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Maggid (Retelling the Story)
Contributed by Dani Duke

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

The Torah’s account of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt is considered the founding story of the Jewish people. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, the Book of Exodus is the first time the Torah refers to the Israelities as an “Am”, meaning “a people,” or “a nation.” Passover, the holiday dedicated to retelling this Exodus story, is “the festival of Jewish identity,” Sacks writes. “It is the night on which we tell our children who they are.” We tell them the following: you were a stranger and a slave in Egypt, and you must always retain that sensibility, you must always identify with the outsider, the other, the abused and oppressed.

While the word “Haggadah” means “to tell,” and “seder” means “order,” the Haggadah is by no means an orderly retelling of the Exodus story. Instead, it is a mishmash of Torah verses, Talmud passages, medieval poetry, and even children’s songs. One commentator, comparing the Haggadah to “a cubist composition,” writes, “Rejecting standard narrative, it presents us with an ensemble of interlocking facet-like passages and ritual acts. Each one refers to an important aspect of the story but relates to adjacent sections in a seemingly disjointed fashion.” If you didn’t already know the plot of the Exodus story, I’m not sure you would be able to piece it together by reading through a traditional Haggadah. I think this is what the seder is supposed to do to us. It’s not so much about ensuring that we know the story, but that we feel it- that we’re left with a visceral, lingering sense of how it feels to be on the wrong end of oppressive power. So while the Haggadah is a helpful jumping-off point, we’re responsible for retelling this story in our own words, in a way that inscribes its trauma on our souls.
haggadah Section: Maggid - Beginning
Source: Here All Along by Sarah Hurwitz

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