When I Came out of Egypt

The season of Passover is fast approaching. It’s time for us to clean out all of the hametz we own, according to our own local customs. Not only is it time for us to clean out our houses, it’s time for us to clean out our hangups. Paul reminds us that leaven is connected with pride in I Corinthians 5:6, and encourages us to clear it out of our lives. This is connected to an often overlooked commandment which R. Gamaliel drew from Exodus 13:8:

In every generation a person is duty-bound to regard himself as if he personally has gone forth from Egypt, since it is said, And you shall tell your son in that day saying, “It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:8). Therefore we are duty-bound to thank, praise, glorify, honor, exalt, extol, and bless him who did for our forefathers and for us all these miracles. He brought us forth from slavery to freedom, anguish to joy, mourning to festival, darkness to great light, subjugation to redemption, so we should say before him, Hallelujah. (Mishnah, Pesachim 10:5)

We have a tendency to read the stories of our predecessors smugly. It’s easy to tell ourselves, “Well, I wouldn’t have done that.” It’s easy to think that we wouldn’t have complained in the wilderness. It’s easy to think we wouldn’t have gone astray with Solomon or worshipped Ba’al or that when Jeremiah made his accusations against the people we would have been an exception. But when we read the story that way we have missed the whole point.

What R. Gamaliel reveals here is that not only would I have acted like my ancestors, I actually have acted like my ancestors. I am to tell the whole story of the Exodus and the wilderness as if I was there personally. I am to read it and tell it as if I share in their sins, their deliverance, and their triumph.

But this is the great good news of deliverance, that just as we are the same in every generation, as we recite in the Tachanun prayer, “This is Your way, showing undeserved kindness in all generations and generations.” If I have sinned like my fathers, I will also be delivered like my fathers. As God made a covenant with my fathers, He makes a covenant with me, “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28 NRSV)

By associating ourselves with the sin and redemption of our predecessors we become part of the covenant with them.