Note: During the week of Passover, there are special daily Torah readings for each day. We read a compendium of entries about Passover from different books in the Torah. Some tell and retell the Exodus story, reflecting new aspects of the story when they are read in relation to each other. Other readings are about the halacha — the path and practices — of observing Passover, at our tables and in our temples.
The Haggadah is the text we follow in our Passover seders. Toward the end of the Maggid, the story telling section, we read about a group of Rabbi-sages who are gathered for their Passover seder in Bnai Brak, Israel , two thousand years ago . The Haggadah says,
"They were telling of the exodus all night, until their student came..."
In another Seder, also two thousand years ago, in Lod, Israel, a different group of Sages focus on the laws, not the story.
It happened that Rabban Gamliel and the elders were reclining in the house of Bitos ben Zunon in Lod and they were engaged in the laws of Passover all night until the cock crowed.
— Tosefta, Pesahim 10:12
The tradition is telling us something important by highlighting two completely different focuses to these historic seders. I hear the message as, find the retelling that is accurate for your time and your growth. What story are you, the collective Jewish people, living now that needs to be refocused, retold, so that you too can move toward a new never-before-imagined liberation.
וַיֵּ֨ט מֹשֶׁ֣ה אֶת־יָדוֹ֮ עַל־הַיָּם֒ וַיּ֣וֹלֶךְ יְהוָ֣ה ׀ אֶת־הַ֠יָּם בְּר֨וּחַ קָדִ֤ים עַזָּה֙ כָּל־הַלַּ֔יְלָה וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת־הַיָּ֖ם לֶחָרָבָ֑ה וַיִּבָּקְע֖וּ הַמָּֽיִם׃
Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and Eternally Present drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split,
וַיָּבֹ֧אוּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל בְּת֥וֹךְ הַיָּ֖ם בַּיַּבָּשָׁ֑ה וְהַמַּ֤יִם לָהֶם֙ חֹמָ֔ה מִֽימִינָ֖ם וּמִשְּׂמֹאלָֽם׃
and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Exodus 14: 21-22
During Passover we retell the story of the Israelite slaves and mixed multitudes fleeing from Pharaoh and Egypt. The seventh night and last day of Passover is called Svii Shel Pesach. We retell as if we are reliving the story in Exodus of the crossing of the Sea.
The greatness of the people was in the courage to wade into unknown and perilous waters not knowing what was on the other side. A people stepped out from enslavement, where nothing could be counted on except suffering and oppression. For a collective people to find the spark of hope, strength, and trust to step into the sea and cross into an unknown wilderness is remarkable and inspiring.
From the Passover Haggadah:
בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם
In every generation, every person is obligated to see themselves as if they (themselves) had come out of Egypt.
What does it mean to retell this story as if it happened to us?
At many Passover tables, families creatively reenact the 2000-4000-year-old story with song and story. WE want to instill the younger generations with a sense of where they come from, they history and tradition they carry. In my family and circles, we also add the Hassidic tradition of applying the Passover story and rituals to our individual inner journeys to freedom.
Both these approaches are deeply meaningful. And also incomplete. The Passover story is a story of an entire people. It is the story of collective liberation from a narrative of victimhood to a narrative of freedom. If we retell this as something that happened to our ancestors, we aren't living it ourselves. If we tell it only as a metaphor for our own individual spiritual growth, we miss the crucial character of this story as one of collective liberation.
What is an alive retelling in this era? What is the narrow place where today's generations of Jewish people are stuck? This is where we look to begin retelling the story "as if it is happening to us."
In Torah, Egypt, the land of Pharoah, stands for the stuck place of constriction and disconnection. I learned from Torah scholar Aviva Zornberg that "the Egyptian mystery [is] a refusal to open up to reality at any level."
As an American Jew, when I look at the Jewish people in my country, I ask, what is the reality that we refuse to see, or even talk about in our own community. For over ten years I have spent time in Israel and the West Bank, with Jews, Christians and Moslems, Israelis and Palestinians, talking, eating, crying together. Sharing hopes and dreams, learning Nonviolent Communication, meditating, singing, and praying together. I see that the story Jews need to face and retell is what we are doing to the Palestinians and how it is affecting our people and the whole world.
Aviva Zornberg taught us, “the Egyptians are there to teach us about ourselves." Our stuck place, what we are called upon in this time to learn about ourselves, is the harm caused by our refusal to update how we see the Palestinians. We need to learn how to move from seeing them as our enemies to welcoming them as partners in building a new mideast. A mideast with a future that offers shared natural resources and peace to our children and grandchildren.
What are we afraid we will learn about ourselves if we look at the reality of what is going on in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Jordan Valley, when we refuse to see what the rest of the world sees and how it is impacting and isolating us?
In the Passover seder, as in our lives, the story that we retell creates the values we live by. There are old stories, important ancestral stories. How we retell the stories today is what we pass on to our children and grandchildren.
The task of each generation is to find ways of understanding the story, to internalize and make meaning of it. The ancient Israelites crossed the sea amidst great miracles, yet they couldn't hear or internalize the meaning of this. They were out of Egypt physically, but their understanding of what happened to them was incomplete.
Each generation reveals the meaning in a different way, because each generation is attuned to a different aspect of the story. Today we see in the story what wasn't seen one thousand years ago, 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. We are fulfilling the mitzvah of Passover when we retell it as if we ourselves were on the journey. Not our ancestors; us. We retell it as ourselves, bringing to it who we and the Jewish people are in the 21St century.
Dayeinu
Dare we retell the story in the 21st century to uphold freedom, and dignity of the Palestinian people?
Dare we enter into the Jordan River Valley to welcome our Palestinian brothers and sisters as full members of God's world? Not stealing their lands and resources; rather returning them.
When do we say, dai — enough — in relation to what we have extracted from the land and people of the Palestinians? Haven't we extracted enough of their land, their freedom, their narrative?
When do we retell the story and say, dayeinu — it is enough that we have a homeland for Jews. We are ready to update our narrative to what the generations today know: that unless we share resources and respect all peoples we are doomed to the cycle of violence and destruction of the earth that already has us teetering on the brink of extinction.
It's time we retell our story to reflect interbeing and interdependence. This means breaking free of the dualities of comparing pain or narratives. Our deepest freedom lies in expanding our individual and collective capacity to respect all narratives. When we ask ourselves, what do we really need to agree on so we can stop being enemies, the possibility of a promising land opens up. Today, let's ask, “How do we make room for everyone to share freedom, land and resources?” Let us retell the story with the insight that our freedom is bound up together.
A Contemplative Nonviolent Communication
Practice on Freedom
Sometimes Nonviolent Communication is called Meditation in Relationship. Meditation is about creating focused time to bring your awareness to what is happening right now. It could be walking, breathing, washing the dishes, laying down or sitting. We make a conscious choice to be aware of what is happening in this moment.
Nonviolent Communication is also an awareness practice. We choose to become aware of how we are responding to our own thoughts, feelings and what is happening around us. This increases our capacity to understand and care about what is important to others.
In this NVC practice two people witness and hold space for each other to explore what freedom means to each of you. Each person has three rounds to explore freedom.
In a private quiet place, sit opposite each other with knees touching or almost touching. Each round will be 5-10 minutes ( decide ahead of time so Speaker A can track time). After three rounds, sit quietly for 2-5 minutes, then switch roles.
Speaker A: Tell me, how does freedom live in you?
Speaker B : Explores out loud how freedom feels in the body, in the spirit, in the emotions. Use silent spaces to reflect and deepen.
Speaker A: After the time agreed upon, Speaker A repeats the question two more times and says nothing else. Both then sit quietly for a few minutes to integrate, then switch roles.
(You can keep going with different needs that come up as you go. Here is a sample list of needs to work with from the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Stay with each need for at least three rounds.
Freedom
Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!
Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,
breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning
call of the future;
Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith
you fasten yourself in night's stillness,
mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;
freedom from the anarchy of destiny
whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,
and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.
Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,
where movements are started through brainless wires,
repeated through mindless habits,
where figures wait with patience and obedience for the
master of show,
to be stirred into a mimicry of life.
— Rabindranath Tagore