I have been putting off writing this blog entry because I've been swamped with shopping sprees, playdates with the cousins, and general holiday craziness. But tonight, when I am wired from a
yom tov nap and can sleep late tomorrow while the rest of my family goes to shul for one last round, I have the time and energy to reflect on
Pesach this year. I once again (see my entry from last year) spent the second
seder reading comments in the haggadah since I had no real need to say every word of the text. Just like last year, I used the "הלילה הזה"
haggadah. It is highly recommended, and nearly all the comments I'm about to make come from things I read in it.
Every year in the days leading up to
Pesach I feel two "guilts." One is that I do not have the patience to sit with a stack of
haggadahs and prepare comments and questions for the
seder night. The other is that I can't fathom how to imagine myself as having gone out of Egypt. Even if I'm having a horrible week, and now when I have experienced the "end result" of making my new home in Israel, it just doesn't click.
This year, as I read the comments in the
haggadah and pondered all this I started noticing how the
seder night is not only a process in the sense that we start with step one of
kiddush and end with
nirtzah, but it also inserts the participants into the process of slavery to freedom and telling the story. When we do
yachatz and break the matzah in half, we are emulating what poor people do when, despite being hungry, they put away half of the little they have to save for a meal much later. We then delve into the process of
magid, telling the story, come to our "happy ending," praise God with
Hallel, and start in on the meal. Okay, so that sort of does it. But there's something bigger here.
At the seder we tell the story of being in Egypt so we can explore the realities and feelings of being a slave. The idea is that we can connect the story of our past with anything we're feeling and experiencing in our present lives, or have experienced in the past. Everyone at the table participates. The entire
seder is like this. We read the words from the
haggadah, but the entire experience is interspersed with stories from our family and friends at the table. A lot of the narrative is told through
midrash which does not directly tell us the story, but rather sparks conversation at the table. I grew up in a household where my father would randomly pull a
chumash off the bookshelf and ask me what I thought about a certain
midrash. I might be lounging on the couch reading a book, and I would eagerly drop it aside for these occasions. There are two "processes" going on at the seder-- moving ourselves from slavery to freedom, and taking part in the oral tradition.
Freedom is the privilege to speak openly. Everyone has their stories, and as free people we tell them at the
seder. From the beginning of the seder, when anyone (including kids) who wants to recites the
kiddush, we talk about the custom in my grandmother's home for everyone to say their own
kiddush. The first time my grandmother partook in this custom might have been 90 years ago, and I continue it today. Everyone has a different story to tell- their own ways of connecting to the exodus from Egypt and the
Pesach experience throughout the years. Every year new generations of stories are added to this process. The meal portion of the
seder is the literal food, but the stories satiate us just as much.
One time in fifth grade we had this insane substitute for Hebrew class. I mean INSANE. He spent the entire class jumping around the room talking about the
mitzvah of והגדת לבנך, telling the story of the Exodus to your children. I don't even think it was in the
chumash we were studying at the time. He went on and on, emphasizing again and again how important it is to tell the next generations about our history and things that happened generations ago. Every year we go through the
seder again, and we tell the story again. Part of the story is what people at the
seder add in about "that time at my grandfather's house..." or "when my sister ate too much marror." The stories come together and reinvent the experience for subsequent years. We tell the same story of the Exodus every year because each time you notice new things the story takes on a different form. Maybe that crazy substitute teacher had a point.
The next part of my reflections comes from an idea that's been around for awhile. Why, in "
Dayenu," do we say that if we had only left Egypt or only reached Har Sinai that it would have been enough for us? Because we appreciate each miracle as it is. Going with my "
seder as a process" idea I was thinking that it's not just appreciating each miracle independently. It's understanding the process and what it took to get us from slaves in Egypt to where we are today. And obviously the story keeps going. We're still reaching for something. However you want to look at the Mashiach coming and what the future holds, there's something history is moving towards. So when I say
kiddush because that was the custom in my grandmother's household, or learn a
midrash with my father I am continuing something. And when my (other) grandmother tells me it's a good thing I'm living in Israel because that's where the family was always supposed to wind up I am working towards a new stage in my family's story and in the story of the Jewish people as a whole.
The Dvar Torah in shul today was about why we don't say
Shirat HaYam at the
seder even though it is such an important part of the story and all the miracles that took place. The answer given was that the
seder is all about living in the moment, experiencing the experience from the depths of slavery all the way through the redemption of leaving Egypt.
Shirat HaYam happened later, after the actual exodus. We do however say
Hallel as a form of spontaneous praise for everything that happened. We begin
Hallel at the end of magid because we are so excited about everything we "went through" that we feel an immediate need to praise God.
So maybe I still can't imagine myself as a slave in Egypt and understand what it felt like to witness a zillion miracles and then leave in the middle of the day, with all the Egyptians watching in disbelief. But I do know what it's like to be a part of something big, a part of the process, a part of history. One day when my children ask I will be able to insert myself into the story and tell them of my experiences in this world as a Jew. And as someone who picked up and moved to Israel, I definitely understand the end point, or at least the goal (who can really say what the "end" is?). In each generations we are saved-- from something-- so that we can experience the freedom we enjoy every day.
Every year we go back to the same story, the same paragraph of עבדים היינו "We were slaves." We tell the story and go through the motions, but every year it changes. We and the people around us at the
seder add in their stories and reflections. The words of
Hallel don't change, but I think the objective of the
seder night is to reach the point where our personal history and national history inspire the outburst of song in
Hallel...
ונאמר לפניו שירה
חדשה
