Revisiting the Legacy of Passover History to Your Seder Table by Abram Epstein (C) 2022 If you’re like me, and you went to Hebrew school obediently ossifying in your mind for all time the standardized version of liberation from slavery in Egypt these reassessments of our Passover symbols may seem doubtful. That happens whenever religion bumps into history. Excavating reality from dramatic enhancement often leads scholars to disavow “spiritually miraculous” elements, sometimes to the detriment of their stature in traditional family gatherings, especially the seder. So please don’t blame me for causing family problems. In recent decades, for example, a contingency of so-called Biblical “Minimalists” has decried the notion there even was a Hebrew escape from Egyptian bondage. Fear not, I shall not lead you on that trek into their wilderness. In fact, what follows will not result in the loss of the spiritual side of Pesach. As I hope you may understand, the better appreciation of our central symbols: Lamb, matzah and bitter herbs shall illuminate the profound drama of the actual Exodus. But let me back up a step, if briefly, to invite those only marginally familiar with the subject, including my gentile fellow scholars to share this inquiry, with a seat at the table to enjoy the discussion. For many of us the story is animated at a family gathering with a number of ceremonially ordered rituals, some including blessings to sanctify the occasion with cups of wine, nourishment with matzah, eating bitter herbs, and a recitation of the Ten Plagues which led the Pharoah to free us. (The word “seder” means “order” and refers to the universalized similarity of the sequence.) The story is itself one of the rituals. It is accomplished with a book called a “Haggadah” (lit: “telling”) and creative formats allow for presentations which may emphasize varying aspects of the theme of liberation and invite comparison to current social realities. Unrepentant, it seems, rabbinic authors of the earliest such Haggadot (plural), have exercised their authority far back to fill in voids in their knowledge of the actual history with what we Jews label “midrash,” seriously concealing the verities of our emergence from the mists of our sojourn in Egypt. ( A“midrash,” is an explanatory, fictitious short story, which ancient sages created to illuminate truths not explicit in the Torah.) For our purpose in these notes, we should consider the seder leader’s problem in recounting the Passover events without knowing what is “midrash” (made up) and what is historically true.