I’ve been listening to a podcast on Jewish History Nerds about Albert Einstein and this got me thinking more about his theory of relativity. To be clear: I 100% do not fully understand any of the physics or the math behind any of it and I’m out of my league here. But I do like one of the hyper simplified explanations saying that everything is relative to the observer. One explanation I read stated “Einstein’s theory of relativity states that space and time are flexible, connected, and change based on how fast you are moving or how close you are to a strong gravity source”. (https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-relativity-einstein-s-mind-bending-theory-explained-ncna865496).
This understanding helps recognize that we don’t see the same things others see and that perspective is critical in how we see and experience the world. A person who’s color blind will not see the same sunset as a person of normal vision. People with varying levels of hearing will experience concerts differently. Depending on where you’re positioned in any experience, you’ll have one experience while someone else will have a variation of the same encounter. Hence the term “everything is relative”. I offer this explanation in preparing to tell the story of Passover, the story of the Exodus and our having been saved.
The world in which we live is broken. One need not look very far to see that all around us, near and far, people are living lives that don’t live up to their deepest hopes and dreams. All around the world, we see people living in abject poverty and suffering from both natural and man-made catastrophes. One could and should ask what has become of miracles like the 10 plagues, the splitting of the sea and the giving of the Torah.
We tell the story of the Exodus as if to say that “they all lived happily ever after…” In the eyes of the הגדה/Haggadah, it could appear that we left Egypt and became free and thus we were saved. The הגדה has many departures from this way of thinking, but nevertheless it seems puzzling to celebrate our historic redemption in a world that seems so unredeemed.
Another podcast I listened to this week was Ta Shma from Hadar, and in it Rabbi Shai Held spoke at length about this very subject. He referred to “the double edge of memory in תנ”ך/TaNaKh” in that “faith is damaged, or even dies, in the wake of experiences that seem to contradict it”. He was talking about how memory can serve as an inspiration, or as a mournful reminder. We can be inspired by the hope of what was, or pained by the reality of what is not any longer. I encourage you to listen to his talk at hadar.org/torah-tefillah/resources/why-doesnt-god-redeem-us-again-living-and-without-exodus#videos. When I listened, I was struck by how our world today is so broken and yet we still have hope. I was struck by how people can attend the same סדר/Seder and have totally different experiences (it’s all relative). One person can sit and tell and learn the story of our redemption and leave with hope in a future filled with redemption from all that ills us. Another person could leave feeling filled with sadness that our own world is not redeemable as it was in the past.
In many ways, this is something incredible about our סדר experience every year. We have the ability to be uplifted or the ability to be brought down and the choice will be ours. We can choose, as free people, to be filled with hope because of what once happened, or we can be filled with grief that the world is not yet redeemed. To know that we have choices, that we have free will, is something that liberates us rather than enslaves us. Choosing how to encounter our experience forces us to be active in our observance and religion rather than passive and unable to have a role. While our world feels so damaged, perhaps we can change to a perspective that is inspired by the possibility of redemption even in our own day. Perhaps we can have a perspective that celebrates that which was and that which CAN be. To live in a world of possibilities is to live in a world of freedom. We all have choices as to how we see our memories and how we will live our lives. Join me in choosing to live in a world that can be redeemed and inspired by the memory of the redemption of the past.
