Getting Beyond the Straits and Narrow

🌀 One of those present opens the door and places a pair of shoes on the doorstep.

אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי

Arami oved avi.

My father was a wandering Aramean; long ago, our people were Syrian refugees.¹

We have stood in the shoes of the refugee many times in our history. Today, as we celebrate our freedom, we commit ourselves to continuing to stand with the more than 65 million contemporary refugees and those who seek asylum.² In honor of this commitment and against the backdrop of terrible restrictions on refugees, we place a pair of shoes on the doorstep of our home to acknowledge that none of us is free until all of us are free and to pledge to stand in support of welcoming those who do not yet have a place to call home.³

And when our ancestors left Egypt, they were pursued by Pharaoh, his horsemen and chariots. We found ourselves trapped between the Egyptians and the sea. The Hebrew name is  יַם־סוּף Yam Suf or possibly יַם־סוֹף Yam Sof: a Sea of Endings. At times each one of us becomes a refugee, perhaps not political, but emotional. We flee pain and darkness that threaten us. We stand before the sea, pursued by our fears, either imagined or real.

Then, we are told, one person: Nachshon, displayed a commitment to freedom by walking into the sea. Only at the moment when the water reached his neck, unable to go further alone, did the sea part. This act of faith and courage opened the way from Egypt to liberation and enabled us all to be born free.

Where is this place “Egypt,” is it the Egypt we know?

Yes, though only the name of the place is the same, the people have changed. In fact we are at peace and allied with the Egypt of today.

The Egypt of the Haggadah is more than a place, it is more than a nation state, it is a state of mind.

Our Hebrew word for that place is “Mitzr🌀’yim” מִצְרַיִם, that is: the straits, or narrows. The geographical Mitzra’yim is a pinched green strip of land in the midst of desert along the shores of the Nile River. The metaphorical Mitzra’yim is restriction, a state that causes us to thirst.

We have all come through that tight passage, split the waters of what seemed to be an ending, only to begin anew, to search for a new way. Some of us still feel caught in that tight space, continuing to struggle for as long—or longer than— forty years.

As with Nachshon, so also for us, we can only achieve our salvation through our own willingness to take risks.

🌀 One of those present closes the door.

☞ What risk might I take to help me achieve my goals?

☞ What risk might I take to help us achieve our goals?

When our ancestors crossed the sea triumphantly, Miriam, ha neviah led the women in song. Tonight, we sing:

Miriam’s Song

And the women dancing with their timbrels

Followed Miriam as she sang her song.

Sing a song to the One whom we’ve exalted,

Miriam and the women danced and danced the whole night long.

And Miriam was a weaver of unique variety,

The tapestry she wove was one which sang our history,

With every strand and every thread she crafted her delight,

A woman touched with spirit she dances toward the light.

Chorus

When Miriam stood upon the shores and gazed across the sea,

The wonder of this miracle she soon came to believe,

Whoever thought the sea would part with an outstretched hand,

And we would pass to freedom and march to the promised land.

Chorus

And Miriam the prophet took her timbrel in her hand,

And all the women followed her just as she had planned,

And Miriam raised her voice in song She sang with praise and might,

We’ve just lived through a miracle, we’re going to dance tonight.⁴

Or, in the words of Emma Goldman, who probably did not learn it from Miriam ha neviah: “If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

Footnotes

¹ Deuteronomy 26:5

² Rwandan refugees; James C. McKinley Jr. of The New York Times in the Los Angeles Daily News. Saturday, November 16, 1996.

³ HIAS Haggadah Supplement 2017

⁴ Music and lyrics by Debbie Friedman, (© 1988 Deborah Lynn Friedman (ASCAP), Sounds Write Productions, Inc.) used by permission; based on Exodus 15:20-21.