Expressions of faith

By Avi Magid
Temple Emanu-El

Although we fret about it daily, telling children about life's expectations of them is not new at all. In fact, the Jewish faith has a 3,500-year-old observance dedicated to this issue, and it begins tonight.

Rabbi Avi Magid

Honolulu to Hong Kong, Haifa to Houston, Jews throughout the world will gather to recall how Moses and the Children of Israel escaped slavery in Egypt on their way to spiritual freedom at Mount Sinai. It is a truly magnificent story recognized beyond the Jewish world as central to civil and human rights.

Given the obvious grandness of the Passover theme, one would think we Jews would flock to our synagogues in observance of it as a community. To be sure, many do.

Yet, at its core, the historical crossing from slavery to liberation is recognized as both a personal and familial one celebrated likewise around the dinner table. Surrounded by ceremonial symbols and foods, together with family and friends, an event that took place 1,500 years before the birth of Jesus is made modern again as we tell the story to each other. "Tell" is the operative word, for we are commanded to "tell the story to our children" that they may learn "why this night is different from all other nights."

What happens, though, after Passover? What is it that we want to tell our children every day? What story do we tell them to make their lives different?

I reflected on this recently as I helped take 11 Confirmation class teenagers to Washington, D.C., and New York City. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, we told sad stories of the Six Million. In New York, we told magnificent stories of the immigrant experience at Ellis Island, the Lower East Side and the vibrant center of Jewish America. It was an extraordinary chance for them and a fabulous one for me made even better by their reflective responses, their "tellings" on the tragic and heroic parts of Jewish life that they experienced.

These conversations took place around our meal tables. Sustained by food, buoyed by community, our young adults were able to overcome their usually reticent teenage selves and express feelings in the most remarkable ways about their humanness and their identity as Jews.

In that setting and in my own way, I told them about another prophet — Micah — and what he told others centuries ago about how to be a complete person. "Do justly," he said, "love mercy and walk humbly with God." This they understood from their journey, having been told about justice denied to our people in the Holocaust, the merciful acceptance of this great nation to our ancestors fleeing pogroms in Europe, and the duties of doing right that are both demanded of us and gifted to us by God.

Surprisingly, this was not hard to tell them at all. In fact, I believe it was what they wanted to hear and from whom they wanted to hear it — not just me as the rabbi, but me and the three other adult leaders, all of whom were working hard at being role models for them.

In the process, we unconsciously modeled the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who reflected on the fifth commandment, "Honor your mother and your father." This is what he said: "Unless my child will sense in my personal existence acts and attitudes that evoke reverence — to overcome prejudice, to sense the holy, to strive for the noble — why should my child revere me?" It is, after all, a matter of what we tell our children about our lives, as well as theirs.

The "telling" at Passover does this for Jews. In the context of an engaged family setting, it merges ancient history with future hopes to tell our children and us about current expectations. It is a miraculous moment made even more miraculous if we remembered to consciously experience it every night.

Avi Magid is the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Nu'uanu. Expressions of Faith is a column of contributions from leaders and lay workers in local faith organizations. If you are interested in writing a column, e-mail faith@honoluluadvertiser.com or call 525-8036.