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In Every Generation
Contributed by Noraa Kaplan

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

In every generation, each person must see themself as if they personally left Mitzrayim. As it is written: “And you shall tell your child on that day, ‘For the sake of this, Hashem did what Hashem did for me when I was brought out of Mitzrayim.’” (Exodus 13:8) Our ancestors were not redeemed alone during the Exodus; rather, we were redeemed together with them.

For the sake of this, the sake of this telling, this reliving, this embodiment, this revolutionary moment, we were brought out of slavery. We personally were freed once before, in order to learn how to free ourselves again, and to know that liberation is possible. Some Jews believe we’ve been tasked with keeping the Pesach story alive. Actually, it keeps us alive. The Haggadah finally gives us a straightforward answer as to why tonight is different from all other nights: because tonight, we go free. 

The line beginning “in every generation” is one of the best-known passages of the entire Haggadah, and rightfully so: it is the climax of the seder, the ‘thesis statement’ of this entire ritual. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most misunderstood parts of the Haggadah. The word ke-ilu,  meaning “as if” softens the line’s impact significantly. When taken out of context it’s easy to read it as “one is required to imagine themself leaving Egypt.” But when we read it in conjunction with the rest of the paragraph, it becomes clear that that’s not what it means. The text explicitly says, “we were redeemed together with our ancestors.” The haggadah is not asking us for an exercise in imagination or metaphor, it is asking us to incorporate the Exodus story into our personal narrative, to believe we were literally there and remember it as our own liberation.

Not only must we remember leaving Egypt, we are compelled to remember slavery as well. “ Avadim hayinu, ” the Haggadah says, we were slaves. Why is it neccesary to remember slavery, instead of just imagining what it was like? Because some of the Torah’s most important mitzvot are explicitly based on remembering our experience of slavery. We are commanded not to “oppress a stranger, for you know the stranger’s soul, having been strangers yourselves in the land of Mitzrayim.” (Exodus 23:9) We are commanded to draw on our personal experience of oppression as a source of radical empathy. We must remember slavery so we can know ‘the stranger’s soul,’ the soul of everyone who is oppressed today, the soul of the voiceless, the downtrodden, the enslaved. 

Not only are we forbidden to contribute to their oppression, we are commanded to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Mitzrayim.” (Deuteronomy 10:19) The Mishnah tells us all love that depends on something external is doomed to fall apart. Compassion for the oppressed that comes from a desire to ‘be a good ally’ (or simply to look like a good ally) or even from a generic desire to pursue justice will not amount to meaningful change, but radical empathy for the oppressed that draws on our personal experiences of oppression, both in this life and in Mitzrayim, might just be able to. Through radical empathy, we embrace solidarity, not allyship, and cast in our lots with the oppressed, because we know that fighting for them is fighting for ourselves, and in order to love ourselves, we must love the stranger. 
 
haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan

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