From Disgrace to Praise - Finding the Stranger in the Hagaddah

2. What is so subtle about recounting the humble origins and successful achievements of our people that the father is instructed the calibrate his explanation to the intellect of his child?

Following the direction of the Mishna, the Haggadah quotes the text of the ancient First Fruits (Bikurim) Declaration but ends prematurely with verse 8 "and wonders".

5. Why does the Mishnah uses the unrelated "First Fruits" declaration in Deuteronomy associated more with Shavuot than the numerous references to the Exodus in the Book of Exodus itself?

With regard to the choice of the "First Fruits" declaration, the consensus is that the Rabbis of the Mishnah wanted to find a text and integrated commentary that was well known to the Jewish masses.

In his seminal work The First Mishna, Rav David Zvi Hoffman actually uses our Mishna and the Haggadah as a prime example of Midrash Halacha and the earliest use of reading the written law and adding ongoing explanatory midrash (oral interpretations). (see The First Mishna and the Controversies of the Tannaim translated from the German by Paul Forcheimer, PhD. Mauosho Publication of Cong. Kehillath Yaakove, Inc, NY 1977 pp 8 -12)

It would seem that since the First Fruits Declaration was well known by the masses in its original Hebrew as the only Biblical/Temple era declaration, (with another possible addition; the declaration of the suspected adulteress also referred to as a "section" פָּרָשַׁת סוֹטָה) that they might have also know the running Midrash of the oral law. Accordingly, it was a natural choice to be included in the Rabbinic Seder over lesser know verses in Exodus that were dispersed throughout the book and whose running Midrashic commentary would not have been as well known. The fact that at the beginning of the Biblical declaration in verse 26:3 it uses the word Higadata Hayom הִגַּ֤דְתִּי הַיּוֹם֙ made the choice of these verses all the more natural.

This still does not explain why the "whole section" was not included in the Haggadah.

6. Why does the Haggadah mistranslate verse 5? As the classical commentaries point out, the Hagadah (intentionally) mis-translates "“My father was a fugitive Aramean." אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י where אֹבֵ֣ד means "lost" and the Aramean is Jacob (or Abraham) to "An Aramean was destroying my father" where אֹבֵ֣ד means destroy and the Aramean (out of nowhere) was Laban.... and thereby changes the disgrace of humble beginnings of being a stateless (of the biblical translation) to the shame of a victim (whose life was in danger) of the traditional Haggadah.

Joseph Tabory writes: "It is possible that the two issues, the use of the penultimate verse [Deuteronomy 26 verse 9 "He brought us to this place and gave us this land"] and the understanding of the first verse, are related. While the Temple existed, people who included the penultimate verse of this portion in their haggadah understood the whole passage as truly representing their radical change in status. The people had started out as fugitives or wandering nomads, and now they stood in their permanent home, the land given to them by God. This interpretation fits in well with the Mishnah’s description of the text as “beginning with disgrace and ending with praise.” After the destruction of the Temple, the penultimate verse, no longer relevant, was omitted. It is possible that this verse was never part of the haggadah outside of Jerusalem. Without this verse, the portion closed with the salvation from Egyptian oppression. There was no longer any parallelism between the lowly beginning as nomads and their present status as people saved from persecution. Perhaps this was the reason that the first verse was reinterpreted to deal with oppression rather than with landlessness.” In this way, the rhetorical pattern was retained: we began as persecuted by Laban and now we have been saved from persecution and slavery.

The presumed original interpretation of this bikkurim [First Fruit] passage, that the ancestors were wandering nomads who have finally, through the grace of God, reached their homeland, fits well with this pattern. The interpretation preserved in the traditional haggadah, that the ancestors were persecuted by Laban and finally rescued by God from the hands of Pharaoh, does not fit the rhetoric pattern as well as the other.

See: JPS Commentary on the Haggadah - Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Joseph Tabory, The Jewish Publication Society 2008 pp 32 - 37

The above explains why the First Fruits Dedication from Deuteronomy 26 was used in the original Palestinian Haggadah and why it was shortened when the Jews went into Exile. It has even been suggested that following the disaster of the Bar Kochba revolt the Rabbis wished to nurture political passivity and minimize any activist tendencies to return to Zion (see here). The traditional Haggadah became more and more another name for the Haggadah of the Golut (Exile). It also explains why Laban was introduced to the Haggadah and why the "disgrace" of being a wandering refugee was changed to being a victim of an attempted murder.

It has been pointed out that with the return to Zion and the establishment of the Modern State of Israel, many Israelis have felt compelled to update the Haggadah and make it once again, not a Haggadah of the Exile, but a Haggadah of the Land of Israel. [See for example Shoshana Michael Zucker, "Go and Learn" https://tinyurl.com/76golearn] Starting with the Haggadot of the Kibbutzim customs such as adding a 5th cup of wine or adding the fifth verse of redemption from Exodus 6: 8 וְהֵבֵאתִ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ I will bring you into the land became the norm. This would correspond to our Deuteronomic verse 26: 9-10 where God is thanked for bringing us into the land וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה and we in turn bring the first fruits וְעַתָּ֗ה הִנֵּ֤ה הֵבֵ֙אתִי֙ אֶת־רֵאשִׁית֙ פְּרִ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֔ה.

And we should all applaud this reclamation of the original intent of the Mishnah.

Including the return to the land of Israel does not explain the "Praise" since the "shame" belongs to the fugitive, the "praise" needs to belong to the settlers (not God).

What none of the commentaries explain is why the last verse, verse 11, the verse that ends with "the stranger in your midst" was also omitted.

I suggest we actually "complete the whole section" until (וְהַגֵּ֖ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר בְּקִרְבֶּֽךָ׃ (ס which is a little more nuanced and therefore might be more in line with our Mishnaic advise to speak according to the intellect of the listener לְפִי דַעְתּוֹ שֶׁל בֵּן.

As long as the Jewish people were in Exile or as long as Jews in Israel still think like Exile Jews, then as a victims and as a refugees, they can no more consider the stranger than he or she can consider living in the land of Israel as a belonger. All verses relating to being brought up to the Land and including the stranger are not appropriate or not yet appropriate. But once we have redeemed the Land and been redeemed by it can we have the audacity to claim our patrimony and have the magnanimity to love and include the stranger. This is the true meaning of the שֶׁבַח praise that the Mishnah requires. It is not praise of God for bringing us into the land. Just as the shame is our shame of being stateless, so too the praise is our praise of making sure that victimhood has no place at our Seder or in our return to the homeland. This is how the Haggadah actually introduces our patrimony

To Esav (and other nations) God gave territory. To those who celebrate the Exodus, the patrimony that God bequeathed was transcended any geographic boundaries... it was the lesson of the decent into the alienation of slavery. In this narrative, liberation is ultimately defined and the liberated is ultimately praised by how we treat the "other".

The praise that we aspire to at the Seder is for a lesson learnt and repeated numerous times in the Torah.