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by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar
We arrive at a much-needed Pesah/Passover holiday, with the Exodus experience ever-present in our hearts, ever resounding in our collective memories. That’s because tradition teaches that we are to recall the Exodus — yetzi’at mitzrayim, the moment of our collective liberation from the constrictions and deprivations of servitude in the narrow place of Egypt — not only on Pesah, but every single day: תִזְכֹּר אֶת־יוֹם צֵאתְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם כֹּל יְמֵי חַיֶיךָ “… remember the day of your Exodus from the land of Egypt all the days of your life” (Deuteronomy 16:3).
The ancient rabbis, as part of our Haggadah, debate why it is that Torah includes the word כֹּל/“all” in this verse. Couldn’t it have just said, they wondered, יְמֵי חַיֶיךָ/the days of your life, which implies all the days of your life? The word כֹּל/“all” in Hebrew is superflous, they suggest.
Only, for the ancient rabbis, nothing in Torah is superfluous. The word כֹּל/“all” adds something to our understanding of the mitzvah/sacred act of remembering the Exodus experience (our Exodus experience, for the mitzvah says to remember the day of your Exodus experience, each of ours, all the days of our lives).
Ben Zoma, the 1st/2nd Century CE sage, our Haggadah teaches, tells us the כֹּל/“all” refers to not just the days, but the nights, too.
It is at night when we most need to remember our Exodus experience. Some of us might consider this moment we are in right now a “night-like” experience: war and bloodshed, rising antisemitism and toxicity present in our social fabric; autocracy and the scapegoating of immigrants. Some of us might consider this a collective night-like experience, to say nothing of the individual troubles any of us might be going through at any given moment: grief and loss; illness, whether physical or mental, emotional, or spiritual; or alienation and loneliness, to name a few.
We remember the Exodus during the “nights,” too: we remember that during the lowest point in our people’s story, when surely all was doomed — not only had we been through generations of slavery and genocide of our first born, but even our escape seemed doomed: we had the Egyptian army closing in behind us and a roaring sea raging in front of us — when all seemed doomed, right at that moment, the tide literally turned: our crying out to God, our bravery was bearing fruit. The sea split, and we crossed to freedom — not to the easy life; we still had a wilderness to traverse. But the wind was at our backs, the sea breeze in our mouth and nostrils — we were tasting freedom.
We remember that moment each and every day — and night; especially the night, Ben Zoma argues — to remind ourselves that we have been through the collective vice grip, and broken free. This has been demonstrated at multiple points of Jewish, and human, history. The tide does turn; freedom does prevail.
And when it does, then, too, the mitzvah of zekher yetzi’at mitzrayim remains: while Ben Zoma argues that the word כֹּל/“all” is present to remind us to remember the Exodus during the nights, the rest of the hakhamim/the sages surrounding him take an alternative view: the word כֹּל/“all” is there to signal to us that in addition to the days of this world, we must also remember our experience of the Exodus during yemot hamashi’ah/messianaic days of redemption.
In other words, each of us, too, in our lives, experiences glimpses of the world to come — hints of wholeness and peace and perfection. Shabbat is one such traditional experience, when we give ourselves permission to be and exist and reflect, as are countless moments sprinkled throughout our lives: delightful laughter from children, grandchildren, or members of our community; a supportive act of a friend; a moment of learning and holiness; a kiss; a blossoming tree; a proud vote; a starry sky.
During each of these moments, and countless others, we recall the experience of having left Egypt; we celebrate the miracle of having journeyed through the breakers and remember that just because we have made it through doesn’t mean everyone has.
The Exodus story is a part of who we are: we remember it at our lowest moments to remind us we can overcome, as we have before. We remember it at our highest moments to remember what it took to get here and who else might still be on the way.
Wishing you all a hag Pesah same’ah — a joyous Passover holiday. Please give yourselves permission to have that.
If you want to read on, here is the D’var Torah I delivered last Friday night for Shabbat. As a reminder, Shabbat is also zekher yetzi’at mitzrayim, a reminder of our Exodus from Egypt. We invite you to join us each and every Shabbat — Friday night with music, a D’var Torah, and dinner; Saturday morning with prayer, Torah discussion, and lunch. All are welcome.
As we have been reflecting upon, these last few weeks have consisted of special Shabbatot preparing us for Pesah (Passover) with special maftirim, special additional Torah readings that assist in that spiritual preparation.
This Shabbat, the one immediately preceding Pesah, is a special Shabbat, only it has no special Torah reading. It is known simply as Shabbat Hagadol — the great Shabbat. No one knows exactly how and why it received this name. One tradition speculates that it was the Shabbat prior to the very first Passover, when the the people of Israel took their sheep from the flock in anticipation of the paschal offering that they would use to mark the doorposts of their home, bravely initiating the process of liberation. Others noted, in total seriousness, that the Shabbat prior to Passover was the day on which the rabbi would deliver his greatest, meaning longest, D’var Torah, laying out all the laws of Passover, hence Shabbat Hagadol, the great Sabbath.
But perhaps the clearest origin story for the name, Shabbat Hagadol, is the haftarah selection, from the book of Malakhi, the last book, down to the very last verses, of Nevi’im, the Books of the Prophets.
In the closing verses, Malakhi, channeling the word of God, says “Lo I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the day of God that is gadol/awesome, great” (3:23).
So we feel in this last verse a connection to Pesah. Elijah is invoked — Elijah, who mysteriously finds his way into each of our seders, sipping from the wine we’ve put out for him. Elijah is a mystical figure in Jewish life who was carried to heaven at the end of his life in a whirlwind. As such, we’re not sure that he ever really died — he seems to operate in this liminal space between the heavenly and earthly spheres, between this world and the world to come.
In fact, that’s in many ways the significance of this passage. Passover as a whole signifies the bridge between this world and the world to come. Remember that the Exodus, breaking free from Egypt, from our generations of restraints and constriction, is the paradigmatic experience of ge’ulah, redemption, a foretaste of ultimate redemption from a world of brokenness and exile, a redemption that we are all yearning for, and working toward.
What is fascinating about Shabbat Hagadol, the Shabbat which prepares us for that experience of redemption, is how it describes that preparation for redemption.
As we said, in the penultimate verse of the Book of Malakhi, channeling the word of God, Maklakhi says, “Lo I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the day of God that is gadol/awesome, great,” and then he concludes with the very last verse: וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב־אָבוֹת עַל־בָּנִים וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל־אֲבוֹתָם “He (Elijah) will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents” (3:24).
We’re talking about preparation for the ultimate redemption, the great and awesome day of the Lord, when all is made right, and what is the one and only act that is invoked in facilitating that preparation? Turning the hearts of parents and children toward one another, reconciliation between parents and children.
One of the striking things about the Tanakh/Bible is that if there is a movement in opposition to something, it’s because that thing was happening. If one of the ten commandments is a commandment against stealing, it’s because, unfortunately, stealing was happening; if there was law against adultery, adultery was happening; if there was an observation that one of the primary areas in which relationships needed to be healed was relationships between parents and children, it means that there was brokenness in the relationships between parents and children.
Sometimes, we think ours is the generation where things are really going awry. If only we could go back to the good old days, we might say. Before phones and screen addictions, before social media and corporate greed, before the breakdown in our social fabric.
And yet our tradition is one that has long recognized the fallibility of humanity — not the irredeemability of humanity: Elohai neshamah shenatatah bi, tehorah hi: the soul you have placed in us is pure, we say in our liturgy — but certainly the imperfection of humanity. We are not God. And that imperfection extends to how parents act toward their children and how children act toward their parents.
Look no further than the ancestors of our people for clear and convincing evidence of this. Abraham bringing his son Isaac to Mount Moriah for a near death experience. Rebecca and Isaac choosing favorites among their twin sons, Jacob and Esau, only to have Jacob participate in the deception of his father Isaac, stealing his blessing. Jacob then chooses a favorite among his twelve sons, only to have those sons deceive him in turn, when they sell that favorite son, Joseph, into slavery and tell Jacob that he has been killed by wild animals.
It should be no surprise, therefore — and this is in some respects the point of this whole D’var Torah — that we might encounter challenges in our relationships with our own parents and our own children.
Some features of Jewish life might suggest the opposite. Often times as Jews, especially the products of immigrants as many of us are, we romanticize family systems. Sure there’s bickering around a Shabbat dinner table, we might think, but there we all are, all of the family, always together.
Only, that’s not always how it is: parents — in Jewish families, too — are sometimes estranged from their children; children from their parents.
Or even if not estranged, there are instances of harm in those relationships — not always intentional, but harm nonetheless. We are imperfectly raising our own children, just as our parents imperfectly raised us, and their parents imperfectly raised them. And imperfection can be something of a euphemism; sometimes imperfection puts it quite mildly. And those harms can show up in presence, or they can show up in absence.
So it’s telling that on Shabbat Hagadol, the great Shabbat that comes right before Passover, the brokenness, and yet ultimate healing, of the relationship between children and their parents is invoked, brokenness which is present in Jewish families, just as in every other.
Still, there is reason for hope. I witness children bury their parents, and even sometimes parents bury their children, month after month. Not with uncomplicated relationships, but with a whole lot of love.
Passover comes to remind us that those wounds can heal. Passover is a moment in our story when we did indeed experience redemption, when the relationships in our lives, even if only during the crossing of the sea, were healed.
I many times invoke the teaching attributed to my father that God zokher hasdei avot, God remembers the love of parents, even when parents, through absence, through brokenness, are unable transmit it.
It’s Jewish for there to be a tearing of the fabric between parents and children; it’s also Jewish for it to be sewn back together.
May you have a Shabbat of healing.
Once again, wishing you a joyous Pesah,
Rabbi K.
