Why Do We Tell This Story?
The seder does end in the Promised Land. Time and again, I come back to this. It is a choice, made by our Sages millennia ago, to end our seder short of its goal; to end the seder in the wilderness and the wandering. It is the choice that, maybe this year especially, feels poignant and profound.
Last summer, I had the incredible gift of bringing my children—then 9 and 6—to Israel. Both graduates of our Aaron Milken Center Hebrew Immersion program, I wanted them to hear the sounds of Israel all around them. I wanted them to see the sights they had “visited” in Wise School Yom HaAtzmaut celebrations. I wanted them to fall in love with Israel—its history and its vibrancy. I wanted them—through the corridors of the shuk and the spectacular beaches and the Saturday night protests for democracy and the twice-daily ice cream—to see Israel as a miracle, not despite its challenges, but because of them. Little did I know in August how important that trip would be for them, and for me.
In a resource dedicated to Passover 2024, this Passover six months after the horrible events of October 7, poet and liturgist Tricia Arlin offered the following, entitled Why Do We Tell This Story? It is a piece that is—like the best of Jewish liturgy—completely timeless and deeply of the moment, and it is a piece on which I have been reflecting as Passover approaches. She writes:
Why do we tell this story?
To remember how we got to Sinai and Torah
So that we can recognize righteous struggle
And have patience for the long hauls.
Why do we tell this story?
To remember this narrative that creates a people
So we can cherish our myth
And hope repetition somehow makes it true.
Why do we tell this story?
To remember when we were underdogs and heroes
So that we can study the times when we are not
And do the right things when we should.
Our story—our national story and our personal ones—are narratives of journey. They are not linear, and they are not simple. Sometimes we are underdogs and sometimes we are heroes, and sometimes we are both. Sometimes, like the seder, we get stuck in the wilderness and the Promised Land seems miles away. Communally and personally, we need to learn—again and again—about tenacity, about perseverance, and about faith. We need to learn to teach—again and again—tenacity, perseverance, and faith.
So we tell the story, we tell our stories, year after year. To remember that we are in it for the long haul, that we are in it together, and that we are the people of myth and miracle—destined and determined to make it true.
Chag Sameach.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer