The way directors try to make
the past feel unconditionally present
provides a lesson we should take
on Passover. Yes, make it pleasant,
by all means, with haroset and
the matsoh balls that tend to follow,
but first attempt to understand
the past to which attention must
be paid before the food is served.
Not all directors may deserve our trust,
but rituals that have been preserved
some three millennia help us to
relive events as if they were
the present, not the past. The Jew
can feel them as if they occur
not then, but now, and with the wine,
despite the herbs that should be bitter,
appreciate how after nine
plagues Jews won what was no no-hitter,
when in the tenth we all were saved,
and dry-cleaned by a Sea. DeMille
directed, everybody raved,
as everyone on Pesach will,
if their imagination leaps like his.
We need to know the past, and emboss it,
only after the showbiz
sandwiching matzoh with haroset,
the exodus’s stories just
as basic as the laws that they
inspired, which of course we must,
however skeptical, obey,
aware that they’re dependent on
the tales they tell, which activate
the dreams stored in the Bible’s ganglion,
midrashing Jews who say awake.
“Once upon a time” can reach
the heart, and not just someone’s head
in thoughts; in hearts their tales are spread
on seder nights, the stories’ trigger
the father of four sons. Three ask
a question, but one cannot figure
the reason for the asking task,
immune to “once upon a time.”
and therefore to the Bible’s laws,
not ready for the paradigm
his parents chose, the Jewish cause.
James Cameron told Fareed Zakaria on CNN on 4/2/23 that he thought that the world suffered from what he called “nature deficit disorder.” He pointed out that we remember stories better than facts and suggested that our brains are programmed to enable us to understand the stories underlying the factual events that we have experienced. Not only did his suggestion seem to me to be an excellent explanation of Jungian psychology. It also seemed to me to explain the commandment of סיפור יציאת מצרים, telling the story of the exodus. It is as important to tell this story as it is to perform the rituals such as eating matzah and maror, echoing the fact that it is as important to learn aggadot, the “once upon a tie” tales told in the Talmud about the halakhot, commandments, as to actually perform them.
Quoting Philip Pullman, Rabbi Wolpe inspired this poem’s title and its last verse.
In my book Legal Friction, 176-77, in the chapter called “Don’t Think—-Twice!” I point out that the haggadah implies, by means a of wordplay involving the word עֲבוּר, avur, that matzoh, eaten together with maror, not only commemorates the exodus but was its rationale. Exod. 13:8 states:
ח וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ, בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר: בַּעֲבוּר זֶה, עָשָׂה יְהוָה לִי, בְּצֵאתִי, מִמִּצְרָיִם. 8 And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: Ba’avur, it is because of that, which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.
This verse is quoted in the haggadah as the reason why we must tell the Passover story בַּעֲבוּר זֶה, ba’vur zeh, on account of this, only when matzoh and maror are present. The words בַּעֲבוּר זֶה, ba’vur zeh, can mean “for this produce,” referring to the matsoh, as where we learn in Josh. 5:11 that after the exodus the Israelites did not eat matzoh until they entered the land of Israel”
יא וַיֹּאכְלוּ מֵעֲבוּר הָאָרֶץ, מִמָּחֳרַת הַפֶּסַח–מַצּוֹת וְקָלוּי: בְּעֶצֶם, הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה. 11 And they did eat me’avur, of the produce, of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn, in the selfsame day.
However, when the haggadah quotes the words בַּעֲבוּר זֶה, ba’vur zeh, on account of this, it also indicates that the rationale of the commandment to eat matzoh at the Passover seder is for telling the “once upon a time” story of the exodus to our children. This rationale implies that the reason the fourth son asks no questions is his immunity to “once upon a time,” a problem that, according to Philip Pullman’s insight, is more cardiac, as it were, than cerebrally cognitive.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
