Right after eating, in the middle of the Seder, night turns to day. The Haggadah quotes the holiday’s morning service: Nishmat kol chai—“let every soul sing.”

Light in darkness: the table is illuminated.

In the generational transmission from parent to child – the story of the Exodus from Egypt – we remember God’s promise fulfilled, past redemption, and in our retelling we become part of it.

The storytelling has its source in the most cited verse in the Haggadah, quoted in full to the child who does not yet know how to ask: “And you shall teach your child, ba’avor zeh, because of “this,” God took me out of Egypt.”

With no clear antecedent, the Haggadah explains: “zeh”—at the time when matzah and maror are on the table in front of you, during the Seder.

The cosmic event of the Exodus finds its purpose in its retelling, and takes place at our tables. You may miss other parts of the Seder, says Rabban Gamliel, but get everyone back to the table for this: “If you haven’t spoken about matzah, maror, and the Paschal sacrifice, you haven’t fulfilled your obligation.”

So why not get it out of the way? Begin the Seder with “Pesach, Matzah, Maror,” check the box, and enjoy the storytelling of the rest of the meal?

Because the story of redemption, out of which our freedom was born and upon which our faith is based, only reaches its climax when we tell it, and it becomes embodied for us, when we know what we are eating and why.

From degradation to triumph, from idolatry to the one God, from slavery to freedom, we first remember and retell.

The Haggadah recalls the redemption from Egypt not through first-hand accounts of Exodus, but through later second-hand testimony. For the story of our redemption from Egyptian affliction, the Haggadah quotes not Exodus, but Joshua 24. For the story of our idolatrous past, the Haggadah quotes Deuteronomy 26, the declaration of the farmer in the Temple, dedicating his first fruits.

Only after these stories are told do we fulfill Rabban Gamliel’s obligation.

Then memory becomes lived experience: we explain Pesach as the moment when God passed over – pasach, “skipped over” – our houses. We cannot point to the paschal sacrifice, but we can point to the matzah – this matzah – which recalls our haste leaving Egypt, and to the maror – this maror – the bitter herbs, which recall our affliction.

After the storytelling, the memory of the past collapses into the experience of the present – not in the abstract, not symbolically, but in the acts: first of memory and then of eating.

Ba’avor zeh: that is, the cosmic story of redemption culminates in our homes, at the Seder table.

Eternity in Microcosm

Yes, the moment of generational connection – between parents and children – is a link in the chain of mesorah, tradition. But more than that, the Seder, because it reaches back into the past and forward into the future, holds the eternal in microcosm. The link in the chain is the whole chain.

That is why the night of the Seder turns into morning.

But with that light – the awareness of our place in the divine story – there is great responsibility.

We are not just part of the story, at this moment, we are the story.

We must tell it, live it, and bring it into the future.

Now especially, ba’avor zeh.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)