But in most Jewish families, the Haggadah, or the recounting aspect of the Seder, takes a backseat to eating, catching up on family gossip, trading sports commentary and maybe stock tips. That is a pity. Because the entire point of the Passover Seder is to tell and retell, over and over again to each generation, the awesome and seminal Passover story.
Through songs and stories, accompanied by foods that serve as symbols to emphasize salient points, each generation has repeated this ritual at millions of Passover tables for three millennia in an unbroken chain.
The biblical mandate is clear and simple: we should tell the story to our children and our children’s children. We should convey the concept that each person should feel as if he or she personally experienced the burdens of affliction and the subsequent euphoric rhapsody of liberation.
Unfortunately, like the people of Israel before their courageous assertion of faith, we have become passive.
This year, as we celebrate Passover, we are witnessing the reverse exodus of our Jewish young people. Most young Jews are choosing to abandon their heritage.
With all of our communal wealth, with all of our multitudinous Jewish organizations, with all of our thousands of rabbis sitting on their prominent pulpits, with all of our well-organized Federations that raise hundreds of millions of dollars for community charity chests, we have forgotten the basic premise of Passover.
We have abandoned the concept of emunah, or absolute faith in God.
The only way to combat passivity is with conviction and action. As we attend our Seders this year and read the Passover Haggadah, we should diligently and joyously tell our story to our friends and families. We shouldn’t be ashamed to explain to our children the importance of faith in God.
If we place faith in God at the center of the retelling of our Passover story, our children might rediscover their connection to that spiritually auspicious meeting at Mount Sinai, when we Jews accepted our role as being a light among all of the nations, based on our unshakable belief in God.