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Mageed: The Story
Contributed by Cindy Marks

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

Less than 100 years ago, scholars still believed that the basic details of our Exodus tale was true.  But then they started digging.  And soon it became clear that the details of the story we had told ourselves for millennia was different.

There had been no mass Exodus from Egypt.  The Israelites were natives of the Land of Israel. Our ancestors were Canaanites living in their own land.  But they were not free and Egypt was not innocent.  For while they might not have been slaves IN Egypt, we discovered that they were slaves TO Egypt.

What history revealed was a story every bit as wondrous as the myth of Moses and the Exodus.  It is a narrative of Egyptian conquest of the Land of Israel and how the Pharaoh Ahmose and his descendants established a crippling system of corvée labor among the peasants of the land. They forced the people to abandon family fields and to work their royal lands.   

From their midst arose bands of rebels who led a peasant revolt and soon Israel was freed from the yoke of the Egyptians.  Archeological evidence shows that tribes and towns began to form, bringing together the disparate rebels.  In a long, complicated and gradual process they became known as the Israelites.  They did not conquer the land from abroad, but they fought fiercely to unite their brothers and sisters so that they might thrive in their homeland.

Why did people who were native to the Land of Israel tell a story in which they were outsiders?   

Exoduses from Egypt to Israel and back were common occurrences.  The Nile provided a more constant source of water than Israel’s rains.  This ongoing dependence was a kind of servitude, too.  In short, Egypt dominated everything in the entire region for generations.

Perhaps the real story was too complicated and perhaps, like us, the Israelites needed a clear and simple narrative in order to appreciate the significance of freedom and to celebrate their special attachment to a land that was always claimed and conquered by others.  

Over hundreds and hundreds of years, the story of this successful rebellion and the freedom it brought transformed  into the legend of one great man, Moses, dedicated to justice and liberation for his people.  Like the rebels of history, he challenged a Pharaoh and brought freedom to his people.  And he came to represent the hundreds or perhaps thousands who fought to be free…. 

It is his story - now our story - that we tell tonight.

The sacred history of our people does not start with tales of great heroes, nor the righteous founding ancestors but with humble beginnings.

Our story begins with degredation and rises to dignity.

Our story moves from slavery to freedom.

Our story opens with idolatry and advances toward the unity of God.

Our story starts in ancient times, with Abraham, the first person to have the idea that maybe all those little statues his contemporaries worshiped as gods were just statues. The idea of one God, invisible and all-powerful, inspired him to leave his family and begin a new people in Canaan, the land that would one day bear his grandson Jacob’s adopted name, Israel.

GOD'S PROMISE

God had made a promise to Abraham that his family would become a great nation, but this promise came with a frightening vision of the troubles along the way: “Your descendants will dwell for a time in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and afflicted for four hundred years; however, I will punish the nation that enslaved them, and afterwards they shall leave with great wealth."

Raise the glass of wine and say:

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ וְלָֽנוּ

V’hi she-amda l’avoteinu v’lanu.

This promise has sustained our ancestors and us.

For not only one enemy has risen against us to annihilate us, but in every generation there are those who rise against us. But God saves us from those who seek to harm us.

The glass of wine is put down.

In the years our ancestors lived in Egypt, our numbers grew, and soon the family of Jacob became the People of Israel. Pharaoh and the leaders of Egypt grew alarmed by this great nation growing within their borders, so they enslaved us. We were forced to perform hard labor, perhaps even building pyramids. The Egyptians feared that even as slaves, the Israelites might grow strong and rebel. So Pharaoh decreed that Israelite baby boys should be drowned, to prevent the Israelites from overthrowing those who had enslaved them.

But God heard the cries of the Israelites. And God brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm, with great awe, miraculous signs and wonders. God brought us out not by angel or messenger, but through God’s own intervention. 
haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story

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