Dear Community,

Our tradition has a unique take on the notion of the past. When Eliezer Ben Yehuda – known for reviving the Hebrew language – penned the first Hebrew dictionary, he found no Hebrew word for “history”. As such, those that modernised the language adapted the English word and settled on “historia”. How is it that one of the longest continuing languages has no word to characterise history?

The answer to this question seems to be found in the interpretation of the distant objective notion of history through the personal and subjective notion of memory. In Judaism, we do not dispassionately study the history of previous generations. Instead we are taught to remember what happened to us.

Indeed our commandments abound with the term “zachor”, or remember.

The first of the Ten Commandments begins in this manner – reminding us that God led us out of Egypt. We are repeatedly reminded to remember when “we were slaves” and to use this as a guide for our moral compasses. We chide the “wicked child” for taking themself out of the equation by asking what all this means to “you”. Instead we are encouraged to time travel between the generations and to remember what happened to us.

This is never more prominent than at this very special time of year at King David. Seder season is well and truly upon us. From pre-Kinder throughout the School, each cohort found a way to participate in our redemption story.

In welcoming parents, grandparents and special friends to the Sedarim I emphasise that one of the main goals of our Jewish life and learning program is to enable our students to develop a sense of pride and confidence in their emerging Jewish identities and to feel a sense of joy in participating in our tradition, culture and heritage.

I point out that while our smallest students are almost unbearably cute when participating in the Sedarim, the Sedarim are serious business. The School stops for these events and our families make time in their busy schedules to participate because the transmission of our story from generation to generation is of sacred importance.

The way that we transmit this story is deeply experiential. Our students dress in character, act out the story and are empowered to take responsibility to participate in the rituals. They sing songs, play the key roles in short skits and laugh along as our Jewish Experiential Educators bring humour and fun to the proceedings.

As our students grow older they are enabled to also consider the meaning and significance of Pesach’s messages and to philosophise about what freedom means in a contemporary world. I was privileged to join our Year 12s in a game of Pesach Monopoly in which they enacted parts of the story, considered its place in their own family setting and also participated in eye-opening conversations about modern slavery, our enslavement to technology, and what freedom actually means to them.

I know that for many of our students these model Sedarim and other Jewish life experiences are among the highlights of the year and I am so pleased that we are able to prompt the next generation’s memories about what happened to us in Egypt.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Marc Light