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One of the central commandments set forth in the Haggadah–right up there with the wine and the matzoh–is the Torah-based imperative to relate the story of the Exodus, and the Sages augmented the mitzvah by saying that anyone who elaborates on the story is praiseworthy. Accordingly, there is no shortage of entertaining, incisive, informative, and  brilliant glosses on substantially every paragraph and concept in the Haggadah.

All of us who have sat at the head of the table have favorites. When you have repeated it every year for decades it becomes part of the service, an element of daily lore, a generational asset.

Only rarely do you get a chance to rethink it in a way that improves it. It just happened to me, and I feel the need to share.

The narrative starts with the standard question about dayenu: would it really have been sufficient if God had taken us out of Egypt and allowed us to starve to death in the desert, not given us the Torah, not blessed us with Shabbat, not brought us to the Promised Land?

Of course not. The enterprise would have been a huge failure and it would not have been sufficient for any reasonable purpose, except . . .

Each of the miracles would have been sufficient to require us to thank God, to say Hallel, to offer praise. Sure enough, shortly after we recite the Dayenu, we commence the Psalms that comprise the Hallel, the prayer in which we thank and give praise to God.

But before that happens, we recite the following formula:

בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים . . . לפיכך אנחנו חיבים להודות להלל . . .הללויה.

In every generation, one must envision himself as if he (himself) had departed from Egypt . . .therefore we are obligated to thank and praise . . . Hallelujah.

I would explain that one may only recite the Hallel in its most basic form, as the Israelites did at the splitting of the sea, if he himself had experienced the miracle. I would further explain that the entire seder is a form of psychodrama designed so that the participant could visualize himself as if he had personally experienced the miracles. So we list all the things that God did for us, each of them sufficient to justify the recitation of shira (Hallel), we speak of the matzo and maror that remind us of (what has become, in the course of the night) our experience, we explain that the experience of a miracle requires one to say Hallel, and . . . we say Hallel.

In this analysis, the entire seder has been to bring us to the point where we see ourselves as having departed Egypt, so we can say Hallel.

I have been explaining that for forty years. My children do the same. I never expected to see it in any other way.

Then, a combination of the current war and my chance reading of the Brisker haggadah of the Beis Levi compelled me to see it in an entirely different way. It turns out that Maimonides had a different text of the phrase cited above, and the Gaon R. Chaim Soloveitchik would recite both phrases, first the one from the Mishna in which one is required to see himself–לראות את עצמו–as having departed Egypt, and then the version of Maimonides, in which one is required to present himself–להראות את עצמו–as having departed Egypt.

Epiphany. What a difference a letter makes. My reading was internal and personal, relating to how one perceives himself and relates to God on an individual basis. God took me out of Egypt and I will give praise. I could do it in a closet and fulfill the mitzvah.

The alternative reading suggests that God took me out of Egypt and, therefore, I am compelled, commanded, required, driven to proclaim publicly what God did for the Jewish people, to act in such a way that everyone who sees me knows that I am one of God’s chosen, freed by the very hand of God to be unapologetically Jewish. God performed miracles for us and we are required to reveal ourselves unashamedly to the world as His people.

In that view, the seder is not a psychodrama that allows me to arrive at a point where I appreciate what God did for me. The seder is a ceremony that reminds me what God did for us, what a history we have to proclaim to the nations. And it commands us to do it in a public and proud way.

It seems to me that in an age of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, an age of rampant and open antisemitism, this second reading, the one from the text of Maimonides, is more compelling.

May we all act in such a way that we reveal to the world, present ourselves, proclaim our nation, a free and proud people, by the grace of a God that performed miracle after miracle on our behalf and continues to do so on a daily basis.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)