The Promise to our Ancestors

The Jewish people are currently in political and military crosshairs. The war against Hezbollah and Islamist forces continues. Our hostages languish. Our young soldiers continue to do battle against those dedicated to destroying the State of Israel. Thousands chant “From the river to the Sea” as they imagine perpetuating the genocide of October 7th. Zionists are vilified with aggressive, hateful language and physical violence.   

Yet, the Jewish people are called upon to focus on the larger vision of the meaning of human freedom that lies at the heart of Pesach and which finds expression throughout the Haggadah at the seder. This teaching is about suffering, compassion, humility, arrogance, a lens on Jewish historical experience, passages from the Haggadah, and a perspective on the spiritual work challenging the Jewish people today.

The journey from enslavement, oppression and suffering to freedom carries layers of memory and feeling. Victims of recurrent oppression over many generations become vulnerable to cynicism, mistrust, anger and hatred. The Haggadah brilliantly lends expression to these feelings while redirecting the passions nourishing them at the same time. The Haggadah does this in two places. Immediately following Birkat haMazzon and the third cup of wine someone opens the door to the house and, evoking Elijah the Prophet, invites all to say the following words:

Oh God, pour out Your wrath against the nations who have not recognized You, [Pour out Your divine anger] against those regimes who have not called Your name. For they have devoured [the People of] Jacob and decimated his land. Pour out Your rage against them; may Your anger overwhelm them. Pursue them and destroy them with Your ire from beneath the Heavens of the Lord. 

This passage does not call the Jewish people to rise up and destroy our enemies. The passage provides an opportunity for Jews to express deep rage at the perpetrators, and calls God to act. The passage also suggests an etiology of cruelty. Violence against us is the result of idolatry. Only a regime that worships its own power, arrogant enough not to humble itself before the Creator of humanity, would be capable of such dehumanizing behavior. God created people with the ability to make decisions, including those who exercise their capacity for cruelty. As victims of that cruelty, the passage expresses our rage not against God, but against those nations, and asks God to respond accordingly.  Pour out Your wrath is a liturgical supplication. The Haggadah places God at the center of our suffering: “God, these nations have perpetrated unspeakable horrors against us;  please subject them to the force of divine justice.” The assumption behind these lines is that ultimately, God can realign the imbalances in the world. The inference is that the world that God envisions should be and can be a place of compassion, humility, kindness and love, and that there is hope for the future. If there is hope for our future, then there is hope for humanity. By referencing the nations who do not recognize God, the Haggadah implies that all nations can learn the spiritual truth of a shared humanity.

Earlier in the seder, there is an even more powerful liturgical reaction to our suffering throughout history. Immediately following the section in........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)