Hesed or
kindness is one of the major lessons the Passover Seder tries to reinforce all
throughout the Haggadah. For your Seder,
let me share from the Haggadah The Night
That Unites commentary from the beginning, middle, and end of the Seder
which emphasizes the value of hesed
in our lives. Feel free to use these commentaries
as conversation starters at your Seder.
“This is the bread of affliction…Let all who are
hungry come and eat…”
The Seder begins with an invitation to those
in need to join us in our homes for the Seder.
This is an act of kindness and tzedakah.
Rav
Kook taught that we begin the Seder this way because the moment we were freed
from slavery our true essence could emerge.
We are a people of loving-kindness. Our forefather Abraham instilled
this message within our Jewish consciousness (Abraham’s tent had a door in each
of the four directions according to the Midrash, so that he could welcome in
people into his home no matter in what the direction they were traveling-Rabbi
Greene), and so at the Seder, as soon as we enact the story of our liberation,
we engage in the act most characteristic of us as a people: feeding the hungry.
(page 68)
“Therefore we are required to thank, praise, glorify…”
Rabbi Soloveitchik taught that we have an obligation to
respond appropriately to our good fortune.
There are times in all lives when we are faced with the painful question
of how respond to suffering. In a fresh
approach, and the very reverse of times when we face suffering, the Rav
suggested that a parallel question needs to be asked when we experience blessing
and goodness in life. Why do I deserve this good?
The Rav teaches:
God’s acts of hesed,
“kindness,” Judaism declares, are not granted to man as a free gift. Rather they impose obligations, they exact
ethic and halakhic demands upon their
beneficiary. The bestowal of good is always to be viewed as a conditional gift-a gift that must be
returned-or a temporary gift.
When
God endows a person with wealth, influence, and honor, the recipient must know
how to use these precious gifts, how to transform them into fruitful, creative
forces, how to share his or her joy and prominence with the people around, how
to take the divine hesed that flows
toward them from its infinite Godly source and use it to perform deeds of
loving-kindness. (page174)
“I was a youth and also have aged, and I have not seen
a righteous man forsaken and his children begging for bread.”
Rabbi Soloveitchik taught the following explanation in
clarifying this challenging verse in Grace after Meals:
The Standard translation of this verse (Psalm 37:5) is “was
a youth and also have aged, and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken and
his children begging for bread.”
The Rav offered a new meaning to the verse. The verb, ra’iti,
“seen,” should be translated in the way in which it appears in the Book of
Esther. Esther pleads on behalf of the Jewish people saying, “For how can I watch, ra’iti, the evil that
shall come unto my people? Or how can I
watch, ra’iti, the destruction of my kindred?” (Esther 8:6)
The verb ra’iti
means “stand as a passive witness to.” This verse in Grace after Meals, should
be understood as, “When the righteous were forsaken or his children forced to
search for bread, I never merely stood
and watched.”
This verse can be interpreted as a warning against
being a mere bystander while other people suffer.
As we conclude saying the Grace after Meals, we are
called upon to engage in providing for those who are in need. We begin the Grace
after Meals speaking of God’s goodness in feeding the hungry, and we conclude
with the injunction to do likewise. (page 220)
Abraham Joshua Heschel was
one of the greatest 20th century American Jewish theologians and he taught
at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York until his untimely death in
1972, He once wrote: “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am
old, I admire kind people.”
We should ask two more questions
on top of the famous four. Who are the hesed masters I admire as role models in
my life? In what ways can I use the blessings and gifts that I have received to
enhance the world around me? If you answer
those questions correctly, it was not for naught that we were slaves in Egypt.
No comments:
Post a Comment