Culture 5: From Degradation to Praise: Physical Slavery

March 24, 2016

Rabbi Mark H. Levin, DHL

The Babylonian Talmud quotes Rav and Samuel, the two most prominent Rabbis of the generation after Judah the Prince, regarding the meaning of the Talmud's statement for the first night of Passover, "He commences with shame and concludes with praise." We seem to have a formula, if we can decide what degradation and praise mean, of how to do the job of telling the story of the Exodus at the seder. Rabbis Rav and Samuel provide answers:

Rav said, "Aforetimes our father were idolaters," while Samuel said, "We were slaves."

Very succinct! They are referring to biblical quotations they believe demonstrate beginning with degradation. Their solution precisely hits the target! Each Rabbi addresses a type of slavery, and therefore both passages are included in the seder. Let's take a look.

Shmuel said that we should begin with the passage, "We were slaves," regarding physical servitude.  The Mishnah previously gave us a section of Torah to read, beginning with Deuteronomy 26:5, a testimony to Jewish history. It's the passage that was recited by a Jew who brought first fruits to the Temple as an offering, assumedly already familiar to every Jew who brought a First Fruits offering.  What do Shmuel and Rav's passages add to the recitation? They give different answers typifying the two types of slavery. Shmuel says to tell the story of our physical bondage in Egypt. He takes his answer from Deuteronomy 6: 20-23:

When, in time to come, your children ask you, "What mean the decrees, laws, and the rules that the Lord our God has enjoined upon you?" you shall say to your children, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord wrought before our eyes  marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household; and us He brought out from there, that He might take us and give us the land that He had promised on oath to our fathers.

The Torah section in itself takes us from our degradation, physically enslaved to taskmasters in Egypt, to God's redemption and our possession of the land of Israel. But by the time Rav and Shmuel were commenting on the seder service, the Jewish people had been dispossessed from the land for over 200 years. We were no longer slaves, but God's promise of an independent existence in our own land had been reversed. The passage either mocks Jewish existence, or is quite simply incomplete.

Here's the formulation as it appears at our seders:

Our ancestors were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but God brought us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, we, and our children, and our children's children would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

So even if we were all wise and clevera nd old and learned in the Torah, it would still be our dutyto tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The more one talks about the Exodus, the more praiseworthy it is.

(A Feast of History, trans. Chaim Raphael, p. 28)

Only the first sentence actually quotes the Torah section. There follows a series of assertions:

1.    If the Holy One, blessed be He, had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, we, and our children, and our children's children would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

2.    So even if we were all wise and clever and old and learned in the Torah, it would still be our duty to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

3.    The more one talks about the Exodus, the more praiseworthy it is.

The first sentence tells us that we owe our physical freedom to God, because had God not executed the Exodus, we'd still be in Egypt.

The second sentence is even more curious: something is going on that does not have to do with the knowledge of the story of the Exodus.  Even if we were "wise," "clever," "old," and "learned," all qualities that support the accumulation of knowledge, we'd still have to tell the story. Why? Perhaps it's to teach our children; but then, what if there are no children present? It would still be incumbent. No, there must be something else.

Perhaps it's that the story portrays the essence of the meaning of Jew, and therefore must be restated every year in order to inculcate the effects of the story within each of us. Indeed, no matter our learning status, or the fact that we remind ourselves of the story multiple times daily in prayer, still, the ritual recitation of the entire story is commanded to each and every Jew annually.

Therefore, the third sentence: the greater the story telling, the more time we spend, the more angles from which we come at the story, the more praiseworthy. It's as though the ancient Rabbis comprehended our modern brain knowledge, that the more humans repeat a thought the more pathways and synapses are created in the brain to ingrain the thought and perpetuate the idea. The story must not only be known factually, but emotionally as well. Like etchings of history, the Exodus must be incised into the Jewish brain and personality.

Next week: we are spiritually slaves.