In a few days, I will be going away for two weeks, and Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein asked me to make a contribution to the blog before I go. Reb Yitzchak, your wish is my command. This is in response to some of the opinions recently expressed on the blog.
The mission statement of the Pesach Seder is, I think all would agree, the “Avadim Hayinu” response to the Four Questions. It encapsulates the essence of the ritual. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. The Almighty miraculously brought us forth to freedom. In recognition, we spend the night discussing the wonders and glory of the Almighty.
There is another bit of information embedded in this mission statement. We declare that if the Almighty had not extracted us from Egypt we would still be there to this very day. This is certainly interesting and important, but why does it belong in the mission statement? Why is it so central to the essence of the Pesach Seder?
About twenty years ago, I had an argument with my father zecher tzaddik livrachah. I claimed that the Soviet Union would eventually fall and that the two Germanies would be reunited. He claimed it would never happen. I insisted that in the history of the world there has never been an empire that did not eventually crumble under its own weight. Even empires that provided services to their colonies, such as the British and Roman, eventually collapsed. Certainly then, an empire such as the Soviet Union that only sucked its colonies dry could not last very long. And when it collapsed, nothing would keep the Germanies from being reunited. My father, who spent some time in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, disagreed. “I was there!” he said. “With terror you can keep it up forever! And they will never allow the Germanies to reunite.”