May this zman cherutenu (time of our freedom) be a time when you personally experience God's deliverance of his people--suddenly, and in big ways.
Chag sameach...gut Pesach...happy Passover.
~Yahnatan
What is presumably the major event of the evening--the meal--is unaccompanied, at least in this stage of history, by any texts. This is most remarkable when we realize that the paschal lamb was brought in whole. Bringing a whole animal before the participants must have been a dramatic event.I had never thought about this before. Curious, I googled "roasted lamb" and found an image that conveys some of the "drama" R. Tabory mentions. (Warning: not for the faint of heart!)
That Jesus didn't speak about electing a government is beside the point; he didn't have that option. He did live in a world governed by a Torah that let the government have laws that mandated care for the poor. He lived in a world that didn't just leave it up to individuals. Sure, there was lots of private charity. That too, on top of laws.
[The] proclivity for contemporizing the haggadah can be traced back to the haggadah text itself. In one of its most famous passages, it instructs its reader, the participant in the seder, "to see him or herself as though they had gone out of Egypt." Historically, Jews have fulfilled this instruction in different ways, sometimes even acting out the Exodus by marching around the seder table! Since the early Middle Ages, however, probably the most typical way Jews have made the haggadah speak to their contemporary concerns and needs has been through the act of composing commentaries on it and then drawing on their elaborations and interpretations at the seder. These commentaries have been of every conceivable type--midrashic, legalistic, homiletical, ethical, philosophical, and mystical. And each has added a different and additional layer of meaning to the ritual.I'd like to suggest that we take Stern's observation as an exhortation: that as we read the haggadah through this commentary, we also engage in creating our own commentaries on the haggadah, commentaries which reflect our own particular story, giftings, and passions.