“…And so that you may relate in the ears of your son and your son’s son… that you know that I am
It seems that Maxwell House may have made an unwitting contribution to the perpetuation of Judaism.
How many Maxwell House Haggadot have graced the Seder tables of families for whom the Seder is all that is left of their Judaism?
The Talmud (Bava Metzia 85a) teaches that “Anyone who is a talmid chacham, and both his son and his son’s son are talmidei chachamim, the Torah will never depart from his progeny.” The medieval commentaries of the Tosefot explain that this promise refers only where they all see each other and are able to speak and converse together. The Chida and the Nachal Kadmonim say that this is the meaning of the above verse in this week’s Torah portion: When is it that you will know that “I am
And even amongst Jews who are far from being talmidei chachamim, that chain of generations is often a last holdout against total Jewish oblivion.
At a typical Pesach Seder there could be at least three generations at the table: a grandfather, a father, and a son. Let's say that the average gap between the generations is 30 years. So a typical Seder represents a span of 60 years of Jewish history: 30 years between the grandfather and the father, and a further 30 years between the father and the son. However, the grandfather sitting at our table was a grandson at his grandfather's Seder. And similarly, our grandson will be a grandfather at his grandson's Seder. So really, there aren’t three generations represented at the table, but seven.
So our Seder could span as much as 7 x 30 = 210 years.
If you divide 210 years into the time elapsed since the first Seder (approx. 3,300 years ago), you come out with an amazing number:
3,300 ÷ 210 = 15.714285
In other words, we just shrank the vast expanse of 3,300 years of history into just 16 Sedarim. That's all that separates us from the experience of leaving Egypt — 16 Sedarim.
"And you shall tell your son on that day... (13:18)"
The whole of Judaism is founded on 16 fathers passing on the experience of the Exodus to 16 sons, witnessed by those 7 generations that each Seder spans.
Tradition is 16 Sedarim long.