Spirit and Story Archive

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A Passover Reflection

By Irwin Kula

The seder is one of the most powerful and evocative rituals in Jewish life and one of the rituals in which most Jews participate. Ritual is actually a drama or re-enactment. When ritual functions well it literally transforms us, transporting us into an alternative world that helps us understand more deeply who we are. When ritual is fully engaging, participants have what is called “a spiritual experience.” What that really means is that the boundaries of the self, which define who we are day in and day out, are loosened, enabling us to intuit or gain insight or illumination into who we really are. This intuition is a different kind of knowledge from that which comes through study and intellectual reflection. It has a more immediate feel. It is wisdom which ultimately does not flow from the outside in, but rather from the inside out.

Often in ritual enactment, a story is dramatized and one becomes a character in the story. Such serious play-acting creates an expanded understanding of one’s self. For example, at a bris one “becomes” Abraham circumcising his son and gains insight into the “cutting-edge” commitment one makes by bringing a child into the world as a Jew. At a wedding under the huppah, as the sheva brachot are chanted, the groom and bride “become” Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, understanding not intellectually but intuitively that their marriage is a new world. On Sukkot, one is transformed into a traveler on a journey to a promised destination, and comes to learn that while the journey may be filled with obstacles and the goal may remain elusive, one is protected and loved throughout the journey that is life itself.

But of all the ritual enactments in Jewish life, none is more central or important than the Passover seder which, for more than 1,800 years, has served to dramatize the Exodus from Egypt -- the most important moment in Jewish history and self-understanding. Viewed as a rite of re-enactment, our question about the seder becomes: With which of the story’s characters do we identify in our own recital of the Exodus story? And what do we learn through this process of identification?

It seems pretty clear that for most of Jewish history those gathered around the seder table have identified with those who were enslaved. Indeed, the Haggadah tells us that b’chol dor va’dor – in every generation -- we are, through the performance of the seder, to experience ourselves as if we went out of Egypt. More than an empty prescription, this statement reflects what people actually experienced in their seders. Through the seder, participants were first enslaved and then journeyed from slavery unto freedom. They experienced this journey “physically” by eating maror, bitter herbs, inducing a bodily response to the bitterness of slavery, and then eating matzah, evoking the flight from Egypt and the anticipation of freedom. They experienced the journey “intellectually,” in the mind, as they studied the rabbinic texts at the heart of the Haggadah. And those Jews who understood the seder as an extended meditation or spiritual practice, by “becoming slaves who are liberated,” intuited the “knowledge” that freedom was their destiny.

Since, historically, most Jews participating in the seder have lived under conditions of powerlessness, poverty and persecution, the identification with the enslaved Israelites came quite naturally. Moreover, by ritually re-enacting the movement of slavery to freedom, participants at the seder might have experienced genuine hope on multiple levels. Physically, the festive meal conveyed a feeling of enjoyment like that enjoyed by a free people when it dines and celebrates. Intellectually, the recitation of the Exodus story reminded the participants that as their ancestors in Egypt had been delivered, so too would they or their descendants be delivered from their less onerous circumstances. Moreover, on the spiritual level, the story imparted an awareness that those gathered around the seder table were already as fundamentally free as the Israelites who had been redeemed from Egypt.

Ours, however, is a different era, and our circumstances are quite unlike those of our ancestors who have recited this story for millennia. For us today, the question is whether the enactment of the Passover story can speak to us, and shape us, in ways that are better suited to our own very different socio-economic and political condition. Perhaps, if we were to identify with other characters in the story – or to identify with the struggles of our ancestors in a new way, we might discover some deeper insight about ourselves and about our role in the world. Since we enjoy unprecedented freedom, we do not need to experience the movement from slavery to freedom in order to believe that freedom is possible. Nor are we so threatened in the world that we need the seder to convey to us the hope that we need to survive. It may actually be that over-identifying with the victim, especially for a people whose history has been so laden with victimhood, is counterproductive to creating a sense of moral responsibility. It may be that over-identifying on Pesach night with the slaves in Egypt enables us to avoid confronting the full implications of the change in the Jewish condition from want to abundance, from powerlessness to power, from persecution to freedom. Experiencing ourselves as victims plays into our worst – and least realistic -- fears about the world, precisely when our condition in the world has changed so dramatically.

This fear that the “other” will destroy us physically (which was a legitimate anxiety for much of Jewish history) has now become the psychological/cultural fear that the “other” will absorb us (through assimilation). This fear keeps us from moving on to the business of constructing Jewish identities that are not grounded in opposition to, and fear of, the “other,” but that are premised upon hope and a sense that we live in an era that presents us with abundant and creative opportunities for Jewish experience and expression. The fear that is so pervasive in Jewish communal life creates a hunkering down mentality about Jewishness that aims to protect Judaism from the world rather than liberating Judaism for creative engagement with the world. Moreover, there is none more dangerous to others than a person who is powerful, but who still thinks of himself as a victim. The anger and resentment of victimhood can too easily be translated into violence against the other.

Ours, then, is a new era in Jewish history, and like so much within Judaism, Pesach and the seder need to be re-imagined in a manner that is appropriate for this new era. Participants in contemporary seders have needs – and need to learn lessons -- that differ from those of the participants in seders past. What past and present share, however, is the understanding that the seder is a powerful rite of re-enactment and that it has an unequaled capacity to convey the most important lessons about the meaning of human identity. Mindful of the seder’s power and of the age in which we live, we have but one question to ask: With what characters of the Exodus story – and with what understanding – should we identify if the seder is to do the work of helping us to grasp who we are, and what we need to do, as Jews in the 21st century?

It seems to me there are at least four possibilities, each of which might be called to mind before each of the four cups of wine.

Cup one: In drinking this cup, let us identify with the slaves, and remember how bitter it once was for us. In experiencing the stark contrast between our ancestors’ slavery and our own freedom, we should feel grateful for what we have and feel empathy for those in the world who are still suffering. Through our re-experiencing of the Exodus, may we emerge from “Exodus-time” filled not only with hope for our ultimate redemption, but with a sense of indebtedness for the freedom we already enjoy. May we strive to live in ways that honor the gift of our freedom by using that freedom to liberate those who are not yet free. In the words of the Torah, “Remember you were a slave in Egypt, and therefore treat the powerless accordingly.”

Cup two: In drinking this cup, let us remember that the Exodus has an inward dimension, that it maps an exodus from psychological slavery to psychological freedom. By opening ourselves to this dimension of the story, we meet the internal Pharaohs that imprison us, the internal demons that enslave us, that keep us from reaching our potential and from being free to trust and love fully. We become mindful of the ingrained patterns of thought and behavior that predetermine so many of our choices and keep us from a deeper awareness of the genuine freedom we have, and from responsibility for the myriad of choices we make every day. In this experience, we ask ourselves who are the taskmasters of our psyches that inhibit us and keep us from feeling the infinite dignity and value that is our right as human beings. Experiencing the Exodus in this way, we locate within ourselves the “staff” that is the source of the strength that helps us to overcome our inner obstacles and become truly free. In drinking this cup, we deepen the politically activist understanding of the Exodus to encompass the inner spiritual growth that is necessary if we are to become effective agents of change.

Cup three: In drinking this cup, let us identify with Joseph, whose presence in the Exodus drama goes back to the beginning of the story. Joseph is the first Israelite to go down to Egypt. It is because of his high position there that the entire family will eventually go down to Egypt as well. The Torah describes Joseph as saving the Egyptians by giving them food during the seven-year famine. But the Torah also says (in Genesis 47:19,25) that in the very process of supplying the Egyptians with food, Joseph made the Egyptians into avadim l'Pharaoh, into slaves to Pharaoh. In fact, the first time the phrase “slaves to Pharaoh” is used, it is not to describe the Israelites, but rather to describe the Egyptians who have been enslaved to Pharaoh by Joseph! This makes the subsequent enslavement of the Israelites, when a new Pharaoh arises, far more complex. Rather than simply ascribing to the new Pharaoh a blind hatred of the Israelites and ascribing complicity to the Egyptians, by identifying with Joseph we are led to realize that we were the first enslavers. Rather than seeing ourselves as the wholly innocent victims of some “other's” hatred, we realize, in a painful moment of awareness, that, “measure for measure,” we got what we gave. This is a radical reversal of the typical manner in which we Jews interpret our history as being a story about ourselves as victims with all the world against us.

By becoming Joseph, we can identify with Joseph’s rise to power in the Diaspora and enjoy the influence we have attained at the highest levels of society. But at the same time, we are led to ask whether like Joseph -- despite the best of intentions -- we have exercised our power and influence to the detriment of other people. Becoming Joseph, we are attentive to the seductive aspect of power and influence. We become aware of how, to our credit, we have learned to successfully negotiate and navigate the political and economic waters of our American society. But we also understand that we must be attentive to the social and human costs of a political and economic system that has been the source of injustice even as it has benefited us in many ways. To our credit, we have become experts at tzedakah as a means of redressing societies’ ills, and we know well the teaching that tzedakah is not charity. But perhaps by “becoming” Joseph, we will see beyond him and grasp that giving tzedakah cannot always compensate for a lack of social justice.

Cup four: In drinking this cup, let us identify with Moses who, having grown up in the court of Pharaoh -- secure, comfortable, affluent, and powerful, recognized the responsibility to change the world that comes with the gifts of power, privilege and affluence. Today, our political and economic condition is much more like Moses’ than that of the enslaved children of Israel. Like Moses, we too have the choice of whether or not to risk the comfort and security that we enjoy in order to fight for the justice that is denied to those who are oppressed. Moses, though raised in radically different circumstances than the Israelites, nevertheless saw himself as their kinsman. In drinking this cup, and in becoming Moses at this moment, we feel the magnitude of the challenge that Moses poses to all of us who live in gated communities, who are set apart from our fellow human beings who suffer deprivation, at least in part, on account of the very political and economic structures of our society that have enabled our own personal success.

With the eyes of Moses, we look out upon the landscape that is our world and feel the summons to responsibility that singles out each of us because of our very power and privilege. What would Moses feel and do (and urge us to do) in an America in which close to 40 million people, and 20 percent of all children, live in poverty? What would Moses feel and do in an America in which prisons hold half as many people as live in public housing? What would Moses feel and do in an America in which more than 30 million children read below grade level, and are, in effect, economically enslaved and consigned to the periphery of the new economy?

In drinking this cup, we are inspired by the power that enabled Moses – and might enable us – to overcome the temptation that would lead us to turn away from seemingly intractable social problems and to find fulfillment in the personal and social enjoyments that our affluence makes possible. May that which gave Moses the strength and courage to risk his wealth and security to fight for justice give us the strength and courage to do the same. Quieting down our inner chatter, we seek to intuit the voice that Moses must have heard deep within himself, the voice that made him aware that the burning oppression that people feel does not have to consume them, and that we each have the power to change the world. Brought face to face with our capacity to be like Moses, we must ask ourselves whether we have pursued justice with all the means at our disposal.

The Exodus is the chief orienting experience in Jewish history; and the seder is the practice that invites us into that experience. Our challenge in this era, when we are no longer slaves, is not to go through the seder in a perfunctory way -- pretending we are victims in the age old Jewish story -- nor is it to identify with the oppressed in a sentimental way that allows us to feel the slaves’ pain, but leaves us fundamentally unchanged. Rather, our challenge is to take up the seder's invitation to become those characters in the story that stretch us, that provide us with insight into who we really are and into our purpose in this new era in Jewish history. We need to take advantage of the seder’s invitation and, by transforming ourselves into the story’s characters, learn how best to become a people that acts in the world in a manner that can bring the Exodus to all peoples.

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