As we get ready for our Passover seders next week, we will look at the number four and its significance in the ritual.
Long before we used words like pedagogy, or experiential education, the rabbis of the Talmud understood the seder to be all of those things. From pillows to horseradish, kiddush to Hallel, the seder is meant—as I wrote yesterday—to help us feel that we are moving from darkness to light, degradation to praise, and slavery to freedom.
So, here’s another four to consider. We know that the four cups of wine are connected to the four promises God makes in Exodus 6. But, the rabbis get even more granular than that. Redemption, they say, does not happen in a single moment. Not because God is not powerful enough, but perhaps we are not. Rather, redemption occurs over time, in starts and stops, in stages. And we celebrate that in our seder as well, marking four moments in the process of redemption.
At karpas, as we dip the freshness in the parsley, the sign of rebirth washed in the bitter taste of slavery, we perhaps experience our first taste of salvation. When we recite the plagues though, the sages suggest that we are understanding our salvation from harsh labor, which began in earnest as soon as the plagues were introduced.
The matzah, which serves as both the bread of affliction and the taste of freedom, can also serve as a reminder of our salvation from servitude, marked by the day that we physically left Egypt.
Memorialized in Dayenu, the splitting of the sea represents another moment on the road to redemption. Looking backwards, the Israelites are able to let go of their fear, and begin to imagine a new future.
The conclusion of this part of the narrative, though, is not marked around the seder table itself. The Exodus narrative, in many ways, ends at the foot of Mt. Sinai. In the moment that we become a nation, this process of redemption is complete, and we set forth on another journey, one that continues to this day.
I have always been moved by the fact that the seder welcomes all, regardless of where we might find ourselves on our journey to liberation. Let all who are hungry—for bread or freedom—come and eat.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer