What do we want to leave our kids?

What shapes our family's memory more than anything are the messages we choose to impart upon them. A stark example of this can be found in the differences between the historic, one-time paschal offering in Egypt, one of dramatic intent aimed to pique the ire of Egyptian lords and galvanize the Jewish masses, and the more mundane yearly offering brought by each and every head of household. 

The larger question here is how do we create historic intent or lasting value for perpetuity when our children, granchildren, and even great-grandchildren don't feel the same resonances, or meaning that we do? This phenomenon is well-known, perhaps most pronounced among Holocaust survivors, immigrants, and others who experience life-changing events that they want to be part of the family narrative, something not forgotten. The same would certainly be true about something that's part of the collective consciousness, or historical identity, which is why one's stance on the foundation of the State of Israel is something so fractious, that divides large swathes of the Israeli public. 

When it comes to Korban Pesach, the paschal lamb, which was certainly part of the consensus, the question was thus how to distil the meaning of such a historic event and enable the ancestors of those who offered it to still connect with it, both in thought and practice. Given the pivotal nature of the Exodus - women's only obligation vis a vis kriat shema circumscribes recording and recalling the Exodus - it is something, Rabbi Baruch Rubanowitz, taught me, must be understood in its historical light, i.e. experiencing and feeling the divine providence, which is why, any attempt to memorialize those historical events needed to encapsulate the very feeling, and emotion of the offering of the paschal lamb. 

And so, how do we do that? 

For one, the paschal lamb in Egypt was set aside on what we now call, "Shabbat Ha'Gadol," the 10th of Nissan. It was tied to the bedpost, in a very demonstrative way, set aside perhaps to not only shock the Egyptians out of complacency, but also the Jews who were soon to be free. The equivalent could be said to be what we call minui, every participant in the festive eating in the Beit Hamikdash had to be assigned, by the household head, the lamb thus being designated prior with conscious intent. 

At the time of the offering in Egypt, no one was allowed to leave the home; the Jews were eating their offering while the Egyptians were being smitten, perhaps reminiscent of Lot's wife, who sought to see the carnage that had befallen her people. Similarly in the paschal offering for generations to come, one had to eat it in one confined placed, and could not go from one group to the next. Also, any mechitza or separation between those eating it was forbidden, something Rabbi Feinstein uses fascinatingly as a proof text for the permissibility of mixed seating at events, weddings and the like. 

Lastly, the korban in Egypt had to be eaten both quickly and yet with delicate care, conjoining the elements of freedom and bondage (Sefer Ha'chinuch). Whereas it had to be eaten with haste, no bone could be broken; I vividly remember my grandmother Z"L, who lived in Israel at the time of harsh rationing during the Independence, always breaking chicken bones to suck on the marrow; my grandfather, Moshe Barth, may he live and be well, recalls feeling most denigrated during the Holocaust when miraculously and accidentally he found a bone in his soup. He crept to a corner, kneeled over and gnawed on that bone, gnawing it - in his own words, "like a dog." A free man - not a slave - doesn't resort to breaking bones for want of nutrition. 

These are only three examples, but they offer some paradigm as to how we can share messages of historical value to our own children, preserving the intent, and meaning, bridging generations so they are founded on true Jewish values.