By Rabbi Michael Laitner, United Synagogue Director of Education
In Traditional Alternatives (1989), former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l describes an imaginary London Jewish family sitting around the Seder table. Although the family is fictional, the description of it is all too real. The characters include a teenage girl whose life is focused on Neighbours (it was 1989!), a student who grapples with existential questions of being Jewish and an older son who has moved to Israel.
In this vein, I like to imagine characters that I could sit around the Seder table with and share the experience of reliving the story of the Exodus. I introduce below two such characters. The first is Tzipporah, the wife of Moshe. They married whilst Moshe was in Midian, having fled from the wrath of Pharaoh. Her father, Yitro, later became a source of practical advice to Moshe and even has a sidrah in the Torah named after him.
Tzipporah, along with her sons, was not present in Egypt for the plagues and the Exodus. They were in Midian instead and were only reunited when Yitro brought them to meet Moshe after the splitting of the sea. They had missed out on the experience of the Exodus. I wonder how Moshe would have told them about it each Pesach – it is a fascinating thought.
Have you ever had a Jew at your Seder table who was attending a Seder for the first time? How did you involve them and what was their perspective? In broad terms, the experience of Ethiopian Jews has been similar. Cut off from other Jews for thousands of years, as well as from the development of the Seder, they also experienced their own ‘Exodus’, often walking for days as part of clandestine missions, such as Operation Moses in 1984, to bring them to Israel. The following link reveals more about Ethiopian Jews and Pesach – www.thejewishweek.com/features/seder_ethiopian_style.
The second character is the famous Rabbi Akiva, whose Seder night with his colleagues in Lod, Israel, which probably took place in the early part of the second century CE, is recounted in the Haggadah. Rabbi Akiva did not start life as a scholarly Jew. His connection with Jewish study only began at the age of 40. His incredible dedication to his studies and religious observance and his care for other people made him a natural leader of the Jewish people as well as one of the greatest scholars in our history.
Rabbi Akiva did not just learn the story of the Exodus as part of history. Living in the Land of Israel under Roman rule, before, during and after the destruction of the Second Temple, he felt the resonance of the Exodus in his own times through the struggle of the Jewish people to live freely in their own Land. He was heavily involved in this struggle and, tragically, paid for it with his life.
This approach of Rabbi Akiva can also be applied to our own times, viewing the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the establishment of the State of Israel as part of the ongoing adventure of Jewish history. Just as the Exodus inspired Rabbi Akiva to assert our Biblical rights and obligations in the Land of Israel, it should inspire us to be a part of the gift that God has given us: the State of Israel and the opportunity for that State to enable us to live out the visions and promises of the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible).