If slavery is so bad, why do we have to reenact it
every Passover? One might think we
should skip over the reliving the shame of slavery. Who wants to eat the symbolic foods like
matza, poor man’s bread, the bitter herb, and the dipping in salt water?
Shouldn’t we rather concentrate upon the psalms of praise, Hallel, and eating of
the festive meal with its four cups of wine?
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi taught that revelation from on
top of Mt. Sinai is a continuous event as it is written: “Every day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount
Horeb, another name for Sinai,…” (Avot
6:2) Just as revelation from Sinai
is a continuous event, so too do I believe that the Exodus from Egypt is a
continuous event and that’s why we still need to remember our time as slaves to
Pharaoh. We’re still not out of the
woods yet.
Rabbi Avraham
Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine, explains why God needed to
take us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Wouldn’t it have been sufficient to take us
out of Egypt with strong hand or an outstretched arm? He
writes:
A strong hand refers to
the sudden, dramatic intervention of God in our history, which immediately
catapulted us from the depths of depravity in Egypt to the spiritual heights of
Mount Sinai. Bu this is only one side of
the coin of divine history. In addition
to the revolution of the strong hand, there must also be the evolution
symbolized by the outstretched arm. The arm is outstretched meaning that the
potential yet awaits its actualization. This outstretched arm alludes to the
slow, gradual spiritual evolution of the Jewish people, to an ongoing process that
will eventually climax in the coming of the Messiah.
These are the two
tracts of history. One, a revolution
engineered from above. Left to our own resources we would never have left
Egypt. There was required supernatural
divine intervention. But the ultimate
goal is not that the Torah go against the grain of nature, but rather that
human nature be refined so that the Torah can be integrated and absorbed within
the framework of nature. This gradual
refinement is an ongoing process over generations upon generations. Each individual generation has its part to
pay in this spiritual drama. For this
reason we say, “In every generation everyone must see himself/herself as if he
or she left Egypt.” This Exodus of the “outstretched arm” is a work in progress.
It yet awaits completion. (The Rav Kook Hagadah, page 38. Orot Publishers:
Spring Valley, NY, 2012)
The Haggadah calls us to look around and see where
the world is still not redeemed. Slavery
in many forms still exists. The weak and the poor are still exploited. Gun violence permeates our country and war is
a constant companion to too many people around the globe. By retelling the
story of our people’s slavery through words, songs, and symbolic food and
seeing ourselves as if we just left Egypt, we learn that God is waiting for us
with an outstretched arm to complete our world’s redemption. When we join the Holy
One as His partner to finish the task of redemption, our plea “Next year in
Jerusalem” will no longer be a plea in
potentia, but will be realized to the
full extent of our longings.
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