Disgrace to Glory

Pesach Day 1 5778 / March 29 2018

You can learn a lot about a culture from the stories it tells about itself. America is defined as much by the stories we grow up with, about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as by the Constitution or any other abstract document. Even with biographies that document the complex ways in which these lives defy easy classification, we hold onto the “official” stories – not for what they tell us about the story’s subject, but for what they say about us. Every culture has its way of telling these stories. Ancient Egypt’s story of self omitted any defeat or disgrace; military defeats that are well-attested in contemporaneous sources remain conspicuously absent from Egyptian records. The classical Greeks turned tragedy into art, emphasizing the ultimate futility and smallness of human life. Stories like George Washington’s chopping down the cherry tree, or Abraham Lincoln reading by candle-light, emphasize integrity, self-reliance, and the value of hard work. Ultimately, these tales are not history; they serve as prescriptive stories, teaching us how to understand the world around us.

For Jews, the prescriptive story of self that we tell most widely, and in the most detail, is the Haggadah. As you may have noticed in the Torah and Haftarah readings this morning, the Biblical Israelites had no Seder or Haggadah. Our way of observing Pesah begins only in the second century, when the Mishnah describes the basic outline for a Seder:

מָזְגוּ לוֹ כוֹס שֵׁנִי, וְכָאן הַבֵּן שׁוֹאֵל אָבִיו. וְאִם אֵין דַּעַת בַּבֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ… וּלְפִי דַעְתּוֹ שֶׁל בֵּן, אָבִיו מְלַמְּדוֹ. מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח…

They mix the second cup [of wine] for him, and here the son questions his father. And if the son lacks awareness, his father instructs him… and the father instructs the son according to his awareness. He begins with disgrace and concludes with glory…^[1]

The Mishnah focuses on education: the Seder aims not only to share our People’s story, but to instruct the children about how to read, interpret, and understand that story – and through the story, everything else in life. In its typical style, the Mishnah does not lay out the details of that story. All we get are the endpoints: begin with disgrace and conclude with glory. Defining the story falls, as usual to the Talmud:

“מתחיל בגנות ומסיים בשבח.” מאי בגנות? רב אמר: מתחלה עובדי עבודת גלולים היו אבותינו. [ושמואל] אמר: עבדים היינו.

“He begins with disgrace and concludes with glory.” What is the “disgrace?” Rav says: Initially our ancestors worshipped idols; and Shmuel says: We were slaves.[2]

Rav and Shmuel, colleagues and intellectual sparring partners in the third century, explore the story through distinct but parallel dimensions. For Rav, the disgrace stems from our ancestors’ idolatry. From this spiritual perspective, the trajectory of Jewish history leads toward a deep, covenantal relationship with the One Creator. Shmuel, on the other hand, looks at the material dimension of slavery itself. Our ancestors suffered degradation and deprivation at the hands of the Egyptians, and over time attained their freedom and autonomy. The Talmud leaves these options as they stand, declining to establish either one as the primary Pesah story. As a result, our Haggadah takes them both, blending the elements together in a story that hops back and forth between material and spiritual concerns.

Maimonides, influenced by the already-widespread Haggadah text, weaves the two separate perspectives together into, an epic narrative of human striving.

מתחיל בגנות, שמספר איך היינו לפני שבא אברהם כופרים ומשתפים, ובחרנו ה’ לו לנחלה, ואיך עבר עלינו במצרים מה שעבר, ואח”כ פדאנו ה’.

He begins with disgrace, in that he tells how, before Abraham came, we were heretics and fellow-travellers; and then God chose us as [God’s] inheritance; and how all that happened to us in Egypt came to happen; and afterward God redeemed us.[3]

What is interesting is not the fact that he combines them – the dual narrative was already established for centuries – but the outcome: redemption doesn’t travel in a straight line. We were heretics, and then Abraham enlightened us; then we were slaves, and God redeemed us. The idea of history’s winding path isn’t limited to the Exodus; all human endeavor moves forward in fits and starts, often backtracking before further progress can be made. We can’t see clearly because we’re in the middle – but the overall direction is always positive, always forward. When it feels like things are going the wrong way, a person of faith can fall back on the Exodus story to give us strength in adversity, a promise of ultimate good even when the present moment looks bleak.

Further insight into our fundamental story comes from Maharsha, perhaps the greatest of late-medieval Talmud commentators:

מתחיל בגנות ומסיים כו’. ענינו שביום שמחת לבו של אדם יזכור תחלת שפלותו וגנותו שלא תזוח דעתו עליו… וע”כ בעי לאודויי ולשבוחי טפי וק”ל:

He begins with disgrace and concludes, etc. The meaning is that on the day of a person’s joyous heart, he should remember the beginning of his lowliness and disgrace, so that he will not become arrogant… and consequently he will be obliged to give more thanks and praise.^[4]

For Maharsha, beginning with disgrace is critical because it puts our successes in context. The story helps us remember what it took to get here, which in turn prevents arrogance and amplifies our gratitude. We can’t get carried away with ourselves when we remember how low our ancestors sunk, how far we have come, and how desperately we needed God’s help to escape our suffering.

The past provides a context for the present, a way to understand and appreciate our current situation in light of all that has transpired. We live in an age when the Seder’s themes – sojourners and strangers, nativism and oppression – are intensely present in the world around us. Things can look bleak; sometimes it seems as if humanity itself is in a tailspin of cruelty and degradation. But if we adopt the Haggadah as our lens, it challenges us to look for – and perhaps even to make – hope within the darkness. [HEB], “Begin with disgrace and conclude with glory,” is our prescriptive story. The Haggadah – in its literary style as well as its content – asks of us to consider not only where we are today and where we want to go, but also where we have come from and what it took – on our part and through our ancestors – to get here. The Seder functions as an enactment of this worldview. Together, through the course of the night, we track this story, individually, collectively, and as a whole Jewish people. The Haggadah offers a vital Jewish story every year, but in times like this we need it most of all.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameyach.

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