Parshat Ki Tavo
Sep. 13th, 2014 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThe first aliyah includes the declaration one says over bringing the first fruits to the Temple, which is familiar because it is part of the Haggadah ("My father was a wandering Aramean...."). As it was being read this morning, it occurred to me that though Moshe is not included in the traditional Haggadah text, using this telling of the exodus from Devarim, which is all Moshe talking to the people before his death (rather than quotes from, say, Exodus itself) is a hint to his being in the story. On the other hand, it's always seemed odd to me not to have the text from Exodus. This year, it jumped out at me that while the Haggadah is about reenactment (it has, for instance, the only hallel said at night, split up and with additions that aren't used other times, because this is an experiential hallel, one we sing as we are redeemed, in praise and thanks), it is also the story we tell ourselves about the exodus, and the version in Devarim is the first official retelling of the tale, the first time someone is choosing how to tell the story, just as we do when we decide what to keep in our own stories. So this becomes not only the thing itself, but how to retell it, the way to reenforce the right memory/version.
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eta, 9/14/14, 0635 I woke up thinking about this again. One of the traditional reasons given for Moshe not being in the key retelling of the exodus is to highlight that God did this for the Jewish people ("I and not an angel. I and not a seraph..."), which the story in Exodus would be hard-pressed to do. Another aspect to that deliberate omission, however, is that the story of nation-building does not rely on one charismatic human. Too often in human organizations, there is a founder with vision, but who then is unwilling or unable to pass leadership to someone else, so the organization founders. So the avoidance here sidesteps that possibility, focusing on the actors who are still here, God and the Jewish people.
[And a total tangent: it keeps amusing me that Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, are pretty much forgotten.... except in some Jewish texts, some of which are read on a regular basis. (Or perhaps not a total tangent, dealing with communal memory, after all.)]
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eta, 9/14/14, 0635 I woke up thinking about this again. One of the traditional reasons given for Moshe not being in the key retelling of the exodus is to highlight that God did this for the Jewish people ("I and not an angel. I and not a seraph..."), which the story in Exodus would be hard-pressed to do. Another aspect to that deliberate omission, however, is that the story of nation-building does not rely on one charismatic human. Too often in human organizations, there is a founder with vision, but who then is unwilling or unable to pass leadership to someone else, so the organization founders. So the avoidance here sidesteps that possibility, focusing on the actors who are still here, God and the Jewish people.
[And a total tangent: it keeps amusing me that Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, are pretty much forgotten.... except in some Jewish texts, some of which are read on a regular basis. (Or perhaps not a total tangent, dealing with communal memory, after all.)]