock to the coast at dawn, and jump in.

Everyone — from the mayor, 

to Keytar bar, 

And the people who walk around as Colonial-era tour guides,

and the guys who sell incense at the Dudley bus stop,

and even your boss that you hate, and your ex 

and your neighbor with a dog that won’t stop barking 

and the dog, she can come too —

There will be room for all of us in the cold embrace of the Atlantic Ocean.

We will all shiver, every one of us, but it will feel good.

We will buy Italian Ice from the guy at Carson Beach, 

the cups in our hands just as delicious as this sunrise

(the most beautiful one we have ever seen),

and our children and our children’s children

will live, forever.
haggadah Section: Bareich

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