What story do you want to tell at your seder?
The Shabbat Story
Central to Jewish tradition is the concept that Shabbat is זֵכֶר לִיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם —a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt: from enslavement to liberation to the ability to choose not to work as part of our Shabbat observance. Judaism has long realized that our central story of freedom is the framing idea through which we can truly understand and experience core Jewish principles.
The Ten Commandments, as presented in Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, include the following justification of Shabbat:
Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and יְהוָה your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, יְהוָה your God has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
As slaves, the task masters controlled the entirety of the lives of the Israelites. Eating, sleeping, resting from labor, even procreation were carried out at the whims of the cruel overlords. Their laws were draconian and arbitrary and without any concern for justice. The Torah makes this point by describing pharaoh’s cruelty as he forced the Israelites to make more and more bricks under increasingly difficult conditions. With the passage to freedom, God became the ultimate sovereign of the people. The Torah sees the mitzvot as manifestations of God’s unique gift of freedom: a just system that leads to virtue and spiritual reward. Shabbat, as countless generations of Jews have understood it, is God’s gift to a newly freed people. It is the gift of meaningful rest and spiritual uplift. Understanding the traditional ideology behind Shabbat as it was presented over the centuries can lead us down a path to enriching our own Shabbat experiences. As much as the story of enslavement and liberation is our story, so too is the observance of the sacred day of rest: Shabbat.
Since the theme of this week’s kavanot has been about enriching your seder, let me make the connection between your seder and Shabbat and invite you to consider yet another theme that can add meaning to your seder. If Shabbat (as the Torah presents it) was God’s answer to the Exodus—the true rest of free people—how can your seder tell the story of Shabbat and what it has meant to your own family? What values does Shabbat teach and how can we apply them to our lives during the week? What does “rest” mean for us and how might our spiritual rest restore our ability to live with meaning and intention?
Here’s a more expansive essay.
Clearly, I have not exhausted all the possible themes that can be woven into your Passover seder experience. It is Women’s History Month—imagine a seder that stresses the central role that Jewish women have had in shaping Jewish existence. Is your family bi-racial or muti-cultural? How might you weave themes from your identity into your seder? The Haggadah is already a rich text, and when we layer our own stories onto its pages, we create a deeply Jewish and truly unique experience for all who attend our seder.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ron Stern