Search Library

Telling the Story Part 2
Contributed by Lily Kaplan

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

In the Jewish tradition, Moses is the highest example of a leader. Many have been compared to him. A Hasidic tale urges us not to compare ourselves to Moses. In the tale, Rabbi Zusya tells his students that when he leaves this life and arrives in the World to Come, he will not be asked, “Why were you not Moses?” but rather, “Why were you not Zusya?” Trying to be

Moses, or Gandhi, or Cesar Chavez, or Martin Luther King Jr., can limit our confidence and stifle our own creativity.

Yet we might ask, what did Moses do that I can learn from? When Moses had grown up, “he went out to his kinsfolk and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He looked here and there and seeing that no one was about, he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” The rabbinic commentators point out that Moses’ first experience as an activist was to see his fellow with his eyes and his heart, and suffer on his or her account. Not only that, but when he “looked here and there, seeing no one,” it means that he saw no one who was ready to champion the cause of justice.

The first step to standing up, whether to taskmasters or to Pharaoh or to bullies or to any injustice, is this simple act: look and see. You may not feel personally threatened. You may be perfectly comfortable. You may want to run away. But the minute you see someone else’s suffering, your heart can’t help but be moved.

Still, in this one action, Moses did not succeed in freeing the oppressed Hebrews. The liberation did not begin with Moses, but with the cry of the Hebrews themselves: “They were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. God heard their moaning, and God took notice of them.” The Jewish tradition understands these verses to mean that until the people actually cry out, until they speak about their suffering, until they come together to say “we won’t take it anymore,” nothing changes. The midwives were ready to be leaders, Yocheved and Miriam were ready, Pharaoh’s daughter was ready, and Moses himself was ready. But no one could take the Israelites out of Egypt until the people were ready. Each of us has a role to play in the task of liberation; when we lift our voices together, we can crash through all obstacles to justice.

“When I dare to be powerful — to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

— Audre Lorde
haggadah Section: Maggid - Beginning

Featured clips


More clips from Lily Kaplan