IF EVERY TIME A JEW IS CONFRONTED WITH
MISFORTUNE, AND HE OR SHE DOUBTS G-D’S LOVE
AND CLOSENESS, THAT IS A SURE SIGN THE
EXODUS HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN.
mentioned and continually remembered.
The Exodus demonstrated G-d’s love for
humanity and how he intervenes in destiny for the sake of their collective and
individual redemption.
Only in an immature, unstable relationship does the wife require the husband to
prove his love and dependability over and
over again. If every time a Jew is confronted with misfortune, and he or she
doubts G-d’s love and closeness, that is a
sure sign the Exodus has been forgotten.
This leaves us, however, with the problem of suffering, an issue that we have
been grappling with for millennia, as the
biblical Book of Job testifies. The Jewish
answer to the conundrum of suffering is
laid out on the Seder table.
On this festival of rejoicing in our redemption, symbols of suffering abound:
the bitter herbs, the salt water reminiscent of tears, the charoset resembling
12 JEWISH LIFE
ISSUE 82
the mortar of our back-breaking labour.
Yet the symbols of redemption and the
symbols of suffering are inextricably
woven together. The charoset, representing mortar and enslavement, is
sweet. The karpas, representing new life,
is dipped in the salt water. The bitter
herbs are coated in sweet charoset before eating.
This is the lesson of the Hagaddah’s re-
condite account of the five Sages partaking of a Seder in B’nei Brak. Rabbi Elazar
says he never understood why the Seder
had to take place at night until another
Sage explained to him that only the totality of day and night, joy and suffering can
produce the redemption.
The Exodus was our national introduction to G-d – who He is and how He acts,
always with supreme love and caring for
our ultimate welfare. In the most visceral
way, those who partake of the Seder taste
the truth that suffering is an inextricable
part of the process of redemption – nationally and individually. JL
Printed with permission from aish.com, the
leading Judaism website
Sara Yoheved Rigler is the author of God Winked: Tales and Lessons from my
Spiritual Adventures, as well as the bestsellers: Holy Woman, Lights from Jerusalem,
and Battle Plans: How to Fight the Yetzer Hara (with Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller).
She is a popular international lecturer on subjects of Jewish spirituality. She has given
lectures and workshops in Israel, England, Switzerland, South Africa, Mexico, Chile,
Canada, and over thirty American cities. A graduate of Brandeis University, after
fifteen years of practising and teaching meditation and Eastern philosophy, she
discovered “the world’s most hidden religion: Torah Judaism”. Since 1985, she has been
living as a Torah-observant Jew in the Old City of Jerusalem with her husband and
two children. She presents a highly-acclaimed marriage workshop for women [www.
kesherwife.com] as well as a gratitude workshop.