Why We Are Still Commanded to Tell the Story

While the crocuses and daffodils in the park are telling us it is spring, the world around us does not seem to be beckoning toward a season of liberation. War, rising antisemitism, profound questions about the state of our democracy here in the United States and in Israel—and its particular impact on those most vulnerable—an unstable economy, and polarization that cuts to our very core. Will we be able to sit at our seder tables with family and friends and hold meaningful conversations, if not at least civil ones, as we attempt to tell and connect with this most ancient and enduring story?

וַאֲפִילוּ כֻּלָּנוּ חֲכָמִים כֻּלָּנוּ נְבוֹנִים כֻּלָּנוּ זְקֵנִים כֻּלָּנוּ יוֹדְעִים אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מִצְוָה עָלֵינוּ לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרָיִם. וְכָל הַמַּרְבֶּה לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם הֲרֵי זֶה מְשֻׁבָּח

Even if we were all wise, all understanding, all elders, all learned in Torah—we would still be commanded to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. And whoever expands upon this telling is worthy of praise. (Pesah Haggadah)

I have long been drawn to this passage of the Haggadah. No matter how many years we have lived or how much knowledge or wisdom we have accumulated, no one is exempt from the obligation to tell the story of our redemption. There is a subtle warning here: Certainty is the enemy of genuine engagement. None of us possess enough understanding to close the book on this story—whether it unfolded thousands of years ago or is still unfolding now. The key to opening it lies in humility, curiosity, and imagination. Knowledge and wisdom alone are not enough to unlock its depth or its power.

It is no accident that this passage is followed by the story of the five rabbis who stay up all night in conversation, and then by the four children. Together, they remind us of the plurality of voices—around the table and within ourselves.

There is no perfect formula for redemption—or even for a Pesah seder. If only there were. Instead, we will sit at our tables holding the brokenness of our world and the tenderness within our own hearts: the raw emotions and vulnerabilities, the prophetic rage and deep sorrow, and the hope we strain to find just beneath the surface. I pray that we might have the openness to share and to listen, to ask more questions than we answer; to make space for voices that challenge us, even unsettle us, and to hold one another in all this complexity. Perhaps this ancient ritual is meant to teach us that the spark of redemption can be kindled right at our very table—even when we least expect it.

Rabbi Ebn Leader writes about a prayer of the Rashash, R. Shalom Shara’by (1720–1777), recited just before Nirtzah, at the close of the seder. It is a prayer of humility: an acknowledgment that whatever we have done this night is, inevitably, incomplete. We are human. Our understanding is limited. We do not fully know what God asks of us.

Our thoughts and our intentions are exposed and known to You, and you know that we desire to do Your desire with all our heart, soul and might…But there is none amongst us who knows the full extent of these matters with clarity. We no longer have access to Ru-ah haKodesh (the holy spirit) or the appearances of Elijah the prophet. All we have are a few books… It is only based on our minds’ limited capacity to understand these books that we have laid out this entire seder …

And yet—

Still, we trust that in Your abundant love and compassion, we will not turn away from Your presence empty-handed.

May we be blessed to know all that we do not know—and still to serve with sincerity, and to see that same yearning in one another. Around our tables, across our differences, within the fragile bonds of our people and our world, may we continue to tell and expand our story of redemption—and may something of that telling take hold. Let our telling not remain only words, but become a force that unsettles, that opens, that demands something of us.

In a world where the flowers bloom right on time, may we not rise from this night empty-handed—but instead carrying even a spark of redemption forward, together.

Please God, may liberation come…right on time.

Hag sameah and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Felicia Sol