This week our families gather around the Seder table again. Let’s hope and pray that our relatives and friends throughout the world will have calm (no sirens) and uplifting experiences. There are so many passages in the Haggadah meant to inspire us, but this year I would like to focus on one stirring quote: In each and every generation each of us is obligated to see themselves as if they personally were redeemed from Egyptian bondage.

‘Personally’? Isn’t that a tall order? How exactly should we even approach this task? 

The Rambam makes a subtle change in that statement: In each and every generation one must make oneself appear as if they had escaped from Egyptian bondage now.’ In other words, sort of play act that you’re leaving Egypt, now. It may seem corny to put on pseudo slave clothes or march around the table with Matzah on your shoulder, but it does make the point. 

But for the rest of us, what do we do? Well, Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski explains that it’s not that hard to fulfill this requirement because God provided humans with ‘creative imaginations’ and ‘ingenious minds which can create three dimensional scenes in rich colors’.  Okay, I’m not sure that my imagination is as acute as his was.

The S’fat HaYam (Rav Altshuler, 1819) suggests that we’re not trying to claim that we personally left Egypt.Rather, we see this obligation as based on the reality that if our ancestors were not freed from Egyptian servitude then we would still be there. In other words, we are declaring that our present situation is a direct result of what God did back then for our ancestors.

Actually, we have already made this point in the paragraph right after the four questions: We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not taken our fathers out of Egypt, then we, our children and our children’s children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.

 The Ritva (Spain, 1250-1320) explains that our later statement is very different from the declaration made at the beginning of the Seder. Based on what we said in the earlier paragraph called AVADIM HAYINU, that we are the beneficiaries of the great miracles which God performed in Egypt. This is true of every miracle performed by God. We are beneficiaries of the miracles performed thousands of years ago, because as a result of miracles performed for Yehoshua, David HaMelech or Mordechai the Jewish people continue to exist.

That’s not what the author of the Hagadah is saying here, about the obligation to feel that they were redeemed. According to the Ritva, from our point of view we are the beneficiaries of what God did for our ancestors. It’s like we admire an heirloom. But from God’s vantage point, that’s not at all what’s going on. God, who lives outside the Space/Time Continuum, Who facilitated the GEULA, redeemed everyone for ever! 

The Ritva declares: God redeemed the generality of all Jews. For when God redeemed those who were in Egypt, it was equally for the unborn children as it was for those who walked out of Egypt! So, we were redeemed right alongside them. So, at this point in the Seder, everyone should make the effort to feel their PERSONAL redemption provided by God!

The Ma’aseh Nissim (Rabbi Yaakov Lorberbaum, 1760-1832) explains the situation a little differently. In his Haggadah commentary, he claims: Therefore, it appears that certainly, if our primary joy were centered on the miracle of leaving the bitterness of slavery, we would not mention ourselves at all in the blessing or in the miracle, since we ourselves did not leave that bitterness. Rather, the main focus of the miracle of the Exodus is the redemption, namely, that we were acquired as servants to the Blessed One, that He brought us into His holiness, and granted us the sanctity of the higher and lower realms. In this respect, we and those who left Egypt are equal.

That’s why the blessing is: Who redeemed us and redeemed our ancestors. The BRACHA explains our experiential requirement. We’re not recognizing that God took us ‘out of Egypt’, instead we recognize that God included us personally in the redemption (that spiritual blessing which resulted from the Exodus), and in the miracle of redemption we are all equal, therefore the joy of the Exodus applies equally to us and to the generation that left Egypt. For the essential joy lies in the closeness to God, in that aspect we are all equal.

Cool! We’ve solved the problem. But there’s more! There are fascinating mystical approaches to this issue.  

The Pri Zadik (Reb Zadok of Lublin) explains our issue in a metaphorical way. It’s so important to relate the story and experience of the departure from Egypt, because every Jewish soul experiences a ‘departure’. That universal, metahistorical Jewish departure is the exodus from the YETZER HARA. MITZRAYIM (Egypt, the narrow place, ‘one mile wide; one thousand miles long’) represents the narrow straits of the ‘evil inclination’. We all have to flee that danger. So, on this special night of revisiting our past, we reenact this departure from spiritual danger. The idea of that ‘exodus’ is equally true for us all.

On the other hand, the S’fat Emet assures us that the obligation to see oneself as having personally departed from Egypt is literally true for each of us. It isn’t about physically marching out of Egypt with our ancestors. Instead, it refers specifically to that place in our soul where our Jewish life force resides (PINTELE YID). 

That core part of my Jewish Soul did indeed depart from Egypt. The relating of the story at the Seder is meant to awaken this feeling (even memory) which resides deep within my Soul. The ‘real me’, the essence of who I am, did depart Egypt along with those alive at that time, who physically marched out. Every Jewish soul forever was part of the departure. Our MITZVA SIPPUR (obligation to retell the tale) awakens that memory deep within my essence.

So, this year, when so many of us are living through difficult (perhaps oppressive) times, let’s remember specific ideas from the Seder and the Pesach experience to help us move forward. These ideas should help, because our people and our souls have gone through similar straights before. Let’s find strength in the Seder and the Pesach experience!

Chag Sameach! GEULAH’s on the way!

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)