Who needs a seder? We do!

In a little over seven weeks from now, on the evening of April 1, 2026, Jews around the world will sit down to the first seder.

No fooling. Purim is still a month away, and yet the Passover seder is already on our plates, so to speak. This is especially so for those hosting sedarim. Guest lists are being prepared, finalized, and acted on (some guests may already have been invited), menu planning has begun, and shopping lists are taking shape.

All that is as it should be because the seder is not just another holiday meal. Actually, it is not a meal, at all. A meal is part of a seder’s 14 steps, that is true, but only because of a practical consideration. The seder is the vehicle through which we fulfill the commandment to retell — and in some ways relive — the Exodus from Egypt. As Moses put it on that night of all nights somewhere around 3,200 years ago, “Remember this day on which you went out from Egypt, from the house of bondage, how God freed you from it with a mighty hand.” (See Exodus 13:3.) We are to dwell on that topic for hours, and at some point people will need to eat.

That sounds a bit inane. How could people possibly forget what had to have been the most momentous event in their lives? As events were to prove, however, the Israelites Moses was talking to had very short memories. Just seven days after stepping beyond Egypt’s gates they were already demanding to return to Egypt. Pharaoh’s chariots had begun to pursue them, and everything that had occurred over the last year to bring about their freedom seemed to have vanished from their minds.

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“And they said to Moses, ‘What? There weren’t enough graves in Egypt that you had to bring us out here in the wilderness to die…? This is exactly what we told you would happen. We told you to leave us alone and let us continue to serve Egypt. Better it is for us to remain slaves in Egypt than to die in the wilderness.’”

The Israelites sang that same song several times (although there is no record of them ever saying such a thing to Moses while in Egypt). Given their short memories, therefore, Moses’ exhortation was right on point.

I am not certain, though, that Moses himself fully understood why they — and we — had to “remember this day” because of what else he said at that moment. “You go free on this day, in the month of Aviv [the “spring month,” known today as Nisan]. So, when God has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites…, a land flowing with milk and honey…, you shall eat unleavened bread…. Throughout the seven days…, no leaven shall be found in all your territory. And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what God did for me when I went free from Egypt.’” (See Exodus 13:4-8.)

That last sentence, of course, is part of the retelling commandment, and also explains why some of the things we do at the seder are meant to involve our children and encourage them to ask questions (starting with the Four Questions — the Mah Nishtanah).

Moses was very likely being disingenuous in suggesting that we need to remember the Exodus so that we would not forget to remove all leaven from our homes for seven days. Moses knew that there was more to it than that, although he may not have been fully aware of the reason. He probably also understood that he should not tell the Israelites what was really going on out there lest they would refuse to leave Egypt. (As it is, based on a single word in Exodus 13:18 that could be read in two different ways, the Midrash Tanchuma to that verse suggests that only one-fifth of the Israelites left with Moses; the other four-fifths stayed behind.)

The Israelites believed at that moment that God was taking them out of Egypt to bring them to the Land of Canaan, a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and that God did so because of the promises made to our Fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

What they could not have known at that moment is that they were journeying to a different land, a land flowing with rocks and sand and not much else. That was the journey that God intended for them from the beginning. God brought them out of Egypt to bring them to Mount Sinai, not to Canaan, because it is at Sinai that their true journey was to begin.

Sinai was where they would meet their destiny.

Sinai was where they — where we — would become God’s kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Getting a piece of real estate does not make them — does not make us — a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Getting laws and observing them in ways that show the rest of the world that there is a better way to live are what do that, but only if the people whose laws they are control their own land, which would let them implement those laws in the most effective way.

Those laws the Israelites were to receive also need a basis for being, because the world back then knew nothing of morality and ethics. It was a world in which equality and justice existed for a privileged few and where everyone else could be exploited and abused. In taking Israel out of Egypt, God was “hiring” Israel, in a way, to change all that by living lives according to God’s law. They were being the land on which to do that job.

It would take them seven weeks to get to Sinai, but for us it will only take until this Shabbat morning, when the Torah portion, Parashat Yitro, puts us into that scene.

Am I, as some of my letter-writing detractors would say, once again twisting Torah to support my “leftist, liberal, progressive” agenda? The heart of Torah law is God’s code of morality and ethics. And, as God said pointedly in Leviticus 19:36-37: “I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. You shall faithfully observe all My laws and all My rules: I am God.”

That statement alone would be sufficient to support my argument, but God was not content on talking in generalities. In one form or another for at least 20 to 30 times in the Torah, that statement is pointedly attached to individual laws, and to groups of law.

God in the Torah created an ethical framework that demands that we treat every individual — whether neighbor, stranger, or the vulnerable — with the same dignity we afford ourselves. And it demands that we do so in ways that show the world the benefits of living by this code.

Because true righteousness begins with honesty, we may not defraud, mislead, or exploit others. This extends to all manner of our financial dealings. Our speech must be as guarded as our actions; we must reject engaging in or listening to gossip, and we must avoid humiliating anyone in public or in private. And all because God pointedly said, “I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt.”

Justice must be proactive. We cannot “stand idly by,” in the words of Leviticus 19:16, when we learn of an injustice. This requires the creation and protection of a legal system that is blind to status and favoritism, ensuring one law for all while personally granting every individual the benefit of the doubt.

By freeing us, God imposed a broad range of social responsibilities, including providing basic needs — food, clothing, and shelter — to those in need and to the marginalized, and also empowering them to sustain themselves. We must honor the wisdom of the aged and protect the rights of the laborer by ensuring prompt, fair payment. Not ageism, not sexism, not racism have a place in the world we are tasked to repair because “I the Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt.”

Our circle of care must expand to include the “stranger” and the oppressed, offering sanctuary to those fleeing hardship and persecution. This compassion further extends to the natural world; we must protect the environment and treat all living creatures with such sensitivity that we tend to their hunger and feelings before our own.

Guided by the memory of our own liberation, we are tasked with committing ourselves to a life of proactive righteousness: to act with uncompromising honesty, to champion justice for the marginalized, and to extend a hand of radical empathy to every soul — human and animal alike — ensuring that no one stands alone and no life is treated as disposable.

That is why we were freed, that is the only reason why we exist as a people, that is why we stood before Sinai — and why we have a seder every year to remind us of that. It is to retell the story of the Exodus year after year the way it needs to be told, and why we must get our children involved.

There are just over seven weeks left. The preparations for the seder meal are underway. The heart of the seder, however, demands that we prepare for that, as well.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.