An Important Message from our Beloved Elders
An important message from residents of a seniors facility, from the Washington Post.
Opening Doors and Unlocking the Yearning Heart:
A Look at Nachman of Bratzlav's Haggadah
The pandemic has brought out the generosity of so many, including artists and publishers. Over the past week, I've been able to download two classic Haggadahs that are invaluable to the Haggadah collector.
I've taken some brief excerpts from the Bratzlav Haggadah which, while two centuries old (he died in 1810), is an exceedingly contemporary commentary. In the view of
his biographer Rodger Kamanetz, Nachman's storytelling was clearly designed to reach out to people who otherwise would not be interested in Jewish mysticism or in serious religious Judaism.
"I think what's most modern about Rabbi Nachman is his consideration of the problem of extreme doubt and extreme nothingness - of descending into states of mind where he felt that he knew nothing, which he frequently proclaimed to his followers.... To dramatize and live out the reality of doubt is an extraordinary feat for a figure like Rabbi Nachman, who clearly was deeply devout and deeply religious."
So he was a very traditional figure, though he lived in the infancy of a very radical movement, Hasidism, and he was addressing an audience with increasingly modern sensibilities. No wonder his Haggadah commentary feels like it was written just for us, as we grapple with living in Coronaville, 2020.
Commenting on the verse from the Haggadah, "God will bring us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm," a section of word-by-word analysis that rabbis go gaga over and everyone else at the table typically wants to skip, the Bratzlaver shares thoughts that echo in our current experience, of the need to bear our suffering, see beyond it and never lose hope. While we ruminate over our current predicament, Nachman's point would be that we always need to be aiming for self improvement and lessons learned, even when so much is out of control. There are things we can control: how we read danger signs, to what degree we socially distance ourselves and influence others to do the same, and how and when we raise voices in protest.
The next commentary that I've excerpted ends with words that have never been more prophetic. As the Israelites shed themselves of the crust accumulated from centuries of superstition, cynicism and lethargy, God "opens doors" for them, releasing them from their Egyptian quarantine. They are now keenly aware of the miracles they've witnessed, enabling them to overcome their despair. We too have been awakened to the miracles of our families, our community, the goodness in people and the gift of life.
And we too yearn for the opening of doors. The journey from Passover to Shavuot this year, from Egypt to Sinai, the traditional And we too yearn for the opening of doors. The journey from Passover to Shavuot this year, from Egypt to Sinai, the traditional counting of the Omer, will be a time of counting and growing such as we've not seen since the Exodus itself.
Here are those first two commentaries:
Here's Reb Nachman's take on the Four Children - a fascinating psychological study in which all four of them in fact reside within each of us.
In the commentary below, we read Nachman's take on the Matzah as the "Bread of Experience" and how the Seder itself, as embodied in the matzah, is sort of a Rorschach test of one's openness to Jewish experiences. In light of this past week's once-in-a-lifetime Seder experiences, it is hard to imagine that anyone was bored! If this was, for you, just another Seder, please take two Nachmans and see me in the morning. I'd love to hear your Seder stories from this week, especially if you happen to be among those that Nachman was talking about, the person who usually is heard saying countless times, "Are we there yet?" before we've even broken the middle matzah. What moved you this year? How was this Seder experience different from all others?
And finally, here's a small snippet of the book's extensive introduction, where Nachman tells the story of the Exodus, from the very beginning of Genesis. We read in this excerpt a fascinating psychological study of Pharaoh, the defeated despot - that first paragraph is a keen analysis of autocrats, then and now - and how the Israelites endured the night of terror with joyous expectation of their pending liberation, so joyous that even Pharaoh's own daughter was enticed to join them. For a guy who lived decades before Freud, he was speaking in the language of Freud and Kafka...and us.
Locusts? Really? Do yourself a favor and don't enlarge the photo. It's not pretty. And so, OK, it's true that locusts 
No comments:
Post a Comment