Introduction

Summary: The Seder teaches us to embrace our Jewish identity with pride, understand its responsibilities, and personally discover the meaning of its structure and purpose.

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.” 

― José Saramago, The Double

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” 

― Frank Herbert, Dune

“The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.” 

― Henry Miller

Yossele¹ the Holy Miser

R’ Shlomo Carlebach was well known for inspirational musical storytelling. I sometimes begin the Passover seder with his legendary story about Yossele the Holy Miser, an extraordinarily wealthy man who lived in the city of Krakow, Poland and was considered a stingy, mean miser. Everyone judged him for not doing anything to alleviate the suffering of the women, children, and elderly in the ghetto. They even prayed that God would punish him. He eventually became old and sick, and he died, but the burial society refused to bury him inside the cemetery. Just before the following Shabbat, the poor community began approaching the rabbi, one by one, for money. It turned out that they had each been receiving weekly anonymous gifts of money, and the Rabbi discovered that Yossele had been the secret donor. The Rabbi became terribly upset, because they had all treated Yossele badly, and so he gathered everyone together at the synagogue to ask Yossele for forgiveness. Yossele came to the Rabbi in a vision and said, “I forgive everyone, because long ago I asked God to let me help people the way He does, without anyone knowing or giving thanks." And that’s the legend of Yossele the Holy Miser.

But there is another part to R’ Shlomo’s story. In the early 70's, he was invited to a multidenominational conference. When his turn came to perform, he decided to tell the story of Yossele. In the audience sat Joe the Bishop, attending the conference as a Catholic representative. Joe approached R’ Shlomo and thanked him for the moving story. Eventually, Joe made a startling confession: “In truth, my real name is Yossele. My mother survived the Dachau concentration camp; my father was a Catholic soldier who saved her life, took her to America, married her, and made her promise never to tell her children they were Jews. I grew up a devout Catholic and have a distinguished career in the Catholic church. But I recently got a call from my mother, who was on her deathbed. When I came to her bedside, she told me that my real name is Yossele, named after her father, who was a very pious Hassidic Jew, who was named after his grandfather, Yossele the holy miser from Krakow. She told me all about Judaism, Shabbat, holidays, and all the poor people who lived in my grandfather's house. She died 2 days later, and her last words to me were, ‘Don’t forget, your name is not Joe, your name is Yossele.’ I was very distraught, and I begged God for a sign: if I hear the name “Yossele from Krakow” one more time, I’ll know I must become Jewish. So, here I am at this convention, and you tell this story! This is a clear sign from God, and I am leaving for Jerusalem tomorrow." Seven and a half years later, R’ Shlomo received a letter from Joe, now Yossele, saying that he had become an observant Jew, was marrying an observant Jewish woman in Jerusalem, and expressing gratitude to R’ Shlomo for being his messenger from God.²

I do not know if the story is true, but I always felt it to be a fitting and powerful introduction to the seder. In his own unique way, R’ Shlomo was reminding all of us that no matter how our lives have unfolded, deep down, we are all Yossele. We all spring from our Jewish heritage and nothing can change that. It is who we are, and we should embrace it. I believe that is, in a nutshell, the essential theme of the seder.

A Fundamental Holiday

I received a tremendously enthusiastic reader response to my first Passover book, Pesach Without the Pain: A Practical Guide to the Laws and Practices of Passover, because it challenged many burdensome assumptions about keeping kosher for Passover and lightened the load for people who want to keep Passover in an authentic manner. That response inspired me to write this monograph about the meaning of the Haggadah, because as many misconceptions as there are regarding the laws and practices of Passover, there are at least as many misunderstandings about the central ritual of Passover -- the seder.

Passover is arguably the most popular Jewish holiday, and probably the most fundamental, because it commemorates the beginning of our Jewish nation.³ We are commanded to remember the Exodus from Egypt twice daily,⁴ and there are numerous mitzvot during the year which are performed in remembrance of the Exodus.⁵ In contrast, Rosh Hashana is not a singularly Jewish holiday, because it celebrates an event of universal significance -- the 6^th Day of Creation, and Yom Kippur celebrates God’s forgiveness for the sin of the Golden Calf, an episode which follows the Exodus.⁶ According to some commentators, the entire Torah is designed to commemorate, or honor, the Exodus.⁷ Even in American secular culture, the Exodus is one of the most cited Biblical stories; indeed, The Ten Commandments is aired perennially on television and has become one of the most popular movies of all time.⁸

Where’s the story?

If the Passover seder is the most widely observed ritual in the American Jewish community,⁹ one might expect it to be simple to follow. We are commanded to tell the story of the most monumental event in Jewish history, and the seder is widely assumed to be the logical fulfillment of that mitzvah. But if you take a fresh look at the Haggadah, which guides the seder, you might rethink that assumption.

You will come to realize that we never actually tell the story. Moses is the central figure in the Exodus narrative, and yet he is mentioned only once in the entire Haggadah.¹⁰ On the other hand, the Haggadah gives equal attention to a speech by Joshua about Abraham’s father, Terach, who was not even “Jewish.” The ten plagues are given only cursory attention -- we quickly recite them, followed by a summary of the plagues in the form of an acronym, without detail. We run through Dayeinu, which briefly mentions the Exodus and is mostly about the subsequent events that led us to the land of Israel. And very little of the Haggadah quotes directly from the Book of Exodus; instead, it incorporates a short version of the story found in the book of Deuteronomy, a summary we use in a ritual performed on a different holiday, Shavuot.¹¹ This summary begins with a reference to Lavan, Jacob’s father in-law, without even mentioning Jacob by name. We speak about many topics at the seder – we ask the Four Questions and discuss the Four Sons, we tell stories about how rabbis stayed up all night to perform their mitzvot of telling the Exodus story, we highlight the Pascal Lamb, the Matzah and Maror, but we never really tell that story ourselves! And consider the name of this ritual – the seder. Surely, this is the most ironic name ever given to a Jewish ritual, because it means “order”, and yet it is difficult to discern any logical order in the way the Haggadah structures the seder.¹²

These issues are typically ignored. Even at the most thought-provoking seder, the Haggadah is generally treated as liturgy, something we recite more by rote. This is very sad, because approaching the Haggadah this way can turn our seder into a pursuit without resonance, and Judaism does not promote that kind of practice.¹³ Yet there are very few classic commentators who deal with the overall structure and message of the seder.¹⁴ It seems that we have lost the forest for the trees. So, just like my first book, Pesach Without the Pain, this book on the Haggadah is intended to enhance one’s Passover experience. It is based on wisdom I was fortunate to acquire from several of my teachers, and I hope these insights will transform the reader’s seder into a meaningful process which truly fulfills this central ritual of Passover.