What story do you want to tell at your seder?

The Immigration Story

Much of Jewish history is a story of migration from one land to another. Whether our families fled Israel in 586 B.C.E. with the Babylonian destruction, and then left Iran in 1979, Russia and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, or migrated from another nation that had been our home and was suddenly no longer safe, we have an immigration story to tell.

The Haggadah’s account of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is the central paradigm for Jewish migration history. Our narrative is one where fate brings us to a land where we thrive until our fortunes turn, and then we pack our belongings and set out for new lands, each time filled with renewed hope.

It took my grandparents 40 years before they were emotionally ready to retell their own story of leaving Germany in 1938. I’ve learned that it’s an account of remarkable courage, fortitude, and determination. It’s also a tale of rebuilding lives in a strange land with few resources. We’ve retold it often as part of our seder so that my children (and soon my grandchildren) will know the Stern family immigration history.

Among the first conversations that I have with families as we prepare for a bar or bat mitzvah is about their immigration story. Sometimes the children know the story, sometimes they don’t—but as their parents recount their journey to America, their children who’ve grown up in unparalleled security listen in rapt attention and amazement.

Do you have an immigration story? Tell it this year at your seder. (Feel free to skip over some of the traditional parts to make your immigration story central.) And, just as the rabbis elaborated on the Exodus from Egypt, you can elaborate on your own story: What do you want the guests at your seder to learn from it? What is your message of appreciation and gratitude to those who made your immigration story possible? How were characters in your story challenged and transformed by their own journey to liberation? As immigrants ourselves (or descendants thereof), what are our responsibilities to the next generations of immigrants?

—Rabbi Ron Stern