Israelites making bricks in Egypt. Illustration by William Hole (1925) Old Testament History retold and illustrated. London Eyere & Spottiswoode.
T he series of talks I'd given where the question of non-Jews at the seder came up was held at a Reconstructionist congregation. The movement (which now calls itself Reconstructing Judaism) is rooted in the theology of Mordecai Kaplan, an American rabbi born into an Orthodox family with some renegade tendencies. His thought was very much about the tension between nationalism and universalism. Shira Stutman, who was the senior rabbi of
them. We have this origin story that gives us our unique character. It is no better or worse than any other nation's origin story, and by extension the ethics we derived from our origin do not make us better. It is what we do with those ethics that shapes us. If it is victimhood that was transformed into this sense of responsib- ility that we celebrate at the seder, then what we do with that responsibility is we should dwell on.
to how we were treated in Egypt. We rest weekly because we were forbidden to do so as slaves; we treat others fairly because we were not. The seder by its nature celebrate our particularism, our difference. This argument for Judaism’s particularism does not mean we are creating a hierarchy of nations. We are not inherently better than anyone else, and if we invite non-Jews to our seders it isn't so they can hear us talk about how much better we are than
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