Don't Tell It Like History, Tell It Like YOURstory

V’higadita l’vincha bayom hahu leimor ba’avur zeh asah  Adonai li btzeiti mimitzrayim.
And you shall tell it to your child on that day, “Because of that which Adonai did for me as I made exodus from Egypt.” - Exodus 13:8

Together, we are about to enter into one of the most familiar and studied texts of our Jewish tradition - the book of Exodus.  Most familiar and studied, not only because it is the textual basis of the Passover haggadah, but, as my teacher Rabbi Bill Cutter taught, because it is the the central theme story of Judaism.  We will be entering this text not only as part of our yearly cycle of Torah readings, but as we study together as a congregation for our 2nd Trimester theme (December 2011 -  February 2012).

The constant refrain of our Torah text is “remember that you were slaves in Egypt”.  Countless  laws end with the phrase, “you were slaves in Egypt”.  “You shall not wrong a stranger, nor oppress them, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:2)  A central core of our Judaism is this empathy for others - we, ourselves, must remember how we felt when we were slaves in Egypt.  As in the quote above, we are not supposed to tell the story of someone else being a slave, but to tell the story in the first person - forcing ourselves to be in the place of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the slave.  Only then can we truly imagine what others feel and why we would not want to take advantage of anyone in such a position.

This text became central to our people during the first exile - after the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE.  Just like the proto-nation of Israel in Egypt, our ancestors were in exile in Babylonia and Persia.  They drew strength from the idea that the God with whom they were in a covenantal relationship could not only reach beyond the borders of eretz Yisraeil, but had remembered their ancestors once before, and brought them, against all odds, back to their promised land.

That much might have been enough to restore the faith of our ancestors, yet they did not stop there.  Rather then despair, they not only imagined themselves once again free, but enjoined upon their descendants the command to remember what it was like to be in exile - and to make no other feel that way.  

We are in difficult times today and we often take comfort from the knowledge that good times will come again; that there are cycles in our economy.  Let us also take the lesson from our ancestors and, remembering how we feel now, help to keep others from ever finding themselves in similar situations.  Or, if they do, committing ourselves to giving them respect, a feeling of self-worth, and the tools to recover.