Back to the Future

H̱ag same’aẖ. Memory is necessary to our identities as human beings and particularly to our lives as Jews. On Pesah, more than any other time, our memories are multi-sensory. I have powerful childhood memories of my mother- who raised me as a single mom- involving me in preparations for Passover. There was cleaning, koshering, cooking, kiddush and recounting. We were usually just two. I have clear images of the china pattern—Franciscan Apple—of the silverware, and—of course—of the Haggadah illustrated by Sigmund Forst and my mother’s melodies from Brzezany, not far from what she called Lemberg.

I’d like you to take a moment to recall a Seder from your childhood. Where was it held? Who was there? Who sat at the head of the table? Were there particular dish patterns? Were you sitting or cavorting around with siblings or cousins? Do you recall any particular scents? Of food or of people? What was the Seder like? Was there chanting? Singing? Reciting?

In Everything is Illuminated, author Jonathan Safran Foer writes that “Jews have six senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing and memory. … The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pin prick back to the other pin pricks—when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain—that the Jew is able to know why it hurts. When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks “What does it remember like?” Memory is the sixth sense of the Jew.”

At Seder, we remember yetziyat mitzra’yim—the Exodus—with the salty karpas, the crunch of matzah, the sharpness of maror, and the sweetness of ẖaroset. We remember with the four cups of wine, the four questions, the four children, and the 4 x 5 x 10 plagues. We remember with the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat. We remember with the wine that spilled or the lights that suddenly went out. All this helps us to transmit what Jonathan Sacks calls “the oldest and most transformative story of hope ever told.”

Memory is necessary, but – as we used to say in philosophy— it is not sufficient. In addition to memory, my colleague Gerald Zelizer—who recently wrote about being a marathon rabbi years in one congregation—says we need imagination. It is “imagination that enhances and sharpens the memory and explains. So that we will transmit it to our children’s children’s children.”

Experience and memory inspire imagination. “It is imagination that guarantees continuity, not [merely] memory.” Seder is not only what is written in the Haggadah; it is the conversation that emerges from the Telling. It is not only the traditional songs; it is the introduction of new melodies and lyrics. It is not only the signature dishes; it is also the new cuisine that makes a “mah nishtanah” evening.

I’ve been thinking about tradition and innovation a lot lately, as our kley kodesh are about to sit down to try to re-imagine what Shabbat services and High Holiday davvening might become for a new generation. Our new siddurim are a small step in that direction. BTW, I encourage you to use this opportunity to inscribe one or many prayer books in honour or in memory of someone you love.

As I reflect on the dynamic interplay between the old and the new, I am drawn—by analogy—to North American Jewish literature.  An older generation of readers will refer to Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud or Phillip Roth. But there is a generation of writers and filmmakers that imagines the North American Jewish experience in new ways.

Along with Jonathan Foer, there is Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, Nathan Englander and Shalom Auslander, Allegra Goodman and Rebecca Neuberger Goldstein, Gary Shtyngart and lemony Snickett, and in Canada, Anne Michaels, Lillian Nattel and David Bezmozgis. On stage and film there are Tony Kushner, Aaron Sorkin, and the Coen Brothers. They are remembering and re-imagining Jewish life.

David Herman writes: These new writers [are] a world away from the elegiac memories of the old immigrant neighbourhoods and garment factories … One of the most striking aspects of the great post-war generation is how they are haunted by the sense of living at the end of a traditional way of life: the end of values, customs and traditions that mattered to their immigrant parents but no longer mattered to them.

Writers like Bellow, Mailer, Heller and Roth came after: after Judaism, after the relationship with the old country had been broken, after the immigrant neighbourhoods and tenements of the Lower East Side and, above all, after the Holocaust…. Secular, uninterested in Israel, not very preoccupied with the Holocaust, they [had a] lack of interest in key aspects of Jewish life and history….

The new generation of young, smart Jewish-American writers …  are sure of their Jewishness. … [They] are …  interested in Europe, especially the Holocaust, Israel. … [and] the former Soviet Union …. You get the energy of New York and contemporary America played off against the dark history of Jewish eastern Europe and Russia.”  These new writers inspire me to ask how we might be more Jewish in new and creative ways. http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/65020/writers-making-waves-across-atlantic

Rabbi Sacks writes that Pesah “is the story more than a hundred generations of our ancestors handed on to their children, and they to theirs. As we do likewise, millennia later, we know what it is to be the people of history, guardians of a narrative not engraved in hieroglyphics … but carried in the minds of living, breathing human beings who, for longer than any other have kept faith with the future and the past, bearing witness to the power of the human spirit when it opens itself to a greater power, beckoning us to a world of freedom, responsibility and human dignity.”  http://www.rabbisacks.org/pesach-jewish-task-koren-sacks-machzor/

That is why we, who remember the past, must also be concerned with the future. It is a distortion of the past to claim that the Seder has always been the same. Each generation has found ways to continue and enhance the traditions and the ways we share the narrative of redemption. And we must do so in other areas of Jewish life.

Rabbi Donald Rosoff asks us to consider, for a moment, why the Passover Seder is so popular?  

Is it because it brings families together? For sure.

Is it because it evokes precious personal memories? For many, yes.

Is it because it tells a story of one people with a universal message for all peoples? Certainly.

Is it because of the political and philosophical discussions around the table or because of the songs and games embedded in the Haggadah? Yes and yes.

Is it because many interfaith families find Pesah to be an way to expose children to Jewish traditions? Often.

Is it because the meal that is served is so good? Certainly in our home.

Is it because the Seder table is where the generations meet? Oh yes!

Alongside the prescribed ritual foods, sedarim feature unique family recipes, often handed down from generation to generation. Present at the table with us, among us and within us, are all the generations: present, past and those yet to be. And each family has its own way of celebrating the Seder. Some families continue the ritual observance long into the night. Others give a perfunctory nod to tradition and then eat. Some place God at the center, while others don’t mention the “G” word at all.

And there is the Cup of Eliyahu that reminds us that the promise of human liberation is not yet fulfilled. For Passover is not just about an exodus that took place more than 3,000 years ago. It is also about the hope needed for our world and for our own lives.

http://morristowngreen.com/2012/04/05/passover-a-holiday-of-memory-and-hope-and-so-much-more

Passover begins in memory, but it does not end there. We begin in slavery, but end pointing to the future in Jerusalem. Memories are intended to spark the imagination, to inspire new perspectives, to mobilize our values into action. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg teaches that Exodus memory should become a “moral dynamic”, with “exodus eyes” nurturing “exodus morality”.  

Our ancient story—our master narrative—becomes a challenge to be sensitive to contemporary situations that are analogous to those of our past. Human slavery. Income disparity and poverty. Refugees seeking asylum. Rabbi Greenberg writes, “The experience of slavery that breaks and crushes slaves does not destroy free people. It evokes … determination to help others escape that state.”

My mother gave me “Exodus eyes”. That is why we invite guests—sometimes those we don’t really know—to our seders. That is why the Seder inspires me to act for justice during the year.

That is we set aside tzedakah so that “kol dikhfin yaytay ve’yaykhal… those who are hungry can come to eat.” Rachel Rosenbluth, a young adult who grew up in our congregation, is in Passover for the spring. She and her friends made seder on a Tel Aviv rooftop. Rachel called down to the street: “Anyone hungry? We have a seder for you.” And she had a new guest for the evening.

What could be better than eating festive food with family and friends and retelling the story, ancient and ever new? Pesah is jam-packed with joy. Pesah is a moment for memory. Pesah is a call to conscience.

In a minute, we shall stand in personal memory of those we have loved. In a minute, we shall stand in communal memory of the Holocaust, knowing that Yom Hashoah is next Sunday. Let these memories you’re your “exodus eyes”, inspire you to see with new imagination - for tzedakah and creative Jewish life – and to bring “exodus morality” into our world.