There is A God
In his book “Out of the Depths,” Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau tells the following story:
In 1978, when I was forty-one years old, leaders of this seaside Israeli town (Netanya) asked me to respond to the call for candidates in the election for chief rabbi of the city. I was quite young for such a heavy responsibility; still people said, my chances of winning were good. I attended a meeting with then-mayor Reuben Kliegler, city administrators, and local Labor party leaders. I told the mayor that if I were elected I would be following in the footsteps of the dynasty of rabbis from which I descended.
I met with the mayor and his staff for four hours. The whole time, a man with white curly hair sat with us, but he did not open his mouth. Only when I rose to shake hands and take my leave did he address me and others: Friends, honored rabbi, before we disperse, please allow me to say my piece. In a minute you will understand why I held my tongue this whole time. In these hours sitting before Rabbi Lau, I have been reliving the eleventh of April 1945. I was deported from my hometown of Zarka, Poland, to the infamous camp of Buchenwald. On April 11, American airplanes circled in the skies above the camp. The prisoners, myself among them, burst out of the barracks. Spontaneously, we ran toward the gate, anticipating our liberation after six years of hell. As we ran, a hail of lead shot past us. We had no idea who was shooting, from where, why, or what was happening. We only knew that our lives were in danger.
Among those running toward the gate was a little boy. Later, I learned that his name was Lulek, and that he was just under eight years old. I realized that any child at Buchenwald had to be Jewish. I jumped on top of him and threw him to the ground, and lay over him to protect him from the bullets. And today I see him before me, alive and well. Rabbi Lau is that very same Lulek, the boy from Buchenwald.
Now I declare this to all of you. I David Anilevitch, was saved from that horror, fought in the Palmach, and today serve as deputy mayor of an Israeli city. If I have the merit of seeing this child, whom I protected with my body, become my spiritual leader, then I say to you [and here he pounded on the table so the water glasses shook] that there is a God…
For the next nine years, I served as chief rabbi of Netanya.
Of all the cherished moment in the life of a Jewish family, few compare to the moment our children will stand up proudly and sing “Ma Nishtana” – the “four questions”. Why are we eating Matzah? Why are we eating Maror? We are we all leaning? Why are we dipping?
If your family is anything like mine, by the time your kids sit down again, beaming from the praise from parents and grandparents, no one is looking for answers.
It all seems like such a farce. The object of the night is to educate our children about the story of the exodus. But they know it already, and they’re waiting to sing V’hi She’amda, Dayeinu and Paroah in Pajamas.
Have we all missed the point? Not quite.
The truth is that the questions at the Seder are not supposed to be answered, because the questions are not questions, they are invitations.
No one at the Seder is actually bothered by why we’re dipping. But they are bothered by two thousand years of Jewish exile.
No one is struggling to sleep at night because we all lean while drinking wine and eating matzah. We’re losing sleep over the 552 days that our enemies are still holding our brothers and sisters captive in Gaza.
It’s not a night of textual study or ancient history. The questions we have are not about details of rituals, but the meaning of our lives and the purpose of being Jewish in a world that so often hates us.
As our kids grow older, they too are trying to understand their place in this story. If we’re being honest, by the end of the evening, none of us will be any no closer to answering the big questions.
But one thing is certain, when another Jewish child gets up and sings Ma Nishtana, we can bang on the table and scream “There is a God.”
That’s how we finish the night: אחד אני יודע – I know One. One is Hashem. Somehow, for a few moments, all the biggest and most challenging questions of our lives and history disappear. All the “why’s” and “hows” are less relevant, because by the end of the story, Hashem will slaughter the Angel of Death, and we’re still going to be there. Maybe then we’ll have the time and mind-space for the answers.
For right now, this moment, the experience of Seder night is our opportunity to bang on the table and remind ourselves that there is a God.