The Lessons of the Seder Remembered

I once believed that the spiritual exodus was what made the Seder relevant in my life- that the cage I imagined in my mind’s eye existed only there, and that the real work was to confront the pharaohs of my own hatred, blindness, ignorance, limitations and reactions.

But since October 7^th, I can smell the rust on the metal of the cage.

Like so many others, I have awoken to a deeper truth felt in my bones, as though dormant genes have been turned on- that this is a true story. The folly of my former view was in believing the only purpose of the Seder was to serve as a vehicle for understanding something about myself, rather than the world around me. I had believed the ritual to be an allegory- a tool for transcending spiritual bondage and traversing the Red Sea of one’s ego toward a promised land of self-actualization. I find myself looking back on my writings from this time with the tender sadness that one might feel for a child not yet initiated to the ways of the world- the naivete of the simple one who believes himself to be wise.

That belief was born of privilege, safety, and belonging. It was a forgetting that such moments are an aberration in our history. I had, like the wicked child in the Haggadah, imagined myself separate from our people and our story.

I understand now that the peshat– the plain, literal meaning- is as holy as the sod, the esoteric, and that a Jew needs both to survive. I had forgotten the peshat. I had forgotten that the purpose of the Seder is also a mandate to literally gather our children at a table surrounded by their elders and to tell them the story of the hatred they will endure and how they will survive it and thrive with their people. And to do it again each year.

It is meant to prepare them. To brace them. Perhaps to harden them.

The Haggadah tells us that the wise one asks about the meaning of this suffering. But before we can interpret the suffering, before we can debate its purpose, we must first feel it in the body, we must experience it as a raw guttural thing. The wise one’s words elevate and expand the soul by telling the story of the Seder through the lens of our inner bondage. But to be consumed with introspection while one is being hunted is a form of self-sacrifice. Without the grounding of the earth, the wise one floats away on the gales of the metaphorical interpretations of the story, untethered to the realities of being a Jew in this world.

The wicked one asks, “What is this service to you,” referring to her brothers as “you” and failing to understand that the story is about her. She believes she can escape the unbearable suffering imposed on her brothers by the Pharaoh if she only becomes an Egyptian. She chases separateness, not realizing that she too was in Egypt. She too was in Kibbutz Nir Oz. The wickedness lies in her failure to see that the perennial fire that destroys her brothers will ultimately consume her too.

The simple one asks what is this suffering? But he cannot understand if he has not listened to the story.

And then there is the child who does not know enough to even ask a question. And so he listens. The Haggadah tells us that to him, we open the discussion.

It is this child who creates an opening for our imperative to teach and listen and to pass on our story. It is he who draws us into the ancient cycle of remembrance and belonging, and implores us to tell the story from generation to generation. He is the one who reminds us that the bondage and the freedom are not merely metaphors, but living truths. He compels us to remember that though the Pharaohs change shape and the justifications for their hatred change form, it is only by knowing this evil in our bones that we may guard against it.

It is this child who shows us who we are. It is he who teaches the simple one the story so he may understand the nature of this suffering. It is he who teaches the wicked one that her separateness from her people will not shield her from suffering, that her redemption lies in connection to her people, and that she must understand her identity before separating from it. And it is this child who grounds the wise one, who forces her to sit through the seder, and tell the story in its basic detail, to dip her finger in wine, red as blood, and stain the white napkin. To remind her that this suffering is not merely an allegory facilitating her own spiritual exodus, but also a warning of a danger that must be guarded against in the physical world.

Each of these children lives within us.

Since October 7th, I have poured myself into the work of educating and combatting antisemitism. What I’ve come to see with clarity is how little we, as a people, know about ourselves. About what it means to be Jewish- not just in the spiritual sense, but in the concrete, historical, embodied sense.

Like the Jews of Medieval Spain or the emancipated Jews of the Enlightenment, I too lived in a golden age that ended abruptly on October 7, 2023. That day, the chains and blood of my ancestors reappeared- this time in Re’im- and our cries were met with silence and ridicule by those we once called friends.

This year, and every year after, we will tell our children the story of our people with new intention. And we will spend the rest of the year, and the rest of our lives, continuing to tell it. So that one day they too will sit at a table with their own children and teach them: we must understand ourselves, but we must also understand those who seek to harm us. Our survival lies in both.

That knowledge, rooted in ritual, story, and memory, is our inheritance and our shield. And it is our answer to those who rise against us in every generation.