We Left Egypt

Every year at the Pesah Seder, each person is obligated to feel themselves as if they personally left Egypt. Yet when we sit down surrounded by family and friends, everyone already knows the story. There are those who go above and beyond and use their creativity to recreate the story of leaving Egypt and deserve all due recognition. Still, our children probably know it better than we do having read about it in school and learned all there is to know. So how do we honestly say “I left Egypt” and tell over the story when it all feels so familiar?

We should know that we are not the first link in this chain. Before us were parents and grandparents who would not let the story be forgotten, even when their backs were against the wall, even when they were fighting for their very survival. They pushed forward. They held on. Because they did, we are here tonight. Not just to recite the words of the Haggadah, but to carry their story forward and to be living proof that it worked. We left Egypt together and here we are, together again, year after year. When we sit down at this table we are not just teaching our children about a story that happened thousands of years ago. We are showing them what it means to be Jewish. Especially today, when that lesson has never been more relevant or more necessary.

The Seder is the only night where the Torah’s command is not just to believe in the Exodus but to perform it, through the telling, the singing, the questions, and the masah and wine we share with the people sitting next to us. From one generation to the next. There are those we wish were sitting beside us tonight. People we love, people we miss, people who made our Seder what it is. They may not be at the table physically, but they are in every song we sing, every story we tell, and every moment we pause to think of them. We carry them with us, always.

So if you find yourself struggling to say ‘I left Egypt’ the way you think you are supposed to, look around the table. Every person sitting there is living proof that we endured, thank G-d. We may not always act as one. We may not always show our unity the way we should. Tonight we do. Tonight we sing together, we sit together, we are together. Together, with the help of G-d, we can say it and mean it. We left Egypt. We are still here.