“Arami oveid avi; vayeired Mitzraima vayagar sham, bimtei m’at, va’y’hi sham l’goy- gadol, atzum varav.”
“My father was a wandering Aramean; and he went down to Mitzraiyim and dwelled there, few in number, and he became a nation- great, mighty and numerous.
If that sounds familiar, it should. We read it each year at Pesach, many of us with this exact translation. At JTS, my Midrash professor gave us a gift. He put this piece on our final exam. If you had looked around the room at that moment, you would have seen most of us mouthing the translation from the Haggaddot of our youth.
As such a recognizable piece part of the Pesach, it seems out of place to read this now. How is it that this famous piece of text that we so closely associate with the Pesach story should be read now?!
The parasha begins, “Vhayah, ki tavo el ha’Aretz asher Hashem Ehlohecha notein lcha nachalah, virishtah v’yashavta bah.” “And it shall be, when you come into the Land that Hashem Ehlohecha gave to you as an inheritance, and you will possess it and settle there.” The Israelites are just five parshiyot from the end of the Torah, just five parshiyot from entering the Land promised by God to Avraham and his descendants. They, and we, need to be reminded of why and how we came to be standing on this precipice, on the edge of a world and a lifestyle about to change.
The Israelites are about to be transformed from a wandering people to the possessors of a land that connects three continents, a land that is holy to multiple people and a crossroads from one end of the world to another. Should we fear that we are an unimportant people, merely nomads with no roots, remember this--“arami oveid avi; vayeired Mitzraima vayagar sham, bimtei m’at, va’y’hi sham l’goy- gadol, atzum varav.” “My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean; and he went down to Mitzraiyim and dwelled there, few in number, and he became a nation- great, mighty and numerous.” But even more so, once we are settled in the Land we should not forget our beginnings, and so we are given this formula to recite when we bring our first fruits of our new land- Remember, --“arami oveid avi.” “My father was a wandering Aramean.”
We should never forget our humble beginnings, but neither should we deny the heights we have and still can attain.
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