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Given by Kate Jennes-Kahn on April 5, 2010 (21 Nissan 5770
Yom Tov Pesach
(Omer 6)
)
Chag sameach...
We Jews pray. A lot… Three times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. And every time we do so, we encounter the dual nature of our prayers. On the one hand, each tefilah is an effort to reach out to HaShem and to go beyond ourselves. As it says in the introduction to Siddur Sim Shalom, ‘Prayer, which begins with the self, can move us away from self-centeredness and an unreflective routinization of life.”
At the same time, the content of each tefilah, each b’rachah, teaches us something about our beliefs and obligations as Jews. Thus, each one has a didactic function.
Communication and educational tool…these are the two sides of prayer.
It is not enough, however, to educate or re-educate ourselves about our Judaism. This body of knowledge is to be passed on from one generation to the next. Indeed, we are specifically bidden to do so in a bracha we recite twice a day: the second paragraph after the Shema. In this section, we are told: “v’limad’tem otam et b’naichem…” or “you shall teach them [the Torah] to your children.” The Artscroll Siddur explains this passage as follows: “In giving the command to educate children in the Torah, the verse speaks in the plural…This alludes to a communal responsibility to arrange for the Torah education of children.”
For the past 18 years, I have acted on that instructional obligation by working in this congregation as a Bar and Bat Mitzvah tutor, as well as a classroom teacher here and elsewhere for 12 years. I actually marked that 18 years a week ago Monday, as we all prepared to begin the holiday of Pesach.
I think it is especially fitting that my 18 year anniversary fell when it did. Let me explain. As we all know, the Exodus, which is at the heart of Pesach, is the crucial event that marks the beginning of our sacred history. Indeed, it is so central to our identity as a Holy People that the Exodus is referred to repeatedly in our liturgy, whether in the conclusion to the Shema or in the Friday evening Kiddush.
But it is in the observance of Pesach that I find my connection as a teacher. Unique among our holidays, only on Pesach are we commanded to actively instruct our children. Numerous times in Parshat Bo, read on the first day of Yom Tov, we are instructed to convey our story of liberation in response to youthful questions. Chapter 12, Verse 26 states, “And it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you,
What mean you by this service?” In response, we are to tell about the passing over of the Jewish homes in Egypt by the angel of death and our delivery by Hashem.”
Another iteration, which occurs in Chapter 13, verse 8, sets the stage for the four types of children by saying, “And you shall tell your son in that day, saying This is done because of that which the Eternal did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.”
Our liturgical response to this call to instruction is, of course, the Hagadah. In The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary, Michael Strassfeld explains, “Hagadah comes from the root meaning ‘to tell’ and reflects the purpose of the evening – the retelling of the story of the Exodus…” And in this text and in the conduct of the Seder which is governed by it, the conveyance to the next generation the story and meaning of Passover is of central importance.
As an instructor in Judaics, I could not find a more appropriate model for what I seek to do. For what I endeavor to give each child with whom I work is not just the mechanics of the prayers and chanting, but a sense of what these things mean and why they are crucial to being an informed Jew. I will not tell a child what to believe or do, but I will share what I believe and what generations before me have as well. Modern culture teaches us to use it or lose it. On Pesach, we use it by teaching it – so that our precious heritage not be lost to the next generation. In a small way, it is what I do as well.
Zeh hayom nasah Adoshem...nagilah v’nismechah bo. This is the day created by Hashem. As the Psalm tells us, go rejoice on it.
Thank you and chag sameach.
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