Passover’s Opening Message: Confronting Oppression Today

The Maggid section of the Haggadah begins by pointing at the matzah and reciting in Aramaic, the vernacular of Jews at the time, the paragraph beginning with הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא:

This is the BREAD OF OPPRESSION our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who are in need come and join us for the Pesacḥ.

Why do we start with a paragraph that neither mentions the Exodus story nor even names God?

This simple invitation holds a radical message: it reframes the Passover story not just as a story of past suffering but as a moral compass for how we must act today.

It is much more than an open invitation to needy people to join us.

It’s a declaration that we will not repeat the sins of Egypt: We will not oppress, starve, or besiege others. We will not destroy homes, hospitals, or wells. We will not commit mass murder as Pharaoh’s army did. We will refuse to obey orders tantamount to war crimes, as the 2 Egyptian midwives did.

Our sages recognized that once we have power, there’s a great risk it will be terribly abused.

By welcoming the vulnerable into our homes tonight, we declare that power must be used with compassion, not to dominate and crush another people.

They intentionally placed this paragraph at the very beginning of the seder to remind us: the true test of freedom will be in how we treat others once we are free.