For the past couple of weeks,
Sarrae has spent nearly every day at her father’s house. The house finally was
sold and she, with some assist from her sister and at times from me, has been
methodically going from room to room, emptying drawers and closets and boxes
which were filled with papers. My father-in-law kept bank records and other
documents going back to the 70’s.and beyond Oy! But amidst figuring out which documents had to be
shredded, which could be just tossed into the growing mound of trash bags and
which had to be saved for the IRS, we found his ketubah, birth announcements,
all of the letters that Sarrae had sent to her parents while in Israel for her
junior year and much more. And in Sarrae’s room, we found USY material from the
60’s and a folio of documents about Soviet Jewry: the Jewish cause of that
period.
How many of you added an extra
matzah to your seder tables for Soviet Jewry and read the passage,”Tthe matzah
of hope?” I know we did? We had 4 matzot and read that declaration for 20 years
or more until finally Soviet Jewry was free when the Iron Curtain came down. How
many of you marched and rallied in New York and in Washington as we did and
lived to see Soviet Jewry Free? We shouted “1, 2, 3 Open up the Iron Door,” and
“And Let My People Go.” I remember the Washington rally in the 80’s, when many
of the refuseniks whose freedom we had championed spoke on behalf of those
still locked in the Soviet Union.
The texts of liberation from
Egyptian bondage served us as Jews during that era. They also served the Civil
Right community with its rich imagery; and it even served as inspiration for
our founding fathers. Some of you know that Ben Franklin wanted the national
seal to depict the crossing of the Red Sea.
The Torah portion we read this
morning, as well as which we read last week and will read next week, which
offers the poetic imagery of Kriat Yam Suf, of the splitting of the Red Sea and
its aftermath, certainly has inspired generations of people of many backgrounds
in their pursuit of freedom.
But for me, every time we reach the
portion of Bo, I am reminded that Pesach is a little more than 2 months down
the pike--Oy (next year is a leap year, it will be three months later), but
more significantly I find myself haunted by one passage which makes the jump
from the Biblical text to the Haggadah. Indeed, it would appear that the very
word Haggadah owes its derivation to this passage. Specifically, in chapter 13,
verse 8 we read: “V’hegatadtah L’vinchah Bayom HaHu Laymor, and
you shall explain to your son on that day, “It is because of what the Lord did
for me when I went from Egypt.”
The passage challenges on different
levels. First of all it challenges us as adults. We are to be knowledgeable
enough to transmit the essence of the Tradition to the next generation. We
shall set aside the male genderness of the passage, because that is how the
Bible spoke--one of the limitations of Hebrew is that it lacks gender neutral
language-- and instead focus on the mandate as one that embraces not only
fathers and sons, but parents and children, indeed, adults and children, of all
genders. How much have we managed to forget from our days in school, be it
Hebrew School or even Day school? Admittedly some remember more than others.I have to admit that
I was impressed when last week Kyle told me that she had spent a day working
through a sale using her day school Hebrew. Pirke Avot teache us D’lah
Moseef, Y’suf, that if we don’t refresh our knowledge, if we don’t learn on
yet higher and higher levels, what we learn fades away. To be able to explain,
we need to continue to learn.
Secondly, this passage appears
twice in the Haggadah, both times in the context of responding to one of the
four sons. In its complete form it is framed as the way of reaching out to the
One who does not know how to ask. But the second half is incorporated into the
response to the Rashah, the so-called wicked offspring, wherein the Rabbis play
on the words what God did for Me; what God did for me and not for him. This
dual usage reminds us of the challenge not only to be knowledgeable but to
recognize that we speak to the next generation who come to us from different
places in life; that we need to be able to address them all. And that frankly
is a very difficult task. And despite one’s best efforts results are not
guaranteed. For example, my brothers and I each travel down a different road of
Jewish engagement.
And finally, the declaration at the
end that should raise an eyebrow or two; the passage that declares “Ba’avur
zeh Asah Hashem Lee B’tsaytee MeMitsrayim: It is because of what the Lord
did for me when I went from Egypt.” I don’t know about your travels, but in all
of my travels, I haven’t been in Egypt, so I can’t even say that I, too, have
physically left Egypt. How does this passage continue to resonate?
65 years ago, 200 survivors of the
Holocaust gathered for Pesach in Much for a seder conducted by an American army
chaplain. Rabbi Klausner in his introduction to their unique haggadah, which
has been reprinted as the Survivors Haggadah, wrote:
In their hearts they felt very
close to all that which was narrated. Pharaoh and Egypt gave way to Hitler and
German. Pitham and Ramses faded beneath fresh memories of Buchenwald and
Dachau. The driving spirit of the victory they felt was the sam,e but the
leadership had changed. Great Allied armies replaced the ancient handful and in
the scared conviction of Moses now stood General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
For them and others, there was a
way of transposing their horrors and identifying with our ancestors. But what
of us, who have been spared? How can we proclaim that we were liberated from
Egyptian bondage? Let me share with you an insight by Professor Neil Gillman of
the Seminary. “The story is not only their story; it is ours as well. The
Exodus inhabits and eternal present. All Jews came out of Egypt; all Jews stood
at the foot of Sinai. It is worth noting that Christians make the same claim
about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. On Easter Sunday, Christians do no
say that on this day “Christ arose.” Rather, they say “Christ is risen.” Or as
the Haggadah later declares, “B’chol dor vador Chayav Adam Lir’ot et atsmoh
K’ilu hu Yatsah Memitstrayim, In every generation one must view oneself as
having left Egypt.” It is a perpetual challenge to identify with the
downtrodden, to obtain the mind-set of a newly liberated slave.
Passover is still 2 months away—the
first seder is on March 29th--, but the messages of this passage are
year-round. It was that ability to identify the oppression of Soviet Jewry with
the oppression of the ancient Israelites which brought powerful resonance to
the struggle. May we be faithful
transmitters of the Tradition to and continue to find ways to see identify with
the past and bring that empathy to those struggling for freedom in our world.
Shabbat shalom.
