Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove
March 31, 2007

Siegfried Stein, author of what is perhaps the most famous article ever written on the Passover Seder, asked the following question:  Why was it that in the second century of the Common Era, there arose amongst Jews a ritualized telling of the Passover Exodus?  After all, the biblical rituals associated with the redemption from Egypt are manifold, from the sprinkling of blood on the lintel, the Pascal sacrifice, eating Matzoh and beyond, but the duty to formally tell the story of Israel’s deliverance at night is never mentioned.  

His answer is stated in the title of his article “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Haggadah.” (JJS, 1957) Stein contends, and his thesis continues to stand to this day, that the impetus for the ritualized storytelling, the Seder that we will celebrate this week, was the rabbinic acquaintance with, and dependence on, Greco-Roman table manners and dietary habits.  From the washing of hands, to the green hors d’oeuvre, to the cups of wine, to the reclining - all leave little doubt that our Jewish customs found their roots in another civilization.  Even the custom to eat Matzoh and Maror together, reflects what was in vogue on a typical Greco-Roman menu.

And, at the heart of it all lies a question, or, more accurately many questions.  More than dinner habits, the symposia was a banquet held by people (always men) to discuss scientific, philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and religious themes. The point of the evening of queries and discussions, be it Plato or Plutarch, or their younger Jewish contemporaries Rabbis Eliezer, Akiba and Tarfon, was to use questions as a means of sharpening wisdom. The verbal sparring over matters mundane and profound was driven by a knowledge that discourse and dialogue would yield truth.  And, as historians of the Haggadah will tell you, while the Haggadah has evolved over the centuries, its questioning reflex has remained constant.  From the arbah kashias, the four questions, to the children at the seder, to concluding with “Who knows One?” the spiritual core of the Haggadah lies in the well placed interrogative. 

This year, as you can see on the cards in front of you, I want to share four questions for you at your Seder table.  The existing ones, mind you, still stand.  And, I encourage you to come up with your own. But if the religious goal of the seder is to use questions as a tool to focus our Jewish identities, then, with the same audacity that Rabbi Gamliel insists that Pesach, Matzoh and Maror be mentioned, I want to suggest that these four questions be asked, one with each cup of wine.  Because if nothing else, they will force you to consider what I believe to be four essential dimensions of Jewish Identity, at least in the year 2007.

Question Number One: How do I consider myself a part of the story of the Jewish people?   I begin with this question is because it is the Archimedean point of Jewish identity.  Your answer to this question, affects every other Jewish question.  All of us in this room define Jewish identity differently, through ritual observance, study, politics, and volunteerism.  There are Israelis, there are North Americans, there are secular, there are religious, Sephardic, Ashkenazic, patrilineal, matrilineal, born Jews, converted Jews, every kind of Jew.  But the Haggadah gives us a critical litmus test that provides clarity.  “Bechol Dor Va’dor…” “In every generation, it is incumbent upon a person, to see himself/herself as if he came out of Egypt.”  The haggadah isn’t a history lesson, and it isn’t for that matter an exercise in memory.  It is a test.  If you can see yourself as part of the grand narrative of the Jewish people, then you are in.  If you can’t, well, as we know from the wicked child, then you are not.

Think about the phrase “People of the book.”  On a basic level it means our attachment to study.  But it also points to a more subtle truth.  We are a people whose spirit is calibrated based on what the Torah portion is.  Growing up, my brothers and I were never allowed to eat dinner at a Shabbat table until the Parsha was discussed.  It was somewhat cruel, but in retrospect my brothers and I developed a Pavlovian response to Torah.  You talk to your children about school, about NCAA basketball, about anything, because in doing so you let them know the parameters by which they should define their identity.  And, if you are not impressing on them the need to define their story as a Jewish one, then you, me, all of us will be guilty of writing the next generation out of our sacred narrative.

Question Number Two: Who is still in need of redemption in our day? It has always struck me as significant, that the very first thing we do when we sit down at the Seder table is acknowledge who is not there.  “All who are hungry, let them come…”  On a simple level, of course, it is a declaration of hospitality.  And today at Kiddush, you should greet people not by saying where will you be for seder? But rather, do you have a place for seder?  Because if someone doesn’t you should offer a place at your own.

Yet a deeper message is present as well.  Because as important it is to believe that you are part of the Jewish story, it is equally important to recognize that the Exodus story is not just for Jews.  Who we are as Jews is always contingent on our ability to recognize those in our world who continue to seek redemption.  This is why in January of 1963, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel opened the National Conference on Race and Religion here in Chicago with the following words: “At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses…. The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a negro to cross certain university campuses.” (The Insecurity of Freedom, p. 85)  And whether it was Heschel on Race in 1963, or affordable housing, or hunger, or Darfur in 2007, we need not look far to see a world aching for redemption.  Jews don’t have proprietary rights to the story of redemption.  Just the opposite, it is a spiritual trigger that prompts us to consider the condition of others. If you only see the Haggadah as a Jewish story located in the past, then your home may be the site of the seder, but the take home message is being missed by you.

Question Number Three: How is the state of Israel a part of my Jewish Identity?  You know this year my wife is the chair of the Chicago Walk for Israel on May 6th.  And as we have been discussing it in my home, my youngest daughter recently asked how exactly we were going to walk “to” Israel.  It was cute, but, if you stop to think about it, the Exodus story is, if nothing else, exactly that: a ‘walk “to” Israel.’ For that matter, from the very first call to Abraham in Genesis Chapter 12, Jewish identity is situated on the question of whether you are coming or going to Israel.  From the exiles by the rivers of Babylon, to Yehuda Halevi lamenting from medieval Spain: “My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West.”

The difference of course, is that unlike Halevi, unlike the Babylonian exiles, we live in the presence of a State of Israel.  And so it is this third question, which, unlike the other three that can only be asked quite so directly.  What is your connection to Israel?  What do you do to actively cultivate that relationship?  Given present company, I don’t need to belabor the point, but I will say this:  If you are not actively doing or planning something to give expression to the historical fact that you were born into an age that exists in the presence of the one thing that Jews have fervently prayed and died for, for thousands of years, then, I would suggest that your Jewish identity is not as complete as it may seem.  To be Jewish in 2007 means that you are on a “Walk to Israel,” literally, spiritually, or both

Finally, how am I actively working to bring about the Messiah?  This one may seem the oddest of the four, but I suggest to you it is the easiest to discuss, and I’ll tell you when to discuss it.  At our seder table, just before we let Elijah in, we fill his cup, but not from a wine bottle.  Following the custom Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Horowitz, we pass the cup around the table with each person pouring a little from their cup into Elijah’s, who we know to be the forerunner to the Messiah.  The message of the ritual is obvious enough.  Each one of us, through our own personal contribution can begin the process of redemption.  Delivering food, visiting the sick, picking up the phone to a relative, forgiving someone, forgiving yourself.   As Rabbi Joshua teaches, “Just as Israel was redeemed from Egypt in Nisan, so too all of Israel is destined to be redeemed in a future Nisan.”  The rabbis, in developing the notion of Messiah, took El-Ad’s beautiful comments even further.  If this world is preparation for the next, then it is through our own actions, here and now that each of us bear the potential to bring redemption.

As liberal Jews, we tend to be uncomfortable with any notion of the Messiah,  We read the prayer in the siddur calling for a redeemer and give it a wink, amused by the quaint beliefs of our predecessors, or many of us, have pointed to the modern state of Israel as a form of political redemption.  Me, I think this world is in need of a bit more faith.  To be Jewish for me means to constantly strive towards an ideal of perfection, a possibility of a messianic redemption.  It means to believe that for me, for all Jews, for all of humanity, there exists a world of infinite possibilities, that through a sustained and persistent and collective effort, the redemption may come.  And, while this ideal state may always lie on the curve of human history approaching, asymptote like, but never touching…though the Messiah may tarry, I will still believe.  Put more simply, I have no idea if there is or isn’t a messiah, but like Pascal, I would rather spend the short time I have on this earth with the hopeful belief in my ability to bring about a better tomorrow than have it otherwise.

There you go.  Four questions - to go along with the ones you already have. How do I consider myself a part of the story of the Jewish people? Who is still in need of redemption in our day? How is the state of Israel a part of my Jewish Identity?  And, how am I actively working to bring about the Messiah? It goes without saying that there are no right answers, but we dare not allow ourselves be the child who doesn’t even know how to ask.  As Jews we are committed to asking, to asking new questions, to sharpening old ones, all with the purpose of the honing our Jewish identities.  As the rabbinic aphorism goes, “She’elat Hacham, Hatzi Teshuva,” The wise question is half an answer. At this year’s Seder, I encourage you to ask wisely in the hope that all of us will find the answers and the questions that the Jewish world so desperately needs.