blogs/rabbi-huberman

As I was growing up, my mother used to tell a Passover story which resonates with me to this day.

One year, as she lovingly prepared our Seder table, she made an extra effort to ensure that the place reserved for her father—our grandfather, Nissan—was especially spacious and well decorated.

He had just lost his wife, her mother—and our Bubba Sheva.

“I want to tell you the story of a little boy,” she began.

“On the day before Passover, he was busy arranging a table, two chairs, a flower and a piece of matzah in the far corner of his room, preparing for an imaginary Seder.”

“What are you doing?” asked his mother. “Where is the long Pesach table?”

The boy replied, “I’m preparing this bridge table for you and Dad to sit at when I get older. It’s the same way that you put grampa in the kitchen whenever you invite guests to our house.”

“The mother paused for moment, went to the kitchen, folded up the bridge table, and made room for Grampa to sit with respect at the Pesach table.”

“And so, Irwin,” Mom continued, “I always want you and your brother to remember when you have people to your house for Shabbat or Passover—no matter how old or unpresentable your parents are, or for that matter anyone else—to always include them as part of the celebration.”

That Pesach, as I watched my ‘secular’ grandfather Nissan read his portion of the Haggadah in perfect Hebrew, slowly waving his hand as he faced our family and slowly recounted the Passover story with so much expression, I felt as if I was actually there.

The melodies, the words, the rituals and traditions we inherit from our parents and grandparents are so important.

Significantly, each year, we add new meaning to the Passover story. While new plagues emerge, and we need to divine antidotes for each, there is also such beauty in the stories, lessons and memories we inherit from our elders and seders past.

Perhaps, the bridge between old and new, elders and children, is the most sacred in Jewish tradition. This week’s Torah portion emphasizes—well before the this year's celebration of Passover—the story of Moses, Egypt and the Exodus.

As the parashah opens, Egypt is recovering from the first seven plagues: blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, cattle disease, boils and locusts.

Negotiations begin with Pharaoh, who admits initial defeat.

“How long will you continue to snare us?” he asks Moses, offering a major concession. “Let the men go to worship their God! Are you not aware that Egypt has lost?” (Exodus 10:7)

But Pharaoh doesn’t get it.

Because Moses’ initial request to “Let my people go…” was not about release from slavery and permission to leave Egypt. Rather it was a request to celebrate a religious festival in a nearby location identified in the Torah as Sukkot.

So, let’s go back and reread Pharaoh’s initial offer. Do you notice the flaw? Pharaoh agrees only to let the able-bodied men go.

And Moses says, “No!”

“We will all go, young and old,” he insists. “We will go with our sons and daughters…” (Exodus 10:9) Negotiations break down, and soon after, the final three scourges descend: hail, darkness and ultimately the plague of the first borne, which claims the Pharaoh’s oldest son and the eldest son of each Egyptian family.

So why, with peace and victory at hand, did Moses dig in his heals?

One Biblical commentator notes: “Because no celebration is complete without children.” Another adds: “A child without parents is an orphan, but a nation without children is an orphan people.”

No wonder Pharaoh wanted Israelite boys to be thrown into the Nile. No wonder Moses insisted that not only middle-aged males, but also children and elders, make the pilgrimage.

In short, it was all about the children—sons and daughters.

Pharaoh finally gets the message, and the Exodus begins.

This timeless bond between present and future—”young and old”—is so profound within Jewish culture, that God declares that moment of liberation as the official Jewish new year.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of humanity on the first day of Tishrei, in the seventh month of the year.

As the Israelites depart Egypt, God says to Moses and Aaron: “This month (Aviv, later Nissan) shall be the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:2)

It begins with freedom.

I remember some years ago sitting with a family as they reviewed the final details of their daughter’s upcoming bat mitzvah. They had brought Bubbie along—a survivor, who by that time had deteriorated physically and mentally.

They seemed embarrassed each time Bubbie began speaking with a seeming lack of focus. I told them not to worry, as I shared the story my mother told me many years ago, which Moses recounts in this week’s Torah portion.

“We will all go, young and old.”

That Shabbat, Bubbie remained long enough to observe her granddaughter raise her voice in praise of a higher power that had helped her survive the Pharaoh of her day.

During my time working in northern Canada, a First Nations chief once shared this with me: “We do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

“But we bless our elders at every chance—for they are the ones who pass us this sacred chain and got us here.” It is a lesson to consider as we honor, particularly at Passover, the unbroken chain between grandparents, parents and children.

For when elders are in the presence of their grandchildren —they are rejuvenated. And when children are in the company of their grandparents, they are grounded with depth, tradition and timeless love.

Perhaps that is the key to Jewish survival, as Moses teaches Pharaoh and perhaps the world in this week’s parashah.

“Young and old.”

We go nowhere without each other.

Shabbat shalom, v’kol tuv.

Rabbi Irwin Huberman