The story told in the Haggadah
is an ancient one. The Almighty, Blessed be He, redeemed us from the slavery
of Egypt. Fulfilling a promise He made to the patriarchs to set us free,
He permitted us to seek out and to commit ourselves
to His service. This we did at Sinai and forever became the bearers of Hashem's
message.
To recall these historic and world changing events, we
are bidden by
the Hagaddah "that in every generation, one is obliged to regard himself
as though he himself had actually gone out from Egypt, for the Torah says,
'You
shall tell your son on that day saying, for the sake of this, Hashem did
for me
when I went out from Egypt.'"
These words have always
puzzled me. How do you manage to regard yourself as
having just left Egypt? For that matter, one of the most often repeated
questions is "How do I craft a Seder so that the guests do not go to
sleep? How can I involve them emotionally in the events being described?
Outside of a
virtual reality device, the questions are serious reminders of what we find
so
difficult in the conduct of our Seders today.
The critical issue is the lack in involvement that most
Seder participants
have in what is going on, and as a consequence, their incapacity to pay
serious
attention to the text. Part of that is connected to failures in our general
educational system; part to our disinterest in our heritage (too often taken
for
granted); part to the difficulty of sustained study in a subject unrelated
to
our earning a living. But most of all, the disinvolvement is due to the
fact
that Egypt and exodus, slavery and redemption, commitment and devotion to
faith are not considered sufficiently important to us in our continuing
search to
confront what is it that is Jewish about us.
There is a remarkable parallel between the Exodus story
in the Haggadah and
life today. The redemption from Egypt came at a critical moment in our history.
Our Sages tell us that if Hashem would not have redeemed us at that
particular moment, we would have been swallowed up alive in the life and
beliefs of Egypt. We would have become Egyptians. Burdened by centuries
of oppression, and without a clear vision as to what our purpose was; we
had almost completely lost our identity. Hashem's action saved us from extinction
as Jews.
Identity is a unique treasure. It is at the core of our
being. It directs our sense of self-perception and places us in a meaningful
nexus. Identity can be
destroyed by physical annihilation, by terrible burdens and hardships that
do
not permit it to raise its head and develop. It can also be obliterated
by a
life so rich in seduction and pleasure that there seems little need to
question its presence. After all, we are Jews because we were raised to
think of ourselves as Jews. My question is "is this enough?"
The issues facing the
challenge to our identity now are the same as those
faced by our forefathers in Egypt though the immediate causes seem to
be world's apart. In the struggle to retain our identity in Egypt in the
face of
extraordinary hardships, we chose to do a number of things that contributed
to our existence as Jews. The Rabbis said that we made a "compact
with Jews,"
i.e., we entered into an agreement with each other, 1.) that we would
be true
to the way of life preserved by our ancestors, 2.) that we would perform
deeds
of loving kindness to our fellows, 3.) that we would be continuousIy on
our guard against idolatrous practices as practiced by the Egyptians,
4.) that we would speak Hebrew to each other, and 5.) that we would not
Egyptianize our names.
It is amazing to reflect that in spite of centuries of
oppression in Egypt (the last century being one of great travailand pain),
the tribes of Israel had
managed to keep their identity as a community. From the perspective of
time,
the means chosen were simple and powerful. After all, the Torah had not
yet been given, but within the circle of Mitzvoth that had been prescribed
by the Patriarchs, the thread of Jewish existence was still maintained.
We didn't change our names. As the Talmud says, they
didn't call Reuben
- Rufus, and Judah - Lulaini, and Joseph - Listis. The Torah says, "these
are the
families of Reuben." I have often wondered what of an impact it would
have made if we had adhered to this simple thought.
Many of the inquiries that come my way connected to birthing
are "What do we
name our child?" I think it important that a child should have a
Jewish name,
but I pray at the same time that the Jewish name be used more often than
at
one's Bar/Bat Mitzvah or wedding. I wonder what it might have meant for
Jewish
identity if all the Moshes would have been called Moshe and all the Avrahams
called Avraham and the Yehudas, Yehuda. Even if we would have fallen short
of
that goal, I wonder what effect it would have had, had we raised our children
in
our homes, as so many of us were raised, being called only by our Jewish
names and not their English equivalents. And it may still yet be done.
Certainly,
as grandparents might we not inject a little bit of yiddishkeit into grandchildren's
lives by calling them only by their Hebrew or Yiddish names? Shayna, Fraedal,
Simcha and Yona are truly lovely names.
In Egypt, we maintained
our own language. In spite of the fact that for four
centuries, Jews were born, lived and died in Egypt. We remained faithful
to
our holy tongue, Hebrew. I wonder sometimes, what might have been the
result if failing to create a Hebrew speaking subculture in the United
States, we
would have required all our children as part of the process of growing
into
adulthood, to spend a year in Israel. In their experiences of study or
work or
volunteering, their ears could hear and absorb the sound of Hebrew and
their eyes could see the living language of our people. Those experiences
would at
one stroke, remove the sense of strangeness that affects so many of us
when
we hear our prayers in Hebrew. To be able to discern the sound of Hebrew
among the polyphony of many languages would be an invaluable gift. I wonder
what it would have meant to our sense of being Jews to know that we are
a part of a Hebrew-speaking people. It was in knowing Hebrew and speaking
it in Egypt that we remembered that we were different and that we were
Jewish. Though I am sure that the Hebrew the Israelites spoke was often
secular and had lost much of its Kedusha, it still formed a focal point
for Jewish identity. Certainly we who are in spiritual exile can find
in Hebrew a powerful tool for identifying ourselves with our people -
and it is within the reach of everyone to spend time
in the Hebrew land of Israel.
Our faith has mandated that we are different. It is the
core theme of the
prayer that concludes the Shabbat and begins the secular week. The prayer
is
called "Havdalah" and it means "Separation." Our forefathers
knew that to remain a Jew required from us a willingness to pay the price
of being different. We were able to work among our neighbors, to participate
in the common good, to socialize, even to acculturate but not to assimilate.
The ultimate cost of assimilation was heavy then - and still is. And I
wonder what it would be like for
us here in America, if we could educate our children to the notion that
we are different (not better), that it is worthwhile being different,
and that we
practice those behaviors that set us apart. We live this different life
so that we can fulfill Hashem's demand that His name be spread throughout
the universe.
The last item in the compact that our ancestors made
with each other was that
they continue to perform deeds of living kindness. We perform deeds of
loving-kindness. We worried and worked for those of our people who were
in need. We
remembered and we caused others to remember. We grieved together and we
celebrated together. We helped the destitute in ways that have been admired
for centuries by our non-Jewish neighbors. We have supported our charitable
institutions. We have recognized our responsibility toward our own and
we have never shirked in giving of our resources, and ourselves whether
it is to the
J.U.F. or Federation; whether it is to the Ark or FREE; whether it is
to Yeshivot
or to our synagogue or to the synagogue's various charitable drives, whether
it is to the many needs of Israel or life here.
If we could manage this, then the critical issue of which
I wrote earlier, i.e., the lack of involvement Seder participants feel
in their being Jewish and consequently in this major role playing that
constitutes the Seder service, may be reduced. Identity is a sense of
who one is that is very special and only if that sense is strong, can
we perform what the Torah asks of us, “that in every generation,
one is obliged to regard himself as if he/she had actually gone out from
Egypt."
Certainly on the eve of Pesach as we look about the Jewish
community and
recognize the danger that it faces from the hidden destruction that stems
from a loss of identity, ought we not at least consider what kept our
forefathers in
Egypt alive and in so doing, live in the same way ourselves.
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