As If
Rav Baruch Frydman-Kohl
Beth Tzedec Congregation, Toronto
Pesah 5776
In one of my haggadot, cleverly designed by David Moss, he has placed mirrors on one page. Can any of you guess which passage from the haggadah would best be illuminated by mirrors? בכל דור ודור חיב אדם לראות” את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים, In every generation, a person must see oneself as if s/he had gone out of Egypt.”
Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, the great Israeli Orthodox scholar and educator, observed:
One must relate to two … aspects of [Pesah]. …there is the original situation of servitude, suffering, and hardship, and on the other hand, there followed redemption, salvation and upliftment. … to experience the salvation from Egypt, one must first feel the …servitude and suffering that our forefathers experienced, to internalize the notion that "Had God not taken us out of Egypt, we and our children and grandchildren would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt". One must imagine – and it is not easy – that one is enslaved in Egypt, with the mortar and the bricks. Once one has done that… one can properly appreciate the magnitude of the Divine salvation.
There is an element of כאילו - as if - in much of religious life. On Yom Kippur, the Hazzan acts as if he is the High Priest. On Sukkot, we act as if we are in the Wilderness. When we bring the Torah from the Aron Kodesh, we act as if it were being revealed at Sinai. Many of our rituals are intended to reenact a primary event. This, of course is the difference between history and memory. History is his-story, about another person. Memory begins with the letter m-e - it is my recollection. But how does one make the past present?
Just this week, a gracious woman near the end of her life, told me how her parents would return to Toronto for Pesah and “the whole family would crowd into a half-house for the Seder. All our tushies would be crowded together. My grandfather would davven the haggadah and we would talk.” As she spoke, her eyes indicated that she was reliving the events of 80 years ago.
Think of a Seder from your childhood or youth. Do you have memories of where your seder happened? Did something dramatic when you or a sibling asked the Four Questions? When recounting the plagues, were more than a few drops of wine spilled? When your mouth was inflamed with maror, did anything happen? What about that haroset?
In his recently published book, As If We Were There, Rabbi Gidon Rothstein includes memories of the sedarim of his past. Rabbi Chaim Strauchler drew my attention to this book which “provides biography with commentary, describing the sociology and choreography of a Seder table in a specific home led by a specific man.”
My father … reached into the pillows on which he leaned throughout the Seder. Moving casually at first, not expecting any problems, since he had inserted matzah only hours earlier. As it failed to turn up, a first hint of puzzlement flashed across his face. Befuddlement turned into concern as he checked the floor, beginning to confront the fact that his afikoman had been stolen.…
In the second act, …wondering what could have happened, he took a look around the room back through the bookcases, as if the afikoman might have abrogated the laws of physics and migrated there, his patter taking on a tone of growing urgency.
My sister and [I] … knew he knew who had stolen the afikoman; we knew he was putting on this show for us… to ensure we would carry this with us every day and year of our lives...
I was at the edge of my seat, ready to begin the bargaining that would end in the promise of a gift.… [Then] my father brought out his absolutely best material, capping it with, “Well, I guess we’ll have to call the police to help us find out who stole our afikoman.”
That was it. I was out of my chair and down the hall, ready to give the damn matzah back to the crazy man who had replaced my father. As I write these words, the tears that came to that five-year-old’s eyes come again, that moment still fresh and alive.
Not only should we imagine ourselves; but, according to Maimonides, we are supposed to make ourselves imagined.
וּבְכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר, חַיָּב אָדָם לְהַרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁלֹּא אֶת אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בִּלְבָד גָּאַל, אֵלָא אַף אוֹתָנוּ גָּאַל--שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "וְאוֹתָנוּ, הוֹצִיא מִשָּׁם--לְמַעַן הָבִיא אֹתָנוּ, לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינוּ" (דברים ו,כג).
In every generation, a person is obligated to portray him/herself as if s/he had left Egypt. For [God] did not redeem only our ancestors, but us as well, as it is written "And [God] brought us out from there, so that [God] might bring us in, to give us the land which [God] promised to our ancestors" (Deuteronomy 6,23).
We are to be the actors that will animate the ancient text. On the Seder night, we are asked to imagine an “As If” moment. We engage in home theatre, taking on the roles of Pharaoh and Moshe – as well as the roles of petty thief and frustrated Seder leader - so that everyone partake of the magic of this night.
Often I speak of midrash as a master narrative that we seek to enter and make our own. My colleague, Rabbi Steven Sager puts it well: “I see myself through my own eyes and through the ancient images. I am my story’s keeper and it is mine.”
In his collection Open Closed Open, Yehuda Amichai brings himself into the ancient story in הרהורי ליל הסדר (hihurei leil ha-seder— “musings on the seder night”) — a section of a longer poem called “Gods Change, Prayers are Here to Stay,”
הרהורי ליל הסדר, מה נשתנה, שאלנו
מה נשתנה הלילה הזה מכל הלילות.
ורובנו גדלנו ולא נשאל עוד ואחדים
ממשיכים לשאול במשך כל חייהם, כמו ששואלים
מה שלומך או, מה השעה וממשיכים ללכת
בלי לשמוע תשובה.
מה נשתנה כל לילה,
כמו שעון מעורר שתקתוקו מרגיע ורדים.
מה נשתנה, הכל ישתנה. השינוי הוא האלוהים.
הרהורי ליל הסדר. כנגד ארבעה בנים דיברה
תורה, אחד חכם, אחד רשע, אחד תם ואחד
שלא יודע לשאול. אבל לא מדובר שם
על אחד טוב ולא על אחד אוהב.
וזו שאלה שאין לה תשובה ואם תהיה לה תשובה לא ארצה לדעת.
אני שעברתי את כל הבנים בצרופים שונים,
חייתי את חיי, הירח האיר עלי ללא צורך
והשמש הלכה לה וחגי פסח עברו בליתשובה.
מה נשתנה. השינוי הוא האלוהים.
המות נביאו.
Musings on Seder
Night by
Yehuda Amichai
Musings on Seder night. How Different this night is from all other nights, we asked.
And most of us grew up and we won’t ask anymore and others go on asking all their lives, like those who ask “How are you?” or “What’s the time?” and go on walking, without waiting for an answer.
How different all night, like an alarm clock whose ticking quiets and puts to sleep.
What’s different? Everything’s different. The difference is God. Musings on Seder night. The Torah speaks of four sons: one wise, one wicked, one simple and one who doesn’t know how to ask.
But it doesn’t mention one who is good nor does it mention one who loves. And that’s a question that has no answer and if there was an answer I wouldn’t want to know it. I, who was all those sons in different combinations, I lived my life, the moon shone on me needlessly, the sun came and went, and Passover holidays passed without an answer.
What is different. The difference is God, and his prophet, Death.
Excerpted from Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai’s “God’s Change, Prayers Remain Open Forever” from his 2000 book, “Open Closed Open” (translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld).
The word הרהורים״ ~ hirhurim״ has darker overtones than “musings.” In rabbinic literature it implies doubts or qualms.
Amichai notices that the Seder is full of questions for children, but that as we age, the questions often become rote. So too, when we meet someone and casually ask, “How are you?” it has as much depth as “What time is it?” The questions and responses become so ritualised that they are like the tick-tock that lulls us to sleep.
Amichai draws attention to the familiar four sons. They are the enactment of the commands to tell the Story of the Exodus to new generations. The poet has been each of those children. Haven’t we all? But “it doesn’t mention one who is good nor does it mention one who loves.” Where is the child inquiring about love or goodness, the deeper questions that animate adult life with our keen awareness of mortality?
Notice how Amichai opens the classical text to find his own personal space. He invites each of us to do more than just read the words of the haggadah. He wants us to experience the haggadah “as if” it is a text about our own lives.
In another poem, Amichai takes us to the scene at the sea-marsh, Yam Suf. The Torah describes the people of Israel at the edge of the water. They halt, uncertain about what lies before them, feeling the pursuit of the Egyptians, their former taskmasters. Then Amichai enters that moment.
ּומַה מֶשֶך חַיַי. אֲנִי כְּמוֹ אֶחָד שֶיָצָא מִמִצְּרַיִם
וְּיַם-סּוף נִבְּקַע לִשְּנַיִם וַאֲנִי עוֹבֵר בֶחָרָבָה
ּושְּתֵי חוֹמוֹת מַיִם מִיְּמִינִיומִשְּמֹאלִי.
מֵאחוֹרַי חֵיל פַרְּעֹהופָרָשָיוולְּפָנַי הַמִדְּבָר
וְּאּולַי הָארֶץ הַמֺבְּטַחַת. זֶה מֶשֶך חַיַי
And what is the continuum of my life. I am like one who left Egypt
with the Reed Sea split in two and I passing through on dry ground
with two walls of water on my right and on my left.
Behind me Pharaoh’s force and his chariots and before me the wilderness
and perhaps the promised land. This is the continuum of my life.
(translation: Steven Sager)
Rabbi Sager comments:
The poet is in the middle of an ancient story that is also in the middle of him. Side to side, he is in the middle of walls of water. Back to front, he is between pursuit and (perhaps) promise. Even his story within the ancient story is in the middle . . . Meshekh, the word for continuum, also means continuity, duration; meshekh is the pull of something.
We are also in the middle. Both the beginning and the end are beyond our sight-line. How did we get to this point in our lives? In the life of our community? What will be the conclusion?
The Biblical narrative has an ending that we all know. The people of Israel reach the Land of Promise. Yet, the Seder ends only with the hope of Jerusalem. The poet at the sea-marsh brings his anxious uncertainty to the relived story. He enters what is well-known, bringing to it his real-time emotion.
“ומַה מֶשֶך חַיַי ~ What is the continuum of my life?” Where and when did it begin? Have I faithfully carried out my responsibilities in the middle? Once, in my childhood, I asked the questions during the Seder. Now, as a grandfather, I respond, “עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ ~ We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. And the Eternal our God drew us forth from there.” Will there be others, in the future, to ask and respond?
“וְּאּולַי הָארֶץ הַמֺבְּטַחַת. זֶה מֶשֶך חַיַי ~ Perhaps the promised land. This is the continuum of my life.” “Perhaps.” Can you feel the הרהורים, the personal doubt and present uncertainty? At one moment, all of us are joined to this ancient tale. We carry both hope and hesitation.
We share with our ancestors a story, with doubts and a perhaps. Together, joined across generations, we have wondered whether the story that we tell will live itself from the past to the future. Perhaps, by animating the story through the theological theatre of כאילו, as if we were there, our memory, our story, our hopes, will live.
בכל דור ודור, “In each and every generation” we become the story that we tell.
And we have the hopeful trust that it will end well.
