Let me begin with a personal suggestion—at this year’s Seder, don’t talk about Israel. No one around the table knows anymore than you do, and we likely don’t know more than they do. If you spend the evening focusing on Israel, war or politics, the Seder will end with no one having learned anything or having had any a memorable experience, which is the opposite of what the Seder should be.
Instead, learn about Egypt. I’m serious.
A new Haggadah has just been published, and in it, Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman, a professor of Bible at Bar Ilan University and an expert on ancient Egyptian culture, shows the myriad ways in which the Judaism that we know today has preserved elements of Egyptian culture that we had thought we’d left entirely behind. Berman’s Haggadah (see some examples, with text enlarged below) affords us a chance to have an entirely different Seder experience. His new volume enables us to explore how ancient Egyptian life still lives in elements of Judaism, and to then discuss what it means to migrate from one place to another, whether we ever really leave a place behind, and how this sort of cultural borrowing continues in our own age.
Echoes of Egypt is a gorgeous and fascinating new volume, and today, we’re delighted to share our conversation with the scholar behind the project. It is already out (on Amazon here), and there’s still plenty of time to get copies long before your Seder.
RABBI DR. JOSHUA BERMAN is a professor of Tanakh at Bar-Ilan University. A graduate of Princeton University and of Yeshivat Har Etzion, Rabbi Berman is the author of several books including Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth and the Thirteen Principles of Faith (Maggid, 2020), Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford, 2008), which was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Scholarship, and The Temple: Its Symbolism and Meaning Then and Now (Jason Aronson, 1995). His articles on biblical theology and contemporary society have appeared in the pages of Mosaic magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Rabbi Dr. Berman served as a member of the International Advisory Board for the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC.
Professor Berman has also launched a podcast, The Bible Bar, which you can follow here.
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