ה י ו נ ב ה ם י ל ש ו ר י ב ה א ב ה ה נ ש
ל L’ shanah Haba’ ah B’ Yerushalayim
Next Year in Jerusalem
Passover: Who Do We Remember?
Max Hollander
Passover is a holiday of memory. More than that, it’ s a case study in how memory can be used to cultivate identity and promote justice. We are commanded to“ remember the Exodus all the days of your life,” to maintain constant awareness of God’ s relationship with the Jewish people and to inspire us to care for the vulnerable— the strangers among us— because we know what it’ s like to be strangers in a strange land. 39
However, while the story of our experience in Egypt is a driving force behind our caring for the vulnerable, I believe a more powerful expression of this message is found in its precursor. Exodus is a story about God remembering the plight of an oppressed immigrant population in a foreign land, but Joseph’ s is a story of being forgotten in a strange land, and it was that forgetting that led to the enslavement of the Israelites.
Joseph is one of the most unfortunate characters in Tanach. The favorite of his father but hated by his brothers, Joseph is stripped of his familiar surroundings and taken to Egypt, abandoned by his family. There, he suffers from oppression and
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Exodus 23:9
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