The Obligation to Sanctify- Pesach Day 1 5785

One of the things that I enjoy doing while I drive is listening to podcasts. Over the last two weeks or so I’ve been listening to a lot of Jewish ones having to do with Pesach (if you’d like Jewish podcast recommendations, let’s talk). I don’t just listen to them while I drive, but also while I do work at home and, over the last few days, as I’ve been cleaning for Pesach.

One of them- I think it was the podcast “Identity/Crisis” from the Shalom Hartman Institute- gave me a new perspective on Passover. As we know, the seder is all about questions. There are four big ones (or just one, depending on how you count) around the theme of “Why is this night different from all other nights?”. However, in this particular podcast episode, the host Yehuda Kurtzer and his guest, the author Dara Horn, posited that this is not the real question we should be asking ourselves around the seder table. The true question we should be asking ourselves is: “How is this seder different from last year’s, or the year before that?”

I’ve been contemplating my own answer to that question, and I must say that it’s been a mixed bag. In a lot of ways, I enjoy the familiarity of the seder: my mother in law’s multiple charosets, my make-it-once-a-year gefilte fish, singing “Pharaoh’s Frogs” and “Adir Hu”, and other proverbial checkboxes, including- not to be overlooked- that old standby, slivovitz. 

That said, I’m also this year leaning into uncertainty and ambiguity at our seder. In addition to our usual readings and songs outside of the hagadah (we actually have a packet which we call “The Supplement”), we’re doing other things to mark not only where we are in the Jewish year but also in this particular moment. This year we’ve included a lemon on our seder plate (as suggested by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of the murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin Z”L) and also yellow flowers beside it, to symbolize the ongoing plight of the hostages of October 7, 2023 as well as a hope for peace.

We also put down butcher paper to serve as both a table cloth and as coloring paper, and we provide crayons so that people can draw answers to certain questions we ask. (This is an especially good idea if you have several young children at your seder, like we do). 

Most radically for me, I find myself wanting to lean away from the hagadah this year. I heard it said on another podcast earlier this week: “The hagadah is not the seder, and the seder is not the hagadah.” This is undoubtedly true; the hagadah as liturgy serves a purpose, but it is not an untouchable script. Since the very inception of the Passover seder, changes have been made to it. The seder experience is not simply about reciting the hagadah itself, but recalling someway, somehow our communal journey from slavery to freedom. The hagadah itself says in so many words: “Whoever expounds at length on the Exodus from Egypt is to be praised.”

I think I’m feeling the most ambiguity around the first listed “step” of the seder in the hagadah- kadesh, or sanctifying the day through kiddush. When I consider the state of our world- Israel at war, hostages in Gaza, my own country in political turmoil, members of my own family not entirely safe and secure, climate change- how can I sanctify this time as holy when the world so often feels unholy?

The Hebrew word for Egypt- Mitzrayim– literally translates to “the narrow place”, or “the straits” if you will. I, for one, feel all too often nowadays that the people and communities I care about are indeed in dire straights. And while, thank G-d, we ourselves are not slaves, we do still feel the weight of oppression in our lives.

Unsurprisingly, this ambiguity is a familiar feeling in the tradition, especially with regards to Pesach. In his Passover message this week, Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal writes: “Judaism is constantly reminding us that we can hold more than one emotion, or one truth, at the same time. The Torah (Deuteronomy 16:3) tells us that the matzah [which we eat on Pesach] is both “Lehem oni – the bread of slavery,” and, in the next phrase, “Ki b’hipazon yatzata me’eretz mitzrayim – the bread we ate in a hurry in our rush to freedom.” Freedom and slavery in every bite.”

And yet, I am indeed obligated to sanctify. By virtue of G-d’s taking us out of Egypt, the haggadah says in Hebrew that may sound familiar to us, from the Shabbat morning service:

לְפִיכָךְ אֲנַחְנוּ חַיָּבִים לְהוֹדוֹת, לְהַלֵּל, לְשַׁבֵּחַ, לְפָאֵר, לְרוֹמֵם, לְהַדֵּר, לְבָרֵךְ, לְעַלֵּה, וּלְקַלֵּס לְמִי שֶׁעָשָׂה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ אֶת־כָּל־הַנִסִּים הָאֵלּוּ

“Therefore it is our duty to thank, praise, laud, glorify, exalt, honor, bless, raise high, and acclaim the One who has performed all these miracles for our ancestors and for us.”

There are other notable instances of conflicting feelings at the seder. We break the middle matzah in half at yachatz, symbolizing in part the brokenness of the world and our duty to help repair it. We say only half of hallel at a time and take ten drops of wine out of our glasses to lessen our joy and recall the plight of the Egyptians in the Exodus narrative. Even the concluding words of the seder- “B’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim”, “Next year in Jerusalem”- encompass both hope and imperfection.

Again, this is nothing new- I’m just feeling it more acutely this year. The Talmud in masechet Berachot teaches us to bless the good as well as the bad, and this is what we do. When we hear of a death, G-d forbid, we say the words “Baruch Dayan Emet”- “blessed is the true judge.”

All of the rituals and words of the hagadah, it must be remembered, are a jumping off point. You don’t have to recite every word as it’s written with nothing else (our seders would look very similar and be much shorter if that were the case!). There are certain things we have to do. For years, the line that has been most resonant for me has been the line from Maggid: 

בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם

“In each and every generation a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally went out from Egypt.”

I love this line because it is itself a jumping off point to really deep questions I want to ask myself, which in turn answer Yehuda Kurtzer and Dara Horn’s question. What this year, metaphorically, is my Egypt? How am I more or less free than I was a year ago? What am I doing to ensure freedom and liberty for others? How am I experiencing the retelling of our national narrative differently this year than last?

I’m still sussing out the answers to these questions, which is of course one of the foundations of the holiday itself. Some answers are straightforward, just as the answer that we give to the Wise Son’s question of “Would you please explain all the Pesach laws and statutes?”. Other answers, such as the plain meaning of what it means to be free- which I’ll say for me is the more alive question right now- have no straightforward answers. We have to find out for ourselves personally what makes this particular Pesach unique among the others we’ve celebrated.

As we embark on the 50-day journey from Passover through the Omer on the way to Shavuot- the journey from slavery to true freedom- I pray that we should be okay with there being no easy answers to some of our questions. That we are able to sit, for at least a little while, with our own discomfort and the discomfort of others. That we find it in ourselves to bless the rah along with the tov– the bad along with the good. That we find the courage to improvise and not stick to the script if we’re not feeling it. And that the story of our liberation, in whatever manner we choose to tell it, continues to be a source of pride and happiness for us.

To paraphrase the Shechechiyanu blessing which we recited last night and will tonight again- Praised are you, Hashem, who has enabled us to reach this time, in all of its complexity. Chag sameach.