Maggid: We Are Commanded To Tell The Passover Story

The internationally acclaimed storyteller Laura Simms once said that she "tells stories in order to destroy story." I've always understood that to mean that storytelling wakes us up to the fact that we are always telling ourselves a story, living out of stories that we have in our heads — often stories that don't actually have any connection to reality in the moment. Personal stories, family stories, tribal or national stories: we are characters in all of them.

This is a kind of madness, but it a madness all humans live by. If we are attentive when we hear a story well told in a culturally relevant ritual setting, the story helps destroy the illusion of reality we place on the story we live. It wakes us up to other possibilities and other actions we might take. It opens us up to the hearts of others, and their motivations. In this way, ritual storytelling is a kind of Buddhist meditation. Certainly it is the way Laura practices and teaches storytelling, and I am always profoundly grateful to learn from her.

So it's about to be Passover. The time when Jews are commanded to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. The story of our enslavement — and our freedom. There are many things I love about this storytelling ritual, not the least that it is a living ritual that has continued for more than 2000 years in this form. But there are also things that trouble me. One passage in the Haggadah I always flinch at when we read it is the phrase:

"For not only one enemy has risen against us, in every generation men rise against us to destroy us."

While history is certainly filled with examples that could support this statement, I find myself wondering about the victim mentality it leads to. I wonder whether reading this leads us to recreate this story by telling it generation to generation. Is this a story we want to live?

And it leads me to a question about slavery — are we enslaved by the story? Can this ritual help free us from the very story we are telling, so that we both honor it, and learn how to act in the world in fresh ways, free of the narrow vision it gives us? Don't get me wrong — I am not about throwing the story out. I'm only suggesting the most traditional thing one can do at a seder — talk about the story as it is told, but this time, talk about it as story and the ways in which it creates our way of seeing reality. At least that's one thing this Jewish Buddhist is planning to talk about at his first night seder this Monday.

And of course, in memory of Yvonne DeCarlo, who died not so long ago, and played Nefertiri in DeMille's 50's remake of his original The Ten Commandments, at the appropriate moment, we will all sing out in unison:

Oh Moses, Moses, you stubborn,
splendid, adorable fool!

Comments

[Zigmo Parcheesi]

I think this falls under the "you must know history so as not to repeat it" category. That's just my personal opinion, though.
On a lighter note, it's amazing what simple editing can do to a story. Since you brought up The Ten Commandments, I now present you with Ten Things I Hate About Commandments for your viewing pleasure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kqqMXWEFs
Oh, that Moses is so dreamy ...