How good is your memory?
Mark
Twain once said, “When I was young, I had such a good memory that I
remembered things that never happened.” On Passover, we Jews
commemorate events that happened so long ago we can’t ever know
what really happened. But we recount them as if they happened to us.
In our haggadah, we recite, “In every generation, we much live as
if we ourselves had come out of Egypt.” The memory of the Exodus –
whether it happened to us or not – is branded on the Jewish
consciousness. It has since become our eternal challenge to “welcome
the stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt”
(Deut 10:19). And we believe with perfect faith that every human
being is entitled to a life of freedom, of liberty and human dignity.
Not as a grant by an omnipotent state, but as a gift from God. Let
this be the Pesach during which we remove the chametz
not only from our homes, but also from our hearts. And may it truly
become z’man
cheruteinu, the season
of freedom for all humankind.
Adapted
from Rabbi Hillel Silverman
Saying
thank you to our “Host”
So much goes into hosting a Seder meal: deciding the menu, going shopping, preparing food, setting the table, making sure everyone has enough to eat and drink and, when the Seder is complete, the overwhelming cleanup. When the evening is done, no guest would dream of leaving without saying, “Thank you.” When we recite Birkat HaMazon, the blessing of gratitude after we eat, we’re like a guest saying goodnight to God, “the Ultimate Host.” But more than saying thanks for God’s feeding us, we say thank you to God for feeding every living being. In the first paragraph alone, the word kol – everything – appears six times.* Whatever our relationship with, or feelings toward, God – and whether or not we feel that God does indeed “feed the entire world with goodness” – by thanking God for feeding the entire world (and not just us), we begin to see the interconnectedness of the world, and just how much we have to be thankful for.
Daniel informed me that he would be very quiet when eating matzah. “Don’t you want to know why I will be very quiet when I eat matzah?” “Because I want to hear the matzah,” he told me. I immediately thought that “hearing” the matzah meant the snap, crackle and pop sounds that only dry, crisp, well-baked Passover matzah can produce while being chewed in one’s mouth. But I have rethought the matter.
Matzah is accustomed to hearing what we have to say to it. The entire service of the Passover haggadah is recited with the matzah uncovered and serving as the passive, inanimate listener to our tale of bondage and freedom, cruelty and redemption, chaos and purpose. The matzah hears us. How meaningful would it be if we really could “hear” the matzah. Perhaps the matzah might tell us…
This is seder number 3252 for me. I began in Egypt, traveled through the Sinai Desert, and took root in Israel. I was at the Temple in Jerusalem, the palace of David, the herdsman’s hut on Golan, the merchant’s home in ancient Jaffa. I was present in the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Acropolis of Athens, and the Forum of Rome. I have been in the Atlas mountains of Morocco, the Alps of Switzerland, the plains of Catalonia, the vineyards of Provence and the Bordeaux, and the splendor of Byzantium. I have seen Warsaw, Vilna, Kiev, Cracow, Moscow, Berlin, Kobe, Shanghai, Cochin and Bombay. I have been at seder tables spread with white linen, laden with the finest china and most ornate silver servings. I have also been in hidden, dark cellars in Seville and Barcelona, expelled from London and Oxford, and unaccountably and unjustly accused of blood libels. I was also in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, under siege in modern Jerusalem and Safed, in labor camps in Siberia, and I am still in hiding in Damacus and Teheran. I have been around, and I have learned a thing or two.
I have observed the passing of civilizations and empires. I have witnessed profound changes in the world order and it beliefs. Aristotle and Augustine, Aquinas and Locke, Marx and Nietzche, Kierkegaard and Russell all postulated and proposed. Monarchy and feudalism, fascism and communism, imperialism and nationalism all arose to structure and improve life and society. I have seen them all pass, and yet the struggle for personal freedom, for meaning and commitment, for peace and understanding, for home and family, is yet to be won.
For a while, people, even my people, thought that I wouldn’t be around much longer. But now I am in Springfield and Beverly Hills, Brooklyn and Kansas City, Bogota and Sydney, Paris and even Moscow. I am back in Jerusalem, in Tiberias and Tel Aviv. In fact, I am present wherever people care and hope, are loyal to themselves and their heritage, treasure old values and close family, have proscribed the violence of hatred, and have chosen the path of tradition and faith, of fairness and peace. In short, for anyone who will listen, I am here.”
Please pass the matzah, Daniel. I will be very quiet while I am eating it. I also want to hear the matzah.