Menachem Bluming Muses: Ever Read G-d’s Hagaddah?

Rabbi Yisroel Taub of Modzhitz (1849–1920) once said that there are actually two versions of the Haggadah.

One is the familiar story we tell every Pesach, of G-d’s miracles for the Jewish people when we left Egypt.

But there is another Haggadah, G-d’s Haggadah. Just as we read our Haggadah on Seder night, so G-d reads His Haggadah. And it is completely different to ours.

G-d’s Haggadah doesn’t speak of the miracles He made for the Jews. G-d’s Haggadah tells of the miracles the Jewish people make themselves. Just as our Haggadah describes the mighty power of G-d, His Haggadah recounts the indomitable power of the Jewish people.

Here we are, more than three thousand years after we first left Egypt. In those three millennia we have seen exiles and expulsions, gulags and gas chambers, bombings and boycotts. And yet we continue to sit at the Seder. Our families have been forced to wander from continent to continent, but wherever we went, we brought our Matzah with us.

The fact that you and I are alive today is thanks to G-d’s miracles. But the fact that you and I are Jewish today is a miracle of our own making. After everything our people have been through, to sit on this night and make a Seder is nothing short of miraculous. This is the story G-d tells on Seder night. He is in awe of us.

This is the inner meaning of the blessing we say after we complete reading our version of the Haggadah:

Blessed are You, G d, our G d , King of the universe, who has redeemed us and redeemed our fathers from Egypt, and brought us to this night to eat Matzah and Maror. So too, G d, our G d and G d of our fathers…

We are saying, “G-d, we bless you for Your miracles. We are impressed by the wonders You performed. So too, You G-d, cannot help but marvel at the wonder we are performing right here, right now. Sitting here eating Matzah and Maror, Jews sitting at a Seder, is itself a miracle.”

At your Seder, go around the table and ask everyone there, “If you look at your family history, does it make sense that you are Jewish today?” You are a living miracle. G-d is impressed with that.

You may not think you are so special. But G-d does. That’s what it says in His Haggadah.

Mendel (Menachem) Bluming and Rabbi Moss and Rabbi Katz

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