Showing and Telling

Shabbat HaGadol 5777 / 8 April 2017

Maggid, the central story-telling part of the Haggadah, begins with a blatant falsehood:

עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָֽיִם, וַיּוֹצִיאֵֽנוּ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מִשָּׁם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֽוֹעַ נְטוּיָה. וְאִלּוּ לֹא הוֹצִיא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ מִמִּצְרַֽיִם, הֲרֵי אָֽנוּ וּבָנֵינוּ וּבְנֵי בָנֵינוּ מְשֻׁעְבָּדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָֽיִם.

Sure it’s possible — however unlikely — that if God had not redeemed our ancestors from Egypt, we would still be in bondage. Anything is possible. Maybe we would still be enslaved somewhere, but it’s hard to imagine that we would be “enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.” Already by the turn of the 3rd century, when this passage was first conceived, Egypt was no longer a world power — and hadn’t been for five hundred years.

I don’t mean to spoil anyone’s fun. Singing עבדים היינו is one of my favorite parts of the Seder. But if we’re going to engage seriously with the Haggadah, we also need to understand what it asks of us. Why would the Haggadah begin its story with such a palpably untrue premise?

The Mishnah lays out the Haggadah’s basic contours:

מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵ”אֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי” עַד שֶׁיִּגְמוֹר כָּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ:

In essence the Mishnah wants us to tell a rags-to-riches story that begins with the Jewish People in a lowly state and ends in triumph. As a basis for the story, they choose the bikkurim declaration that was recited in the Temple by pilgrims bringing their first fruit offering. When we look at the verses carefully, it turns out to be an interesting choice of story:

(ה) [וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י ה֣’ אֱ’לֹהֶ֗יךָ] אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גָר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב:

(ו) וַיָּרֵ֧עוּ אֹתָ֛נוּ הַמִּצְרִ֖ים וַיְעַנּ֑וּנוּ וַיִּתְּנ֥וּ עָלֵ֖ינוּ עֲבֹדָ֥ה קָשָֽׁה:

(ז) וַנִּצְעַ֕ק אֶל־ה֖’ אֱ’לֹהֵ֣י אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַ֤ע ה֙’ אֶת־קֹלֵ֔נוּ וַיַּ֧רְא אֶת־עָנְיֵ֛נוּ וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵ֖נוּ וְאֶֽת־לַֽחֲצֵֽנוּ:

(ח) וַיּֽוֹצִאֵ֤נוּ ה֙’ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבְמֹרָ֖א גָּדֹ֑ל וּבְאֹת֖וֹת וּבְמֹֽפְתִֽים:

(ט) [וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וַיִּתֶּן־לָ֨נוּ֙ אֶת־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶ֛רֶץ זָבַ֥ת חָלָ֖ב וּדְבָֽשׁ:]

The Torah gives us plenty of material related to the Exodus — the entire first half of ספר שמות, the Book of Exodus. We get drama, gritty detail, inspiring heroes and dastardly villains. If we wanted an exciting story, it’s there; but when our Rabbis defined the Haggadah, all of that gets left out. Instead, they choose the story quoted above.

Traditional and modern scholars alike question whether the Torah presents us with a history of the Jewish people, or if its narrative comes for a different purpose. Now is not the time to address those concerns directly, except to note that to whatever extent you might think the Torah tells history, this isn’t it. Our ancestors spent 210 years in ruthless bondage, all of which is here compressed into one verse — the shortest verse in the passage. In fact, this isn’t a story of liberation at all — although it is a story of freedom.

No one who had been freed from slavery, or even their children or grandchildren, could tell a story like this. The story at the heart of our Haggadah belongs to the far descendants of the Exodus generation. In fact, it’s roughly the same relationship I have to my family’s history. All of my grandparents were born in this country. While I have a general understanding of the circumstances in Eastern Europe that brought Jews to this country, I don’t know any details about the specific incidents surrounding my great-grandparents’ migration. My self-understanding has been defined not by their struggles but by the freedom and prosperity they achieved through those struggles.

We see the same characteristics in this story, which was originally intended to be recited in the Temple, long after the Israelites settled the Land of Israel. The pain and torment of our ancestors appears only as a backdrop to the “important” story: the Israelites’ present condition as free people in their own land.

Why do we tell this story at our seder? Not to evoke sympathy with our ancestors or with people currently oppressed. The elaborate midrash on this passage that appears in our Haggadot, with its detailed accounting of Egyptian brutality, prompts those emotions; but in the verses themselves, the slaves’ material and emotional experience appears only briefly in passing as we move from the origin story — “My father was a wandering Aramean” — to liberation, redemption, and ultimately restoration to our homeland.

This passage is what literary theory calls a master story: the story we tell to make sense of ourselves and our place in the world. More than telling the history of events past, the master story teaches us about the present and future by defining our collective identity in relationship to the people, places, and things we encounter on a daily basis. In the Mishnah quoted above, דורש is the key verb: to demand or seek, to search for meaning in the text. A basic reading of the story will not suffice; we need to locate ourselves within the story. The key question for any master story: Where do I find myself?

With a master story, this is never a theoretical exercise. The master story positions us for action in the world. Where we choose to get involved or sit on the sidelines, when we speak and when we remain silent, all trace back to elements of the master story. Every master story provides a lens through which we filter the world around us. We can understand all the turmoil in America today — over race, gender, economic class, ethnic background — as emerging from competing master stories. Was our nation founded by white Christian men, or by refugees in need of sanctuary from religious persecution and economic vulnerability? The factual answer is both, but each master story that emphasizes a different aspect of our nation’s beginning leads to different conclusions in the present.

The Haggadah brings that awareness to the forefront in the final passage of Maggid, which appears in two different versions in the Mishnah and in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah:

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם…

בכל דור ודור חייב אדם להראות את עצמו כאילו הוא בעצמו יצא עתה משעבוד מצרים…

Rather than quote from the Haggadah, which generally follows the Mishnah’s version, I chose to present both texts because they show a minor but significant difference. The Mishnah uses the verb לִרְאוֹת, to see, while Maimonides write להראות, to present. The difference amounts to just one letter ה, and yet that one letter radically shifts the meaning of the obligation.

Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner notes that the key distinction between these two versions lies in the shift from the realm of the heart — thought, belief, and emotion — in the case of the Mishnah, to a sphere of action for Maimonides.^[7] Concluding Maggid in this fashion reminds us that the fact of our liberation matters only to the extent that it produces constructive change in us.

עבדים היינו sends us back to our ancestors to imagine for just one minute that it actually could have been us. That version of the story teaches us why our ancestors, both ancient and modern, persevered through such adversity. We start there because it conditions us to understand the full significance of our present condition. The master story of the Wandering Aramean, however, serves a different purpose. It shifts our eye from the present to the future. In order to properly understand that story, we must recognize the obligations our inheritance of freedom imposes upon us. What Maimonides and the Mishnah have in common is the word חייב, “obligated.” Placing ourselves in the master story’s narrative arc obligates us to act out of that awareness. Pesah, and the Haggadah in particular, stress our tradition’s expectation that we will live in ways that justify the sacrifices our ancestors made for us to live a better life — a freer life.

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Tags: Exodus, Freedom, stories