Generational Story Telling
An Editorial from the Jewish Advocate website.
By Mark
Sokoll - Tuesday - April 29, 2008
Pesach – the Jewish ritual that
researchers say engages more Jews, more often, than any other – provides
us with the opportunity to share personal stories of deliverance with
those whom we share our Seder. The Haggadah instructs us to take it
personally, saying, “in every generation each of us is obligated to see
ourselves as if we had come out of Egypt.”
There is no more powerful and enduring ritual in our tradition than
telling the story of our collective liberation from slavery in Egypt. In
Hebrew the word for story, “Sippur,” and the word for counting, “Sfirah,”
come from the same three letter root – Samech – Pay – Reish. In telling
the story of our people, the story of every unique individual counts! In
every generation each of us is obligated to leave Egypt all over again.
Pesach is the primary time for us to recall our own stories of our
personal journeys from the things that enslave us, to the renewed hope
that fills the air of spring.
My preparation for this Pesach
storytelling began in the lobby of the JCC where on a typical day,
Spanish, Hebrew, Russian and a variety of English accents can be
overheard. Hearing two elderly Russian women mention the city of Moscow,
I was transported back to 1978 to an extraordinary Passover experience.
Thirty years ago I was sent to the Soviet Union to meet with refuseniks
and their families.
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Together with refusenik,Yuli Kosharovsky, I was
privileged to conduct a Seder in a Moscow apartment packed with people
for whom the Passover story was a narrative that reflected their grim
reality.
Later that Passover week, I met with Hillel Butman, one of the Leningrad
Eleven who had been arrested, convicted, and jailed in 1970 for plotting
to hijack a plane and fly it to Sweden. Their hope was to bring world
attention to the plight of Soviet Jews enslaved in contemporary
Pharaoh’s Russia.
Butman had just been released from prison, where he occupied the cell
next to Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky, the noted anti-Communist
dissident who later became a deputy prime minister in Israel. Butman’s
steely eyes, well-practiced scowl and radiant smile were unforgettable.
He told us his story of incarceration and resistance in fluent Hebrew,
learned from letters he received from Jewish school children in America.
Many years have passed since I last saw Hillel Butman resettled in
Israel, but on the eve of this Pesach, I wonder what stories are being
told around his family’s seder table. Our stories of our own journeys
may not all be as dramatic as his. But our tradition insists that every
story of every Jew counts. This year, as each of us once again leaves
Egypt, we are reminded that in every generation telling the liberation
story of our people is not just an obligation, but a chance to relive
the blessing of being free in our own lives.
Mark Sokoll is president and CEO of the Jewish Community Centers of
Greater Boston and rabbi of Temple B'nai Israel in Revere. |
