Dear Barry,
In less than two weeks, the celebration of Passover will
begin. Commemorating the
liberation of the ancient Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the week-long
holiday begins with the Seder, a traditional meal at which to story of the
Exodus is recounted in considerable (some would say interminable!) detail. The narrative is embodied in a text
called the Haggadah which, over
hundreds of years has introduced generations of Jews – and not only Jews, as
you know from personal experience – to the story of how God instructed Moses to lead the Hebrew
children out of Egypt, helped them escape Pharaoh’s clutches, and, after
decades of trekking and turmoil, brought them to the Promised Land. It is a vibrant tale filled with drama,
conflict, peril, miracles, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.
While the Haggadah importantly
outlines the order of the Seder, it does much more. The Hebrew root of the word Haggadah is haggad, to
tell. Not “retell,” but
“tell.” At the beginning of the Seder
we declare that we are slaves, not simply that our forebears were slaves. We pray for our own deliverance, not
merely that of our ancestors. We
are asked not simply to remember the Exodus, but to relive it. We are commanded not simply to recall
the lessons of the Exodus story but to actively rededicate ourselves to them.
And what are those lessons? Here there is a delicious paradox. Even as we praise the unique love and caring for the people
chosen by God, even as we thank the Lord for delivering the Israelites from the
darkness of slavery to the light of freedom, we are required to experience our
shared humanity with everyone else.
Tonight, we are collectively all slaves, and thus we experience first
the deprivation of dignity and individuality at the dark core of slavery
followed by the celebration of our deliverance from it. Secondly, and here is another paradox,
the ecstasy of deliverance from slavery at the heart of the Passover narrative
is mitigated by our understanding that the world remains imperfect, that others
are still denied basic human rights.
Therefore we are required to rededicate ourselves to the effort of
repairing a broken world (the principle of tikkun
olam).
As you know from your
experience as a professor, effective education begins by understanding where
the students are. As Americans,
there is no better place to begin to understand the nature and consequences of
slavery than to face our own historic experience of the “peculiar
institution.” That’s why our
family Haggadah incorporates elements
of African-American experience within our more traditional Judaic
readings. In James Weldon Johnson’s
folk-sermon “Let My People Go,” from God’s
Trombones, we hear a powerful moral chorus linking black and Jewish
aspirations for freedom. And it is
hard not to be moved when Roosevelt Charles, a prisoner at the Angola Prison in
Alabama, sings “Let My People Go.”
Our own family’s Haggadah
has evolved over nearly half century, reflecting the changing over time of the
context in which this timeless story is told. It includes songs, stories, readings, and prayers that are
right for us. After all, the story
is not only universal, but also particular, not only public but also intimate. For
the Seder does not merely look back.
It does not only honor history, it also creates memories. It does not only commemorate freedom,
it also celebrates friends and family.
Each year before he died, my father would sing the Yiddish song “Oifn Pripetchok”
in which a rabbi speaks to the children about God’s words and urges them to
remember their lessons.
And so, while we recall the bonds of slavery that were
broken thousands of years ago by our Hebrew ancestors in Egypt, and while we
accept our responsibility to continue to combat slavery and injustice in the
world today, we also embrace worlds both large and small. This might be called “a community of
Pesach,” a triad highlighting our common humanity, Jewish peoplehood, and a
togetherness as family and friends.
Every journey reflects the relationship between the traveler
and the road. The traditional
ending of the Passover Seder expresses the hope that we will celebrate together
“Next year in Jerusalem.”
For most of us, we are speaking metaphorically, not making travel
plans. It means reflecting on the
root of the term, “Jerusalem,” the city – the center – of peace. Thus, we end the Seder where we began
with a rededication to the idea of wholeness in the world and within our
families and in our individual selves.
Let me close with a traditional wish to you and your family
for a ziss’n Pesach, a sweet Passover.
Respectfully,
Larry
March 26, 2012
