PESACH 5772 - English

Rabbi David Cohen-Henríquez
Kol Shearith Congregation, Panama

The Sefat Emet (Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, 1847-1905) brings up two texts that appear in the Haggadah.  The following text appears first:  "In every generation let each one feel as if he or she came forth out of Egypt."  Just a few lines later, it is written in the Haggadah:  “He brought us out of there”.  And then, the Sefat Emet goes on to tell us that the Maharal of Prague (Judah Loew ben Bezalel, 1520-1609) commented, based on these passages of the Haggadah, that each Jew was present in the exodus of Egypt in a collective way, but also that each person should consider him/herself as if he/she had left Egypt as an individual.

With the reading of the Haggadah, we are not just doing an historical commemoration but also a recreation, in which we can feel the exodus all over again.  The Pesach experience is a national experience, but it encompasses individual freedom as well.  It is a departure from the “Egypts” that keep us tied down, oppressed; from the narrowness that suffocates us and prevents our living a full and lofty life.

There is much individual slavery in the life of modern men and women: addiction to work, to smart phones and computers; dieting compulsions; bad habits, such as smoking or drinking too much, etc.  And of course, there are also slaveries or “plagues” that lash the entire humanity in a collective manner: wars, crime, diseases we haven’t been able to cure, mistreatment of women and children, and several other social afflictions.

Recreating a ritual allows the participant to experience, once again, an event captured in time, from generation to generation.  Each person who participates in the Seder night must view him/herself as departing from Egypt, and this experience will help him/her get rid of those things which enslave them and which seem almost impossible to overcome.

The Haggadah mentions four sons: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask.  Each one of us has, within our souls, those four sons, four archetypes that wonder about this experience which, year after year, we perform.  We must allow each one of these “inner children” to surface, and listen to them.  We must listen to our inner voice, looking for wisdom and a way to connect with our roots and spiritual growth.  We must listen patiently to the rebellious voice, which attempts to remove us from this path, and ask it why it feels that way.  The simple voice that lives within us, we must observe it with a smile and invite it to participate more in our busy lives.   The one that does not know how to ask, analyze it and ask it what it is that prevents the questioning, understand the reason for the absence of its probing spirit.  By considering these four characters, we will see that we complete ourselves, that they are an actual part of a unit that shapes us, which we call “I”. Similarly, each one of the sons and daughters of Israel, who pursue their freedom in this night, form a sole unit, a united and redeemed people, in search of a Truth and holders of an ethos: that of spreading this freedom and this knowledge of the divine to the four corners of the Earth.

The more we feel this redemption from Egypt, the more we will feel the next step towards our current redemption, each one of us able to leave our own narrowness, our own depths.  By our individual liberation, we will contribute with all our potential to the improvement and redemption of this world in which we live, being participants and partners in the covenant we have with our Creator.