Passover 5775

A Seder Discussion Starter on
the Role of Miracles in Our Lives

Soon Jews the world over will be sitting around their Seder tables with an ancient book in their hands all telling the wondrous story of “Yetziat Mitzrayim”, the going out from Egypt.  We will remind ourselves of the powerful symbols around the Seder plate, and we will taste the bitter herbs and speak of slavery and redemption then and now.   At one point we will hear those iconic words: “In every generation a person is required to themselves as if they were personally taken out of Egypt”.

But how?

Can we seriously imagine the plagues and the terror of that final night in Egypt? Can we really imagine that climatic moment when the sea split and Moses and the Children of Israel walked on dry land as the water rose in columns on the sides?  Many theorize that there are natural explanations for what the Bible presents as the greatest of all miracles.   The simplest being that Moses was familiar with the order of the tides and timed the march out of Egypt to take advantage of this phenomenon.  As for the Egyptians, the theory goes, their unfamiliarity with how dangerous a tide could be was their undoing.  Here is an explanation that satisfies our penchant for scientific thinking but falls short of touching our hearts or our souls.

Putting aside our scientific spectacles and donning those of the spirit, the splitting of the sea is the story of a people who chose to see the miracle in the moment.  Moses and the Children of Israel opted to see the presence of God’s hand intervening in their lives.  Here, we come upon a conversation that speaks to even the most scientifically minded.

Are we willing to allow for everyday miracles in our lives?

Yehudah Amichai was one of the greatest poets that our people ever produced.  His words and wit captured the spirit of Israel and continues to challenge us to look at things differently.  He wrote a number of poems about the Bible and our tradition.
I am including two poems on the Splitting of the Sea from his perspective.  Take a moment and read them aloud.

MIRACLES

From a distance everything looks like a miracle
but up close even a miracle doesn’t appear so
Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split
only saw the sweaty back
of the one in front of him
and the motion of his big legs,
and at most, a hurried glance to the side,
fish of many colors in a wall of water,
like in an aquarium behind walls of glass.
The real miracles happen at the next table
in a restaurant in Albuquerque:
Two women were sitting there, one with a zipper
on a diagonal, so pretty,
the other said, “I held my own
and I didn’t cry.”
And afterwards in the reddish corridors
of a strange hotel I saw
boys and girls holding in their arms
even smaller children, their own,
who also held
cute little dolls.

Like One Who Left Egypt:
In The Middle Of The Story

What is the continuity of my life? I am like one who left Egypt
with the Red Sea split in two and I passing through on dry ground
and two walls of water on my right and on my left.
Behind me Pharaoh’s force and his chariots and before me the wilderness
and perhaps the promised land. This is the continuity of my life.

In the poem “Miracles” how does Amichai perceive a women’s courageous step, or that vision of family continuity?  Do you share his perceptions?  In the poem “Like One who Left Egypt”, how do you understand his use of the story as a metaphor for life?  Do you agree?

This Passover, amidst the sensory feast of the holiday, let us determine to see differently to fully appreciate the power of our story.

Chag Sameach,
Rabbi Michael Siegel