By Rabbi Elchonon Feldman, Bushey United Synagogue
Vaccinations are in the news. The media have informed us that properly inoculating ourselves carries risks, as does refraining from having a jab. I would recommend consulting your local GP to find out what is right for you! However, no one has ever presented an obvious argument against having an injection – why is it fair that my arm should be pricked by a needle if the potential illness would affect my chest or heart? If it is not (necessarily) my arm that is at risk, why should it suffer!
I think we all realise that this is an absurd argument. Our body is one entity. When any of our appendages hurt, we hurt. So too that which is beneficial for one aspect of our body should be positive for our whole being.
Rabbi Shimon Schwab (d. 1995) uses this principle to help us prepare for the Seder night. The Haggadah quotes a lesson from the Talmud (Pesachim 116b) that “In every generation one must look upon oneself as if he/she personally had gone out of Egypt”. This is a great challenge. We do not personally remember the Exodus and it is very hard to envisage something that happened so long ago. Rabbi Schwab suggests that the concept of our whole body being one entity can help. Just like the Jewish people spread out across the whole world are linked and are one, so too as a nation we are connected from the beginning of time until the end. Each of us is one of the limbs connected to create one beautiful people. Therefore when joyous occasions occur, we must all dance and cheer. When sorrow hits, we must mourn as one. This, writes Rabbi Schwab, is the perspective to have in reliving the Pesach miracle. We are one and what happened then happened to us too as we are all part of the Jewish people throughout time.
This message has an additional, personal benefit. A possible reason that we find it difficult to relate to the great miraculous salvation of our people is that we may not consider ourselves personally worthy of miracles and salvation. We might ask ourselves questions such as: “would G-d really have split a sea for me?” To this too we can apply the principle that we are all part of one people, and as a people we are worthy, deserving of great miracles and salvation. There is no partition between the great Moshe and Aharon and the Jew of today. We are all individual limbs of a great body.
This year, when we sit down together to commemorate the redemption of our nation from the land of Egypt, let us relive the experience, feeling strongly and resolutely that the story is relevant to us and that we too – as part of the Jewish nation – were saved. Let us also remember that the miracles that happened then are relevant to us because we too are part of the same people. We too are worthy of salvation and can enjoy redemption.