Parashat Tzav / Shabbat HaGadol

Parashat Tzav / Shabbat HaGadol

Nissan 8, 5772 ~ March 31, 2012
by Fred Korr

The Haggadah of Passover – a narative of history

Based on a Hebrew, grammatical exegesis by Rabbi Abner Weiss, whose positions included head of Jews College, London and Rabbi at Beth Jacob Congregation, Beverly Hills, California.

In the Torah commentary of British Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz (1872 – 1946) on Parshas Shemos, he states that “every father should relate on the evening of Passover the story of the Deliverance to his children”.

That Haggadah narrative relates how, from generation to generation, we must continually fight for our freedom. Efforts to dehumanize one’s enemy – and remove all freedoms from them - are known throughout history. Why? If your enemy is “not human” or “subhuman”, it is then easier for the average citizen or soldier to kill them.

Through much of American history, the American Indian was deemed a sub-human “savage”, who was killed with as little disregard as one might have in killing an obnoxious fly. During World War II, Jews were reduced to numbers, branded into their arms in Concentration Camps.

Not surprisingly, the concept of dehumanizing Jews may also be found in the Haggadah of Passover, although most English versions of the text mistranslate it.

The usual translation of Deuteronomy 26:6 – which also appears in the Hagaddah just a few paragraphs after “The 4 sons” - is:

“And the Egyptians dealt evilly (or harshly) with us.”

It is, however, inaccurate. Such a translation would have required the Hebrew to read:

va-yarei-u lanu. המצרים לנוּ וירעוּ

Instead, the text is:

va-yarei’u otanu. המצרים אתנוּ וירעוּ

This means not that the Egyptians dealt evilly with us, but rather that “the Egyptians made us evil”.

The distinction is not merely semantic. It conveys a fundamental truth of the Jewish experience. In order to justify their mistreatment of the Jewish people, our enemies have blamed us for all kinds of imagined evils. (For example: “the Jewish Blood Libel”, which asserts the canard that Jews murder Christians before Passover, to obtain their blood in order to bake Matzah. This concept is still taught as fact in many Arab states.) This, in turn, has permitted retaliation. Thus, starting with Pharaoh, anti-Semitism has always been justified as preemptive self defense.

Sadly, nothing has really changed. We see this today as the Arab/Moslem states vilify Israel and Jews. In a recent survey of “enlightened” Europeans, the nation considered most dangerous for world peace is: Israel. Not Iran; not China!

The lesson of the Haggadah is clear. If our enemies, and even our “friends”, can be expected to hurt us, our response must be to help ourselves. On the national level, this compels us to rise to the challenge of increasing our support for Israel, even in the worst of economic times. On the communal level, it compels us to ensure that our community is strong enough to inspire young people with sufficient love for our traditional values to maintain their identification with, and support for, those traditions – notwithstanding perpetual vilification by friend and foe alike.