Introduction

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Introduction

The Exodus is the seminal event in Jewish history. It is what transformed a rag-tag tribe of slaves into a political, cultural, and ethnic entity. Passover is the holiday that commemorates this momentous event. At every Passover Seder, the traditional Passover meal, the story is told and retold. The text for that retelling is the Haggadah. In it, we are reminded that “Even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing the Torah, we would still be obligated to discuss the exodus from Egypt; and everyone who discusses the exodus from Egypt at length is praiseworthy.”

One of the reasons that this retelling is of such paramount importance is that it reaffirms each participant’s identify as a Jew. Each of us is encouraged to think of himself as having been personally present in the Exodus, to think of himself as having been a slave, and then, as having been freed. “It is for what the L_rd, our G_d has done for me.”

Thus, each of us is enjoined to relate the story as a personal, eye-witness, account. We are to relate it to our children, our entire family, our friends, and to anyone who is interested in hearing it. Thus it is, that we Jews maintain an eye-witness continuity that ensures the truth of the narrative. For as many rabbis have maintained, “What father would lie to his children about something of such importance.”

Nevertheless, despite this strict injunction and the traditional continuity, over the years many versions of the story, many different Haggadot have emerged. Most have added rabbinical commentaries and snippets of rabbinical debates. All have added prayers and songs. In every generation, the additions to the Haggadah are those that have resonated most harmonically with the climate of the times. In periods of great persecution, the elements of salvation and revenge emerge most strongly. In times of relative tranquillity and prosperity, the joys of freedom and the epicurean pleasures come to the fore.

Throughout history, however, the basic story itself has remained. “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the L-rd, our G-d, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.” And yet, there are many types of slavery. Physical bondage is only one such. Our forefathers were taken out of Egypt, but that did not end their slavery, only their physical bondage. They still remained slaves in their minds and in their souls. Faced with the hardships of the desert and the responsibilities of freedom, they soon yearned to return to “the flesh-pots”, the gods, and the concomitant servitude of Egypt. It required forty years of peregrinations in the wilderness before the generation that was born into slavery had died out. Only then, could the generation that was born into freedom establish a truly free cultural entity.

As we read through the Passover Haggadah and we identify with those of our ancestors who had been slaves, even if we ourselves are not now held in physical bondage, we too need to consider to what extent our minds and souls may still be enslaved: to doctrines, ideologies, preconceptions, misconceptions, and prejudices?

Passover is a time for us to relive the experience of the Exodus. Not only were we once slaves to Pharaoh, we may still be slaves; slaves to the forces that eternally seek to control us. In every age there are those who crave domination over others, and there are those of us who, in exchange for physical comforts and relief from responsibilities, are more than willing to relinquish our mental and physical freedoms. In every generation, the temptations of slavery re-emerge. The battles for freedom, our struggles to escape from bondage, must be fought and re-fought anew.

Passover is a time for us to examine and re-examine all of those myriad forces that continually threaten to enslave us, all of us. It is a time, when we must, with our own “strong hand and an outstretched arm”, deliver ourselves from all the forms of servitude. For although G-d may free our bodies, the story of the Exodus illustrates to us that only we ourselves can free our souls. Therefore, Passover is not only a reminder to study the past, it is also a call, an injunction, to relive the Exodus in the present, to recognize the undistorted reality of our own lives.

Most of all, Passover is a time to reiterate and reaffirm the most important of all the Passover messages: We were once slaves in Egypt. As such, we know, all too intimately, the bitterness of slavery. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us never to enslave others. We must always seek to break the bonds of slavery, whatever their form, and wherever they exist, in the external physical world, and in the inner worlds of humanity’s minds and souls. For this principle, the universal abolition of slavery, is the essence of the spirit of Passover. We were once slaves in Egypt. Therefore, it is our obligation to ensure that no one, ever again, anywhere, will have to endure the sufferings of slavery.

haggadah Section: Introduction

Source: Reb Kalman Bar Yosef