Passover Seder: Three Messages for Us and our Children
While there is much to convey at our Passover Seder, I believe the following three messages are especially important.
I. The History of our Exodus from Egypt
The Torah records that the Israelites left Canaan to go to Egypt to avoid a famine. The Israelites were initially well-received. However, “A new King arose over Egypt, one who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8) and this King (Pharoah), fearful of the Israelites, enslaved us. Ultimately, slavery would not suffice as the Egyptians wanted to eradicate our people by killing all male infants.
Moses, directed by God, calls upon the Hebrews to worship God and, to freedom. In the events described in the Haggadah, the Israelites are freed from slavery. The Egyptians, however, ultimately find this unacceptable and chase after the Israelites. The Israelites are saved, and the Egyptians destroyed.
II. God’s Role
A primary message of Passover is that God freed our people. In the words of the Torah, “And you shall remember you were a slave in the land of Egypt and Adonai, your God, has taken you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” (Deuteronomy 5:15) God heard our people’s cries, and cared about human beings. God did not simply create human beings and “walk away.”
Perhaps the most chilling reading at the Seder is, “And it is that this has stood for our ancestors and for us. Not only one (person or nation) has arisen to annihilate us, but rather, in each generation, they arise to annihilate us. But the Blessed Holy One rescues us from their hand.” It has been a central theme of Jewish history, one we are witnessing at this very moment with the attack against Israel, not only by the evil-doers but also by a large number of people and countries who support them.
God does not save every Jew from evil-doers. The promise is that God will save “us”, the Jewish people. And, despite all the attempts to annihilate us, often by those far more powerful than us, we are, remarkably, still here.
III. Evil is Destroyed
The Torah teaches, “You shall eradicate evil from your midst.” (Deuteronomy 21:21)
It is noteworthy that the Egyptian army was destroyed. And it is noteworthy that this was only after many opportunities to change. After each of the plagues, Pharoah could have freed our people, and the Egyptians would have been left to their own devices.
Even after the tenth plague, God’s smiting of the firstborn where Pharoah finally relents, the Egyptians could have gone on with their lives. It is only after Pharoah has a change of heart and when the Egyptian army chases the Israelites into the Red Sea that God closes the sea on them, and they are destroyed.
The Exodus from Egypt proclaims to the world that there is a different and better way to live, and God wants human beings to live in freedom and dignity. The Exodus tells us that we should not accept nor reconcile ourselves to evil in this world. The Exodus, then, is not only history; it is to be part of the future. All who are free to celebrate the Exodus of our people from tyranny are to help liberate others who, today, are not free.
With wishes for a kosher and meaningful Passover.
— Rabbi David Woznica