Passover is a time where we get together with family and friends to celebrate our redemption from the bondage of Egypt all those years ago. However, each year we recite at the seder the rabbinic charge, mimitzrayim redeemed from Egypt.

This directive has classically been interpreted to mean that we must almost “transport” ourselves to another age, and “experience” the redemption in the best and most serious possible way. For this reason, the longstanding custom of the Sephardic community is to actually march around the table, to reenact the hasty departure.

I would like to suggest an additional interpretation. In every generation there are lessons to be learned from The Exodus. The story of Yetziat Mitzrayim is timeless, and contains important messages, even for us 3300 years after it happened. We must look at the story in each generation as if it has happened anew, so that it may speak to us in the deepest and most profound way.

Permit me to cite one example. One recurring theme of the narrative of the Exodus, perhaps more than even God’s miracles or the beauty and splendor of the land they will soon enter, is the education of our children (See: Shmot 12:26-27 13:8, 13:14). There is an obsession with teaching the next generation about our heritage. This serves as an important message not just for Pesach but for the entire year. Even now, like then, the key to our Jewish future lies in the education of our children.

This Pesach, as we sit around the Seder table, let us all rededicate ourselves to the timeless lessons of the Pesach story, and indeed view ourselves “as if we ourselves were redeemed from Egypt”.

Beile and I wish all a chag kasher v’sameach,

Rabbi Robert D. Block

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