27 Mar PARSHA IN PRACTICE: SKILLS FOR BETTER LIVING PESACH – ME, MYSELF, AND BNEI YISRAEL

It’s a first-hand
account of the Exodus
– thousands of years
later.

The Torah instructs us to tell the next
generation about the miracles that “Hashem
did for me when I left Egypt” (Shemos 13:8).
Based on this striking first-person language,
Chazal famously declare: In every generation
a person is obligated to view himself as if he
personally left Mitzrayim (Pesachim 116b).
At first glance, this instruction seems difficult
to understand.
Of course we can repeat the words, but what
do they actually mean? How can we honestly
say “Hashem took me out of Egypt” about an
event that took place thousands of years ago?
Rav Shimon Schwab zt”l explained this with
a fascinating analogy.
A person might point to his arm and say, “I
broke this arm when I was seven years old.”
Technically speaking, that statement isn’t
accurate. From a biological perspective, the
bones, tissue, and skin cells that make up that
arm today are not the same ones that existed

decades earlier. Over the years, the body has
replaced them many times. And yet, no one
finds the statement strange.
Why not? Because when a person says “my
arm,” he is not referring to a specific collection
of cells. He is referring to his sense of self –
the larger identity that remains continuous
even as the physical components change. The
body renews itself, but the self persists.
Rav Schwab explained that something
similar is true of the Jewish people. Every
Jew can truthfully say “Hashem took me out
of Egypt” because we are all part of a much
larger organism called Bnei Yisrael. Each of
us is like a single cell within that living body.
Individual members come and go over the
generations, but the collective identity of the
Jewish people remains continuous.
In that sense, the nation that left Egypt
thousands of years ago is the very same
nation sitting around the seder table tonight.
In fact, we instinctively understand this idea
in other areas of life. A devoted sports fan
might say, “We won the championship in
1977,” even if he was not alive at the time –
or even if the roster has completely changed

since then. The fan identifies so
deeply with the team that its history
feels like his own.
The Jewish people are also part of
a team – one whose story stretches
back thousands of years. The
Torah is asking for something even
deeper than historical awareness.
It is asking us to feel personally
connected to that story. The seder
is not meant to be a history lecture
about what happened to “them.” It
is meant to be a story about what happened
to us.
When we eat the matzah, we are not
simply reenacting an ancient ritual. We are
participating in the same national experience
of hurried redemption. When we taste the
bitterness of maror, we are touching the
suffering that shaped our people. And when
we recline and celebrate our freedom, we are
continuing the story that began the night
Hashem redeemed His nation from slavery.
But the story of the Jewish people did
not end at the shores of the Yam Suf. It
continued through Sinai, through centuries

of exile, through persecution and rebuilding,
through generation after generation of Jews
who carried the story forward. And now it
continues with us.
Perhaps that is why the Torah insists on the
language of “for me.” Because the goal of the
Seder is not only to remember what Hashem
once did. It is to recognize that we are part
of a living nation whose relationship with
Hashem began in Egypt and continues to
unfold today.
We are not just students of Jewish history; we
are characters in the next chapter of the story,
vital cells in a larger body, critical members
of our favorite national team!