When you sit down at your seder tables this week, it would be understandable if you were to frame the Passover story as an “Us against Them,” “Oppressed vs. Oppressor,” “Israelite vs. Egyptian” tale. As the old joke about Jewish holidays goes: They tried to kill us; we won; let’s eat. God’s outstretched arm and mighty hand struck our taskmasters with plagues; we fled, they pursued, they drowned, and we were liberated. The story is clear, the moral message present, and the lesson enduring.
That is one version of the story, and it is not wrong. There are, however, other possibilities. “Us” and “them” may not be the whole story or, more precisely, the only story. What if – and stay with me for a moment – the line between “us” and “them” is not so clear, the binary not so black and white? What if not all Egyptians were “them,” our enemies, and not all Israelites were “us,” bound up in a shared destiny?
We can begin with the latter. There is a rabbinic midrash that relates that eighty percent of the Israelites did not leave Egypt. It is, if you have never heard it before, a remarkable – and well-nigh heretical – thought. After hundreds of years of oppression, there comes an opportunity to leave Egypt, fulfill the covenant, and journey to the Promised Land. And yet, not just some, but a majority, of the Israelites said, “No thanks. We’re good here. Better to contend with the known, however imperfect, than the unknown.”
The midrash goes even further with regard to the plague of darkness: for the twenty percent of Israelites who sought redemption, there was light in their homes during that plague. But the eighty percent, the majority who did not seek to be redeemed, the darkness fell on them. Once they severed themselves from the Jewish future, the plague of darkness relegated them to the same fate as the Egyptians. Some of “us,” as it turns out, were fated with “them.”
And so, too, the other way around. We can’t simply say that we crossed the sea while all the Egyptians drowned. Some of them became us. The text is clear: when the Israelites left Egypt, an erev rav, a mixed multitude, went with them. There were Egyptians who crossed the sea and entered the wilderness alongside the Israelites. Not all Egyptians were enemies. In fact, an argument can be made that without some of them we would not be who we are.
Pharaoh’s daughter, who saved Moses from the bulrushes, to her we say thank you. Moses’s father-in-law, a Midianite priest who helped establish the leadership structure, to him a thank you is in order. Rahab, the righteous woman without whom we would not have entered the Promised Land, another thank you. There is a list of non-Israelites to whom we owe gratitude, those who saw our cause as theirs. Some of them chose to bind their fate to ours, and all of them deserve our thanks. There is a category of “them” who, when you stop to think about it, are actually “us.”
And as in those days, so too in our own. It is tempting, really tempting, to divide the world into “us” and “them,” a black-and-white binary: good guys and bad guys; those who stand with us and those who stand against us. We have our enemies. We know that all too well. But we also know, on both counts, that sometimes there are elements within “us” who advance the agenda of “them.” And sometimes there are those among “them” without whom we would not be “us.”
Who is in the first category? We could, in shorthand, say it’s the wicked child, the ones who write themselves out of our narrative. Members of our tribe who work actively against the interests of our people. People who, in this moment of existential concern for the Jewish state and Jewish people, fail to see the short- and long-term importance of defending and nurturing a Jewish and democratic State of Israel as envisioned by the foundational documents of our people. Members of our people, both in Israel and around the globe, who would rather excuse themselves from Jewish destiny than stand with our people. Or, alternatively, those who would rather cut the knees out from under another Jew than stand shoulder to shoulder, even, if not especially, with a fellow Jew with whom they disagree.
Viewpoint diversity has never been, and can never be, a litmus test for belonging to our people, and we do ourselves damage when we make it so. At all times, but especially in a time like ours, the overall well-being of our people must stand as our priority. As the prophet Jeremiah understood, sometimes one’s enemies can come from within. We must be on guard against that possibility, today and every day.
And so too, in every generation, there are righteous gentiles, non-Jews to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for standing with our people. People not of our people, but for our people. This morning, Rabbi Zauzmer and I represented Park Avenue Synagogue at a community gathering celebrating the legislative victory of City Council Speaker Menin’s Buffer Zone legislation, aimed at keeping synagogues and all houses of worship safe. Speaker Menin is a descendant of Holocaust survivors; to her, the idea that faith should be practiced without fear makes perfect sense. But there were others who took our fight and made it theirs. Father Muldoon of the Diocese, to him we say, thank you. Our Councilwoman Virginia Maloney, to her we say “thank you” for advancing this legislation. So, too, to Councilwoman Gale Brewer and many others for voting for it. To Simon Deng, a Sudanese human rights activist, we say thank you. To him and to people of all faiths and all backgrounds we express our gratitude.
There may be, in every generation, those who seek the harm of the Jewish people. But there are also those, in every generation, who seek and fight for our well-being. And when they do, we must shine a light on their righteousness. Not everyone outside our community is a “them.” Sometimes, they are us, and we are grateful. I am grateful.
This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol, the great Shabbat prior to Passover. Tomorrow morning the haftarah will announce the arrival of Elijah the Prophet and his vision of redemption. The haftarah teaches that Elijah will come with a singular mission: to turn hearts one toward another. In other words, redemption is not only about defeating enemies; it is about restoring relationships. Contrary to the plague of darkness, it is about learning to see one another clearly.
This is the challenge I would place before you at your seder table. When you tell the story of us and them, of Egypt and Israel, make the conversation more textured, avoid the easy binary. Ask the questions that really matter: Where are the dangers within our people – the fault lines, the fractures? Where do we, as a community, fall short of our own values, our own unity, our own sense of purpose?
And then ask: Who, in our world today are our allies, even if they are not part of our community? Who has shown up, spoken out, stood with us? Who deserves our gratitude?
Not all enemies are outside. Not all allies are within. And the work of redemption, now as ever, depends on our ability to see the difference – with clarity, with honesty, and with the courage to name what we see.