The Passover story in six words or less

"Last in creation, first in thought."
--Friday night prayer service

The crown of the Friday night prayer services is "Lekha Dodi," the welcoming song of the Sabbath that was written by the 16th-century scholar, Rabbi Solomon Halevy Alkabetz. The song acts out the role of bridegroom - the Jewish people - calling for their beloved friend, God, to welcome the bride, which is the Sabbath. Rabbi Alkabetz had a Talmudic basis for this song. In Tractate Shabbat of the Talmud [119a] we read that Rabbi Yannai put on festive clothes on the eve of Shabbat and said, "Come bride. Come bride."

The second stanza contains an unusual close that refers to Shabbat as the pinnacle of creation that was created first in thought. In other words, God created the world with rest designed from the very beginning of creation: last in creation, first in thought. A contemporary commentary on this prayer offers its explanation:

This sentence is based on the midrashic illustration of the architect who prepares the plans for the entire structure before beginning the construction. Analogously, the Sabbath is the end-purpose of God's creation, for which everything else was made.

While a novel or a painting may emerge slowly or only as a result of meandering, the universe was created much the way that an architect plans a structure, building the model in its entirety before beginning. In this example, it is as if the world's very purpose is the experience of Shabbat.

This expression, however, is used in other situations to communicate a well-planned out approach, a deliberative design. In fact, it seems to be the very definition of success. Many of us think of success as the achievement of wealth, power or fame, and the dictionary certainly includes that definition. There is another meaning to success, however, which is more down-to-earth but perhaps equally hard to achieve: "the achievement of something planned or attempted." The ability to generate an idea and follow-through with it is the most basic definition of success.

In less than two weeks, we will celebrate Passover. Like Shabbat, the exodus was predicted long before it happened. It was, if you will, built into the DNA of Jewish history. In Genesis 15 we read: "Know that your seed will be a stranger in a land not their own, and they shall serve them. And they shall afflict them for 400 years, and also that nation, whom they shall serve I will judge. Afterwards they will leave with great substance."

The experience of oppression and redemption was part of the experience of nation-building we may wish we never had but was essential to who we became over time. Success, in this sense, is not what we always want to happen but the achievement of something planned. We were meant to go through this crucible of history to emerge as a different people.

The architecture of time helped make us into the people we are. How we tell the story of that architecture is about the people we become. Our responsibility at the Seder is to be master storytellers. To help you tell a better story, we've created our own architecture: the Partnership Invitational at pjll.org. Tell the story of Passover in six words, and read the six word stories of others. The contest ends at noon on March 24.

Use your Seder table to construct six-word stories of Passover. The fewer the words, the richer each word is.

Shabbat Shalom

By Erica Brown | March 18, 2010; 9:26 AM ET Save & Share:
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