Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy Middle School Haggadah
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JOSEPH KUSHNER HEBREW ACADEMY 5779 MIDDLE SCHOOL PESACH HAGGADAH 2019 Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy 110 South Orange Ave Livingston, NJ 07038 (862) 437-8000 www.jkha.org תשע"ט The 2019- Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy Middle School Haggadah הגדה של פסח Editor Rabbi Yaacov Feit Cover Design Ayala East Tzofiya Pittinsky Contributors JKHA Middle School Faculty and Students Dedicated by Sherry and Henry Stein in memory of their parents: Arie & Eva Halpern Dr. Morris & Shifra Epstein Bernard Stein 1 2 It is the night that we have all been waiting for. The preparation for the night of the Seder has no parallel in the Jewish calendar. Weeks of tireless effort and seemingly endless expenditures culminate in this anticipated night. We bake matzah, clean our houses, purchase or kasher new dishes, prepare our kitchens, cook, search for chametz and burn the chametz. Halacha even ensures that we prepare for the recitation of the Haggadah itself. The Rama (Orach Chaim 430) writes that during the time of mincha on Shabbat Hagadol, one should recite the main part of Maggid. We come to the Seder night more than ready to fulfill our obligation to pass on the story of Yetziat Mitzrayim together with its fundamentals of emunah to our children. And yet, each year I find myself handicapped. The hour is late and the children are tired. Engaging various types of children with different learning styles and personalities with ages ranging from pre-school through high school seems like a daunting task. Not to mention all the distractions. And sometimes I feel that the celebrated Haggadah itself presents to us one of the biggest challenges. Rather than simply using the story of the Exodus clearly delineated and described in Sefer Shmot, the Haggadah uses a set of esoteric pesukim from the ritual of bringing bikkurim that make reference to the story of Pesach. Why did the Haggadah choose to use the pesukim of Arami Oved Avi to tell the story, rather than the more obvious pesukim in Sefer Shmot? explained that the author of the Haggadah specifically זצ"ל Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik chose these pesukim because the only way to understand them is with Torah SheBaal Pe, the oral tradition. On the night of transmission of mesorah, our tradition, we use the pesukim of Arami Oved Avi and the explanations given to us by Chazal to teach the Pesach story, to demonstrate to our children that our tradition rests on the Oral Law. Our mesorah cannot just be read from a book. It needs to be taught and passed down from parent to child, from teacher to student. The story of the Exodus cannot simply be read or stated. There needs to be a back and forth and a give and take. There needs to be questions and answers, debates and discussions. It is through this dialogue, represented by the pesukim used by the Haggadah, that we demonstrate to our children that our mesorah comes from a rich heritage that was passed down from generation to generation that they are now a part of. That is why it is essential to involve the children during the night of the Seder. Their involvement introduces them into the chain of our Torah SheBaal Pe that they will carry onto the next generation. It is with this in mind that we embark each year on this Haggadah project. This Haggadah including divrei Torah from our 6th-8th grade students themselves brings our children into the transmission of our mesorah. This is where they become a part of the chain and begin to tell our story. I am truly indebted to the Middle School Judaic Studies Faculty, true transmitters of our mesorah, who worked tirelessly to bring this project to fruition. We are once again so grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Henry and Sherry Stein for their generous sponsorship of this Haggadah. They are true partners in our mission to pass on our legacy to the next generation. Finally, we are so thankful to and proud of our students who demonstrated through their participation in this project that they are both recipients of and teachers of our Torah SheBaal Pe ready to continue the transmission of our holy heritage. Chag Kasher Vesameach, Rabbi Yaacov Feit 3 4 דברי תורה לפסח by the Rebbeim and Morot of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy Middle School 5 6 Looking to the Future By Rabbi Eliezer Rubin, Head of School and Klatt Family Rosh Hayeshiva By no means was the Exodus from Egypt quiescent. The Torah describes a frenzied and frenetic redemption, fraught with excitement and punctuated by the unknown. So quick was the Jewish people’s departure from Egypt that they barely had time to bake bread, only matzoh. The matzoh represents their hasty departure. It was a form of an expulsion that would never be repeated again: an expulsion of redemption not of affliction. If we were to imagine the people’s transformation from slavery to free people, as we are commanded to do during the seder, marching out of Egypt with pride and vindication, passing the humbled slave masters and taskmasters, we would probably see ourselves thinking only in the moment. Imagine ourselves basking in the justice of liberation, gratified by the hand of G-d's justice, and euphoric about our freedom and relieved to escape torment. But a close examination of the text demonstrates that the focus of the Jewish people was not in the moment but it was looking far into the future. Recognizing that miracles are situational and episodic, Moshe began instructing the people about the traditions of Judaism to be passed on well beyond the Exodus. Torah is transmitted from generation to generation through ideas, dialogue, questioning, and study. In three different references beginning from chapter 12 through the middle of chapter 13, Moshe references the future Jewish child who will ask a question and who requires an answer. More important than the question is the questioner. It is a child. As if to tell us that, according to Rabbi Sacks, the Jewish ideal will be transmitted from adult to child. In other words, Jewish education. Through God's vision and direction, Moshe intuited and exhorted that the strength of the Jewish people will be inextricably connected to the strength of Jewish education. Children would need to learn the lessons of history, starting from the struggles of our forefathers through the famine in Canaan to the slavery in Egypt and to the redemption of our people. Children will learn to understand that embedded in history is the miraculous story of the Jewish people. It needs to be evidenced that each child is a link in the chain of Jewish history. Leaders, cultures, communities, nations and global powers will reach their zenith and retreat into the annals of history. Whereas the enduring nature of the Jewish people as told through the Exodus of Egypt and the retelling of the story every year will be the testament to our faith and will underscore the urgency of our message. Moshe was a great leader because he inspired justice, demanded integrity and was selfless and humble. But his leadership was even more outstanding because he thought of the future. Leaders who only see the moment misdirect their people. Of course, Moshe was in the moment, he fought for his people and carried Joseph's bones through the Red Sea; but he was equally as concerned for the future. When your child should ask, “what does that mean?” you will begin a conversation about the meaning of Judaism, the importance of tradition and the lessons of history. You will be a teacher and contribute to the ongoing story of our eternal people fortified by education and sustained by study. Asking Questions By Mrs. Debbie Finkelstein, Principal of JKHA In the Haggadah, there are the four children: one wise, one rebellious, one simple and one who does not know how to ask. From reading about these children, the commentaries have come 7 to the conclusion that children should ask questions and that the Pesach narrative should begin with questions asked by a child. The parents at the Seder should encourage the children to ask questions. This approach is aligned with our beliefs, based on asking questions. Our students at JKHA are provided with positive encouragement in both their Judaic and General studies classes to ask questions and the class is set up as a safe environment where the students are comfortable grappling with incorrect questions and answers. For the Rabbis though, a question is more valuable than an answer, teaching us to value exploration and not discovery. Elie Wiesel echoed the words of the Rabbis by asking, “When will you understand that a beautiful answer is nothing? Nothing more than illusion! Man defines himself by what disturbs him and not by what reassures him. When will you understand that you are living and searching in error, because G-d means movement and not explanation?” The importance of questioning is continually reinforced in Jewish learning. Avraham, the very first Jew we often learn about, has the chutzpah to question G-d’s decision making ability by asking G-d whether he will sweep away the innocent along with the guilty. Moshe also follows the legacy by asking G-d why he was chosen to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. According to some commentators, it was the very fact that he asked this question that made him fit to lead since a question is a true sign of humility as we admit what don’t know or understand.