Pesach 5781 | March 2021
Aliza Libman Baronofsky
Maharat Advanced Kollel, Class of 2022
The Mishna in Pesachim (10:4) tells us:
מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ:
He begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace and concludes with their glory. And he expounds from the passage: “An Aramean tried to destroy my father” (Deuteronomy 26:5), the declaration one recites when presenting his first fruits at the Temple, until he concludes explaining the entire section.
This mishna introduces a narrative arc that is required for the Seder: we must begin with something negative before concluding with something positive. In media as varied as novels, plays and scripted TV, it is generally understood that no conclusion can be as satisfying as when it is preceded by adversity. Which adversity we must discuss is subject to rabbinic dispute, with the rabbis grappling over whether it is spiritual disgrace (our forefathers were idolaters) or physical (we were enslaved).
The narrative genius of the Haggadah is that it marries both approaches. It reads “Arami Oved Avi” as both physical and spiritual subjugation:
צֵא ּולְמַד מַה בִּקֵּׁש לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי לַעֲׂשֹות לְי ַעֲקֹב אָבִינּו: שֶׁ פַּרְעֹה לֹא גָזַר אֶלָּא עַל הַזְּכָרִים, ו ְלָבָן בִּקֵּׁש לַעֲקֹר אֶת־הַכֹּל. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וירֶד מִצְרַי ְמָה ויגָר שָׁ ם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, ויהִי שָׁם לְגֹוי גָּדֹול, עָצּום ורָב.
Go out and learn what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to Yaakov, our father; since Pharaoh only decreed [the death sentence] on the males but Lavan sought to uproot the whole [people]. As it is stated (Deuteronomy 26:5), “An Aramean was destroying my father and he went down to Egypt, and he resided there with a small number and he became there a nation, great, powerful and numerous.”
This translation of ארמי אובד אבי is familiar to us from its annual repetition—The idea that “An Aramean [Lavan] was destroying my father” is followed by the idea that Lavan tried to erase the Jewish future through assimilation, which is followed by the Jews going down to Egypt.
But this translation is particularly troublesome for those who prefer to read the Bible according to its simplest interpretation, particularly the medieval commentators Ibn Ezra and Rashbam. The words ארמי אובד אבי are in fact terribly difficult to parse: First, if the Aramean is the subject of the sentence, why does it say “He went down to Egypt” when it was not Lavan (the Aramean) but rather Yaakov who went down? Second, אובד is incorrectly conjugated to say “was destroying”; Ibn Ezra insists it ought to be “מאבד”.
The translation that won out did so for a reason – because the Jews who told the story of the seder had substantial experience with external threats. They could easily understand the nefarious Lavan and the spiritual dangers he posed, as well as the peril in being subject to foreign rulers’ whims. Reading the text this way made the story engaging and even more satisfying. An external enemy can be defeated.
Many translations of Deuteronomy adopt the opinion of Rashbam by translating the phrase as “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The key features here include making “my father” the Aramean and thus the subject of the sentence as well as making “oved” an adjective rather than a verb. Rashbam believes that the Aramean was Avraham, who was indeed wandering, with proof that the word “oved” is used that way elsewhere in Tanakh.
In contrast, Ibn Ezra attempts to address the same issues by telling us that the verse should be translated as “My father [Yaakov] was a poor Aramean”, using a verse from Mishlei to show that “oved” can mean poor and that having lived in Aram, Yaakov can plausibly be called Aramean.
The Torah scholar Nehama Leibowitz, z”l, did much to popularize the commentaries of Rashbam and Ibn Ezra in her writings on Parshat Ki Tavo. She notes the importance of interpreting the verse in its Biblical context, as it comes to us from a speech given by a pilgrim bringing first fruits to the Temple. Calling their commentaries “more plausible,” she writes: “The story thus begins with wandering and ends with its converse: permanent settlement.”
In our era, we can see the appeal of this interpretation. Many of us know struggles that don’t come with an antagonist to vanquish. Aren’t we all poorer for a year without social interaction, travel, time with family? Many of us thought last year was our Passover of "גנות" - adversity, which we hoped would be followed by the praise of this year’s return to normalcy and glory.
The adversity that our forefathers and our foremothers faced is printed in the Torah in part to give us strength as we face our own struggles. This Passover, we are not all in the same place, physically or spiritually. We have not yet reached our ‘permanent settlement.’ Some of us feel truly lost and wandering without our old habits and routines. We feel impoverished when we see others getting scarce vaccine appointments as we wait our turn. Let us think of our personal journeys as we read the Arami Oved Avi, thinking of the challenges we face and trusting that God will deliver us, too, from the bondage of this global pandemic.
