“The Story Goes On: Shabbat HaGadol 5785” Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon 4/11/25

Rabbi Andrew Oberstein
Qabbalat Shabbat, April 11, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston/The Riverway Project

I found myself in a very familiar conversation recently with a friend of mine. 

We were reacting to a news alert that popped onto both of our phones.

I honestly don’t remember the specific alert.

(As you probably have experienced yourselves, 

there’s honestly just too much happening too quickly to keep track of it all.)

But, 

in this moment, 

I found myself freely, 

and rather automatically,

using the words that have been flooding my vocabulary and infiltrating most conversations I’ve had over the past few months. 

Words like: 

unbelievable, 

unimaginable, 

incomprehensible, 

inconceivable, 

unthinkable. 

These are the words that have popped into my brain pretty much anytime I’ve opened a newspaper this year. 

These are the only words I have found sufficient to encapsulate the disbelief I have experienced at the callousness and cruelty on display, 

particularly to the most vulnerable in our midst. 

*****

But this time, 

as the words came out of my mouth, 

something felt different. 

I heard a voice in my head reminding me that, 

if we’ve been paying attention to our history, 

everything happening around us should actually be entirely believable. 

If we’ve been paying attention to our history, 

everything happening around us should be certainly imaginable, 

perfectly comprehensible when taken in broader context, 

absolutely conceivable if we choose not to turn a blind eye, 

certainly within the realm of the thinkable, 

if we look back at the story of our nation and the story of our people.

It has become a buzzword in our society to say that we’re living in unprecedented times. 

But the history of the Jews tells another story and provides us important context as we seek to navigate the road ahead. 

*****

Tomorrow night, 

Jews around the world will gather around our seder tables to celebrate the most widely observed Jewish holiday of all, 

the holiday of Passover. 

We’ll remind ourselves of our most foundational Jewish story, 

the story of an enslaved Israelite people moving from degradation to liberation,

the quintessential springtime story, 

a tale of rebirth and renewal. 

We’ll tell the story as we do best, 

in a nonlinear fashion, 

intercepted with thoughtful questions and raucous singing, 

with sweet wine filling our bellies, 

and crumbs of matzah filling our laps.

*****

Our tradition cautions us from turning this story into a museum piece. 

Our tradition forbids us from imagining this as a story about something that once happened to one people in one time and place, 

distant from our lived experience, 

perhaps only tangentially related to our contemporary lives. 

Rather, 

the haggadah demands of us – 

“B’chol dor vador, 

chayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza mimitzrayim.” 

“In every generation, 

it is required that a human being see themselves as though they personally made the exodus from Egypt.”

In other words, 

we place ourselves directly into the narrative. 

We announce that we are the ones who actually experienced this redemption,

Just as we taste slavery’s bitterness and freedom’s sweetness in our mouths.

We watched this unfold with our own eyes. 

******

Our sages of old made a brilliant move with this imperative: 

by placing ourselves in the past, 

we bring it into the present, 

blurring the lines between time and tense as the past becomes the present becomes the future becomes the past. 

And if we embrace the blurry circularity of time, 

the message of the Exodus narrative comes into clear focus:

Resist the temptation to compartmentalize the past, 

the present, 

and the future. 

Ignore their intertwined relationship at your own peril. 

Because Passover’s core message is this: 

if it’s happened before it can happen again.

*****

For better or for worse.

*****

If it’s happened before, it can happen again.

Our people have seen the rise of totalitarianism before. 

Our ancestors experienced being the direct targets of vile anti-immigrant rhetoric.

And yes, 

we have experienced forced deportations without due process.

We have experienced the kind of fear that we heard about last week from Gladys Vega of La Colaborativa, 

the fear to walk public streets lest we be rounded up and separated from our families.

Our people have experienced the weaponization of antisemitism.

We have lived through political polarization, 

and we have experienced what has been deemed the “horseshoe effect,” 

where the further you go on either side of the political spectrum, 

the closer you actually get to commonalities, 

chiefly a shared disgust for the Jews.

Our people have borne witness to the erosion of democracy, 

the fall of empires, 

the loss of self-determination and autonomous rule.

If it’s happened before, 

it can happen again.

*****

Passover reminds us that we already know what it’s like to serve a Pharaoh. 

Each year, 

Passover requires us to cast ourselves as the main characters of the story, 

not just to read the words, 

but to taste the bitterness in our mouths, 

to imagine the mortar used for our hard labor laid out before us, 

never to forget the capacity human beings have to inflict unspeakable horrors against each other. 

And lest we use this shared narrative as an excuse to prioritize our own self-interests over the needs of other vulnerable groups around us, 

the book of Exodus cries out to us: 

“V’ger lo tilchatz – 

you shall not oppress a stranger, 

because you all know the soul of the stranger, 

because you all were strangers yourselves in the land of Egypt.”

*****

But it’s important to note:

Our tradition doesn’t say 

“If it’s happened before, 

it will happen again.” 

Our tradition is there to remind us that it can happen again.

It’s there to remind us that that nothing any person, 

or group, 

or government, 

or elected official does to anyone else, 

no matter how heinous, 

no matter how devastating, 

none of it should actually catch us off-guard, 

none of it is actually unimaginable, 

because we’ve been there before and we’ve seen it with our own eyes, 

ki gerim hayyinu b’eretz Mitzrayim, 

because we were strangers in the land of Egypt, 

because we know the soul of the stranger.

If it’s happened before, 

it can happen again.

*****

Passover offers this reminder not as a statement of despair, 

but rather as a call to action.

Because lest we forget,

Passover also tells the story of a man with a seemingly insurmountable fear of using his own voice, 

rising to speak truth to power.

If it’s happened before, 

it can happen again.

Passover tells the story of a 400-year status quo being broken, 

of a people so downtrodden and dispirited that they never could have imagined an alternative reality. 

And still they find their way to liberation and joy.

On Passover, 

we are commanded to see ourselves as the ones who went from backbreaking hard labor to exuberantly dancing with timbrels. 

We are commanded to imagine a time when we personally stood at the shores of the sea, 

with a murderous mob chasing behind us. 

And because a miracle happened then, 

we are commanded to believe that miracles

can happen now.

If it’s happened before, 

it can happen again.

We are commanded to see ourselves among the generation that used their shared trauma to imagine a new kind of society, 

built on shared values of justice, 

righteousness, 

empathy, 

and compassion.

As long as we have the Exodus as our people’s foundational story, nothing is ever unbelievable.

And as Stephen Schwartz wrote in his lyrics for the seminal animated film, 

The Prince of Egypt, 

“there can be miracles, 

when you believe.”

This might be referring to belief in God and the power of the Divine Energy of this universe to work wonders.

Or it might actually be referring to belief in humanity, 

a belief based in our own lived experience that people are capable of the very worst but also the very best, 

a well-heeded warning from our history not to be caught off-guard by anything, 

a belief that telling our story matters, 

because it girds us with lessons to face whatever comes our way, 

a belief that understanding our past is our only path to a viable future. 

And when we truly believe this, 

then, 

and only then, 

there truly can be miracles.

Baruch Atah Adonai she’asah nissim l’avoteinu.

Blessed is the One that allowed miracles to happen for our ancestors.

Ken Tihyeh Lanu. 

So may it be for us.