The Narrative

Prologue

From degradation to dignity; from depression to elation; from despair to delight; from slavery to freedom… from winter to spring.

Our story begins as evil rules. We help it advance toward the sublime.

This is our theme:

In Egypt, Pharaoh enslaved us. We were freed from slavery with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. If we had not been delivered, we and all generations after us would still be slaves.

Therefore, even if all of us were wise and discerning, scholars, sages and learned in Torah: we would still have to tell the story of the Exodus. And praised is the one who lingers over the telling!

אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, עָצוּם וָרָב

While we have no independent verification, our ancient literature relates that our father was a wandering Aramean.

When the famine in Cana’an became severe, Jacob and his eleven sons, his daughter Dinah, and their families joined Joseph in Egypt.

As Prime Minister and Pharaoh’s assistant at that time, Joseph’s family assumed a position of wealth, power and comfort.

Soon thereafter, however, a new king arose over Egypt “who knew not Joseph,”¹ and our ancestors were enslaved.

Our rabbis tell us that Pharaoh was able to enslave our people because of a pervasive fear among the Egyptians that we would be disloyal to our new-found homeland. Because we were different, we were not seen as an integral part of Egyptian society.

So, too, in our day, many people distrust those they perceive as “other”. This distrust allows oppression to flourish.

Our rabbis also tell us that the enslavement proceeded gradually. First, the Egyptians asked us to work for the Pharaoh because of an emergency. Then they told us we had to work one day a week. As Pharaoh’s demands became gradually more restrictive our people did not resist. Eventually they took our rights and independent lives from us.

So, too, in modern times, as recounted by Rev. Martin Niemöller, the challenges to freedom begin in the gradual encroachment of liberties.

“ In Germany the Nazis came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for me; by that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.”

In Dem Land Fun Piramidn

There lived in the land of the pyramids a very cruel and angry king. The Jews in the land were his servants and his slaves. Children were imprisoned in the wall in place of missing bricks. Who knows how long this slave world would have continued? If there had not lived a great hero in this land of the pyramids. Who fought for the Jews with his wisdom and his sword.²

☞ What new minor restrictions do I experience or see placed on ourselves and others?

Though the Egyptians succeeded in enslaving us, they could not destroy the seeds that would lead to freedom. Active resistance developed among our people. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah refused to comply with Pharaoh’s orders to kill every male child born. This act of non-violent civil disobedience inspired hope in our people and saved many lives, including that of Moses. There was also a spiritual resistance. Our people did not change their names or their language.³ We continued to celebrate our holidays and worship God.

And today as well, our resistance can be both active and spiritual. We could just say “No!” to the demands and restraints imposed upon us. We could:

• acquire new knowledge;

• become active in our congregations and chavurot;

• create works of art;

• donate to and volunteer with various causes;

• experiment⁴;

• form mutual aid and self-help groups to encourage and guide one another;

• learn new skills;

• make new friends with people who are different from us;

• participate in civil disobedience;

• work in politics.

☞ Add your own.

☞ What have I done to resist improper restraints?

Who did what?

The classic Haggadah does not mention any human actors other than the nay-saying Pharaoh. The earliest texts that form the Haggadah were composed at the time of the beginnings of Christianity. Most scholars suggest that not mentioning human actors in the redemption stressed the power of God and diminished the possibility of imagining that Moses could be elevated to deity-like status.

Go Down Moses

When Israel was in Egypt’s land

Let my people go;

Oppressed so hard they could not stand,

Let my people go!

Chorus: 

Go down, Moses,

Way down in Egypt’s land;

Tell ol’ Pharaoh,

Let my people go!

Thus saith the Lord, bold Moses said,

Let my people go;

If not I’ll smite your first born dead;

Let my people go!

   Chorus

No more shall they in bondage toil

Let my people go;

Let them come out with Egypt’s spoil

Let my people go!

   Chorus

We need not always weep and mourn

Let my people go;

And wear these slav’ry chains forlorn

Let my people go!

   Chorus

☞ How do we understand the complex relationship between (white) American Jews and African Americans of many religious orientations? We sing “Go Down Moses” at our Seders after African Americans incorporated the Exodus narrative into the struggle against their own slavery.

How do we heal the rifts between our communities? How well do we know each other’s histories? Though raised with privilege in Pharaoh’s house, Moses rejected the role of oppressor and returned to his people.

What enabled Moses able to see that his liberation and ours were bound up with that of others’, that by removing the chains of his adoptive family he was removing his own? How was he able to see past difference and otherness into similarity?

How did this happen? How did Moses move from oppressor to ally to liberator? How do we move ourselves from passive to active? Is this actually a useful binary?

Still, even once he was self-activated, he found that we were unable to hear him. Frightened of our taskmasters we were meek and disbelieving. We had difficulty remembering freedom, we could barely dream of it.

In our day, too, we internalize the bitterness of oppression. The young girl who thinks boys are better and the child who thinks only straight blond hair is beautiful, feel it. Jews who make disparaging jokes about Jewish women feel it. Through self-hatred, this pain has become part of our day-to-day lives, a key to our personal and political limitations.

☞ What oppressions & self-hatreds have you internalized? What will your liberation be like?

Footnotes

¹ Exodus 1:8

² By Dovid Eidelshtat & Ben Yomen

³ “Rav Huna quoted Bar Kapara: On account of four things Israel was redeemed from Egypt: they did not change their names or their language, they did not gossip, and none of them was promiscuous.” (Vayikra Rabbah 32:5). Additional sources: B'midbar Rabbah 20:22; Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 4:12; Tanchuma, Balak 16; Mekhilta to Exodus 12:6; another version, in Midrash Lekach Tov to Exodus 6:6, includes clothing in the list.

⁴ Remember, every experiment is a success, even if the outcome is not as expected.