Passover 2024: The timeless and timely messages of the Seder - opinion

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Author: ELIOT PENN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Even though the Israelites left Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, the celebration of freedom continues to inspire. The Jewish nation had been enslaved and oppressed in Egypt for centuries. Their departure from Egypt replaced their suffering with autonomy, among the most basic requirements for personal and national fulfillment

The Jewish experience as slaves also shaped the nation's culture and practices through today. Repeatedly, the Torah recalls the Israelites' experience in Egypt when commanding them to act with kindness to others, especially the disadvantaged. "And you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt," reads Exodus 23:9, as but one example. Today's Jewish advocacy for equality and justice traces its roots back to the nation's enslavement in ancient Egypt.

How does the Seder stay relevant?

Aside from the Seder's timeless values that have resonated for millennia, the magic of the Seder's persistence is its ability to communicate messages that stay freshly relevant even as the particulars of Jewish existence change in each generation. "In each generation," Jews recite at the Seder, "a person is obligated to see themselves as if they came out of Egypt." This year, two parts of the Seder will stand out for their poignancy and timeliness.

One is the text of vehi she'amda, recited and often sung at the Seder. It reads in translation, "And it is this that has stood by our ancestors and by us: for not only one has risen against us to destroy us, but in each generation there are those that rise against us to destroy us, and the Holy One rescues us from their hands."

From Egyptian slavery to the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman exiles, to the near annihilation of the Jews in Persia as told in the Book of Esther, to the Crusades and the Inquisition, to the pogroms and the Holocaust, to Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah today, Jewish history has been the prophecy of vehi she'amda on loop playback. With Israel now once again fighting for its existence, no doubt many tears will flow as this passage is reached at Seders this year.

THE SEDER is traditionally conducted over a cup of wine (four cups actually, which...