Magid (the story)

The recalling of the Passover story is the central component of the Passover Seder, and there are a wide range of traditions in how the story is told. The book of Exodus in the Torah  is  the Passover story, and we could simply read Exodus next, but that would miss the point and take quite a while. In the traditional Haggadah, parts of the story are related several times, from different perspectives, and in different levels of detail. The point isn’t to read the story as it’s found in the Torah, but to retell it in a way that makes meaning to each of us here tonight.

First, let’s get the basics. The Haggadah begins the story with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people (and who lived before Jews were ‘Jews,’ in Canaan). Jacob’s name was changed into “Israel” in a story in the book of Genesis, and his descendants are called Israelites, which is what you need to know to understand the start of the Exodus story:

Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt יַעֲקֹב וּבָנָיו יָרְדוּ מִצְרָיִם
since the famine was heavy in the land of Canaan. כִּי כָבֵד הָרָעָב בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן
And he became a nation of people. וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי.
And Egyptians enslaved the Israelites with breaking work. יַּעֲבִדוּ מִצְרַיִם אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּפָרֶךְ

Fast-forwarding, God decides to free the Israelites by making life so hard for the Egyptians through ten plagues that they agree to let the Israelites leave. God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doors with its blood so that God would pass over those houses and spare them from the last plague. While the Egyptians were suffering, the Israelites escaped into the dessert and headed toward the land of Israel.

We remember the sacrificed lamb not only as the afikomen but also as the bone on the Seder plate.

We’ve now retold the Exodus story, but we haven’t felt as though we were in the land of Egypt ourselves. So we’ll pause here, and I ask that each of you recall a time of suffering or oppression in your own life. And I ask that you keep that memory with you over the next few minutes.

With this in mind, please drink your second cup of wine or eat your second grape.


haggadah Section: Maggid - Beginning