Tze ulemad, often translated “Go and learn,” is used in the Passover Haggadah to introduce the verses from Deuteronomy 25:5–8 (“My father was a wandering Aramean”) and the lengthy midrashic section that follows. The process this section models is at least as important as the specific content of the texts. It is intended to be illustrative of how we go about reading and studying, how we go about telling and understanding our stories, and how we emerge transformed as a result.

The introductory phrase, unusual in rabbinic literature, is itself a key part of the lesson. The word tze actually means “go out” in the imperative. It comes from the same root used to refer to the Exodus from Egypt itself, yetziat Mitzrayim (Exod. 12:41). Here, joined to ulemad (and learn), the complete phrase invites an extended meditation on the relationship between going out and learning.

On the one hand, the capacity and willingness to go out serves as the precondition for learning.Learning demands a kind of leaving—a letting go of what we believe we already know. It requires the courage to sit with uncertainty, ambiguity, beginner status, or feeling ignorant. It entails leaving the comfort zone of familiarity and expertise, the ego gratification of being right. More concretely, we learn when we go outside of ourselves and our current surroundings and relationships, going out into the world to meet new people, see new terrain, and have new experiences.

On the other hand, it is also true that learning is often the precondition for going out. Learning spurs our imagination, inspiring us to envision new ways of doing and being, even alternative societal structures. Learning about others’ experiences can take us out of ourselves, growing our empathy and spurring us to action. Learning new ideas, philosophies, and spiritual and religious teachings can clarify or shift our values and ethics, leading us out of old patterns and into new practices and new priorities. Our ability to change our present circumstances—or leave them altogether—often follows upon having learned that there are alternative ways of being. Learning opens up possibility and hope, and can nurture the very courage that going out demands. This is why enslavers generally forbid enslaved people from educating themselves.

Of course, it is not an “either/or” but a “both/and.” Tze ulemad—“Go out, then learn” and “Learn so you can go out”—describes an iterative process. Going out enables learning, which enables going out, which makes further learning possible. And on and on. Or perhaps they are simultaneous, parallel, interdependent processes. Going out is learning, and learning is a form of going out.

We see this in the Exodus narrative itself. One way to read the story is that change begins when Moses goes out from Pharoah’s palace and sees his brothers (Exod. 2:11). This leads to revelation/learning at the Burning Bush. That learning begins the process of Moses leading the entire people out of slavery, which in turn makes possible a new level of revelation/learning at Mount Sinai. The result is the endless cycle of going out and learning that is Jewish culture, practice, and history—Torah study and secular education that (ideally) lead us step-by-step out of degradation, injustice, hatred, and violence toward ever greater dignity, justice, lovingkindness, and peace.

The contrast in the Exodus narrative is Pharaoh—the one character who will not or cannot learn or go out. “I do not know YHVH,” Pharoah famously declares; then, despite plague after plague destroying his society, he refuses to learn. This inability or unwillingness to learn becomes manifest in his hardened heart; he stays stuck, immobilized, heavy (kaved)—unable to go out from his current path and choose a new way. When he finally wants to go out—chasing after the Israelites—he becomes stuck, immobilized, and heavy (bikevedut) again, this time in the mud and mire of the Sea of Reeds (Exod. 14:25, Exod. 15:4, and Rashi).

Writ large, the Exodus narrative (and its retelling at the Passover seder) is a story of an existing world order crumbling and a new, more just society emerging, built by those who tze ulemad (go out and learn, who learn, and can therefore go out). Strikingly, just before actually going out (yatzo) from Egypt, the Israelites are commanded to instruct future generations about the Passover story, thereby becoming teachers, as well as learners (Exod. 12:26-27). Tze ulemad . Freedom and learning are intertwined. Go out so you can learn. Leaving is the hallmark of those who have been freed—who are no longer stuck or enslaved by external or internal forces—and don’t wait to be freed in order to learn. Rather, they go out through learning. Learning is the pathway to freedom. The study, discussion, storytelling, and interpretation at our seder tables is more than a celebration and reminder of our journey to freedom, it is an actualization of the journey itself. By the end of the evening, having learned something, we are a little freer than we were when we first sat down at the table.

In thinking about Passover, Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz began with the Haggadah. For her, the seder is a living textual exercise—one that demonstrates how Jewish tradition holds continuity and change in tension. The obligation to tell the story remains constant; how that story is told must always respond to the moment. What follows is adapted from this conversation.

WHAT DOES THE HAGGADAH REPRESENT TO YOU?

To me, the ongoing exchange between teaching and learning lies at the heart of the Haggadah. And the Haggadah takes this one step further. It invites us not only to study and recite it, but to bring the experience to life. While there are essential elements that must be included, there is also enormous space for interpretation, creativity, and adaptation.

This dynamic makes the Haggadah the quintessential educational document of the Jewish people.

Passover’s central imperative is to ask questions and tell the story. In addition to reciting fixed questions, participants in every era will ask—and should be encouraged to ask—unanticipated questions. Similarly, how the Passover story is told is up to us. While drawing on the traditional themes, we strive to convey them in a language our audience can hear. In this way, each seder will uniquely reflect the people gathered around the table.

WHAT DOES THAT KIND OF FLEXIBILITY TELL US ABOUT HOW JUDAISM UNDERSTANDS TRADITION?

It is incumbent upon us to continually reframe, re-energize, and evolve so that the message of the Exodus—of liberation and possibility—can speak to every generation. In this way, the Haggadah conveys the essence of Conservative Judaism, retaining the traditional framework with its required elements and timeworn melodies, foods, and rituals, while encouraging us to add our own stamp to it.

Each year, we are asked to confront the question: what does experiencing liberation require of us now? The answer is never fixed. It shifts from generation to generation, year to year, and changes depending upon who is gathered around the seder table and what each person is feeling at that time.

The seder was never meant to be static. I think those reading every word with no additions and doing the same thing every year misunderstand the seder’s purpose. The Haggadah and the seder itself were designed to be fluid, inviting continual renewal, interpretation, and growth.

CAN YOU GIVE AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THE SEDER ITSELF HAS EVOLVED IN RESPONSE TO CHANGING PERSPECTIVES?

The Four Sons (what we now refer to as the “Four Children”) is a wonderful example. Think about the  rasha, the so-called wicked child. Our understanding of that child has changed dramatically.

Instead of seeing the child as bad, we ask: What does it mean to be labeled as bad and to feel alienated as a result? What does it mean to feel like you’re doing something wrong without understanding why? This new interpretation shifts the meaning entirely. Anyone who has felt marginalized can see themselves in that child. This adaptation allows them to feel represented in the Haggadah and comfortable being at the table, while offering an opening for conversation around a sense of otherness or judgment should this person want to initiate it.

WHAT ISSUES HAVE RESHAPED SEDARIM AND HAGGADOT IN YOUR LIFETIME?

In one generation, questions of women’s roles led to the inclusion of Miriam’s Cup. Today, many children grow up with Miriam’s Cup on the table and don’t even think to question it.

The same pattern holds for those marginalized because of sexual orientation, whose experiences inspired the orange on the seder plate—another poignant response to a feeling of exclusion.

Other moments shaped the seder as well: The postwar generation added readings to remember the victims of the Holocaust. During the struggle for Soviet Jewry, prayers were added for those Jews living behind the Iron Curtain.

One of my most memorable sedarim took place in 1981, when we hosted an Iranian Jewish couple who had escaped the Ayatollah. In that moment, freedom was not an abstract idea, but a palpable presence in our midst.

Passover resonates because its message of liberation continues to meet the moment.

WHAT MAKES THE SEDER UNIQUELY OPEN TO THIS KIND OF EVOLUTION?

Much of the seder is minhag rather than halakhah. There are a few obligatory rituals and recitations, but beyond those, observing the holiday is deeply personal. Traditions and customs—such as the food you use for karpas, what kind of haroset you eat, and how you orchestrate finding the afikomen—vary depending on where your family comes from; what adult children, newer family members or long-time guests have introduced; and what community you find yourself in. Because of this, no two sedarim are the same. The more we internalize from others, the richer the seder becomes.

Pesah has always been the most observed holiday among American Jews. There’s a reason for that—it draws people in and the barrier to entry is low. The seder represents both a living Judaism and a practical Judaism that anyone can both access and contribute to.

The seder reminds us that no one generation owns the story. We inherit it, shape it, and pass it forward. That has been true around dining room tables for centuries, and it is true of institutions as well.

To publish a Passover reader is to take that obligation seriously. It signals that we all must continue to respond to the questions of this moment, just as Jews have done in generations before us. The story remains. The voices around the table change. The responsibility to elaborate on the narrative endures.

Tze ulemad —Go out and learn!  As is often the case, the brevity of the text—two words and a conjunction—conceals deceptively rich ideas.  In a sense, they encapsulate the theme of the holiday of Pesah, one that involves going out (of Egypt) and learning (about becoming the Jewish people). And tze ulemad, like much in the seder, invites questions: Who is going out? Where are they going? What are they learning?

Tze ulemad implies that learning involves action. It is easy to connect the phrase to approaches to experiential education, learning that involves hands-on participation accompanied by reflection. While one can learn about Israel, for example, from a book, experiencing Israel through time spent there deepens one’s understanding. Similarly, one can learn aboutprayer, Shabbat, and holiday ritual, or one can experience them directly. In this framing, the seder itself is an educational activity, one which symbolically refers to a core experience in the evolution of the Jewish people, one we cannot directly experience—the Exodus from Egypt.

Tze ulemad can also be seen as a shorthand for powerful educational theories that don’t necessarily involve hopping on the next El Al flight. Think about the metaphors for learning that you may be familiar with. Young children are like empty vessels waiting to be filled. She’s so smart, she’s like a sponge soaking up information. These metaphors set the learner in a relatively passive role, as receptacles of whatever content is at hand.

Generally speaking, educators have come to reject such metaphors and instead frame learning as an active process. An alternate metaphor is that of a scientist who brings their current understandings of a phenomenon into the lab, collects data, and modifies or solidifies their initial understandings accordingly. The learner constructs new understandings from old. With the shifting metaphors of learning comes a reframing of the role of the educator from being, as a popular saying goes, “the sage of the stage” (spouting information for students to “soak up”) to “the guide on the side,” curating encounters with new information, perspectives, or information that are likely to prompt learners to adjust their understandings. This could happen through experiences such as a trip to Israel or participating in prayer, but it could also happen in a classroom and even at a dinner table.

As we “go out” to encounter new information and ideas, our frameworks for making sense of phenomena in the world, which psychologists refer to as “schemas,” become more elaborate and complex. As a basic example, a very young child may form a schema for “dog”: relatively small, furry, crawls around. They may develop positive and/or negative emotions related to dogs and establish a behavioral repertoire associated with them (approach and try to engage with; avoid at all costs). With experience, the child learns that dogs can come in various shapes, sizes, and degrees of furriness. They also learn that not everything with four legs and fur is a dog.

From this perspective, all learning is a matter of tze, of going out, or incremental change to our schema. Psychologist Irv Sigel (1921–2006) emphasized that the role of an educator is to, in his terminology, “distance” learners from their existing schemas, to call on them to use new data to shape their understanding. Educators and parents achieve this, according to Sigel, through implementing “distancing strategies” that call upon learners to “go out” of their schema[1].  

Active learning is all well and good, but you might be wondering, what does any of this have to do with Passover?

The structure of the seder itself stretches one’s understanding.We’re familiar with dinner. We may sit down with our family for dinner regularly or at least occasionally. We may even include some prayers and singing. But the seder is radically different from an everyday dinner or even a Shabbat meal. And we’re familiar with Jewish ritual observances and prayer services. These often take place at a synagogue or, at the very least, not at a dinner table. A seder makes its uniqueness known through its very being. It is a dinner like no other and it is a liturgical event like no other. Our attention is drawn to elements of the ritual that represent the unique experience of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, while at the same time referencing the quotidian Jewish experiences of ritual, family, and of course, food.

Relatedly, we take note that Sigel and others point to question-asking as a primary distancing strategy. To Sigel and others, a good question calls upon the learner to analyze their existing schema in light of new observations, inputs, or ideas. In case the distinctive qualities of the seder escape one’s conscious notice, the seder liturgy directs our attention to these through the inclusion of the so-called Four Questions. Why “so-called”? Because structurally speaking, there is only one question (How is this night different from all other nights?) and four answers provided (On all other nights . . . while on this night . . . ). Those answers serve as prompts for further exploration. Sure, we dip twice or lean while we eat, etc. But why? The answers raise questions, and the questions beget deeper understanding. Though framed as answers and not questions, this section functions as a distancing strategy, drawing attention to what makes this night special. The entire setup of the evening is an exercise in unpacking those different elements[2].

Toward the end of the magid section, we note that in every generation, everyone should see themselves as if they came out of Egypt. This passage calls upon us to raise new questions every year: timeless questions, those that are relevant specifically at this moment, and questions that spark further conversation among all the generations at our seder table. In this way, we continue to fulfill the imperative of tze ulemad.

[1] Sigel, I. E., Kress, J. S., & Elias, M. J. (2007). “Beyond Questioning: Inquiry Strategies and Cognitive and Affective Elements of Jewish Education.” Journal of Jewish Education, 73(1), 51–66.

[2] Also see Klein, R. (2023). “The Passover Seder as an Exercise in Piagetian Education Theory.” Religious Education. 118. 1–13.

One year, I invited a few people from an interfaith dialogue group to join my family for our Passover seder. An extended family from Egypt came; some of them lived in the United States and some were visiting from Alexandria.

Before we began the seder, I told my guests that it would be good for us to discuss terminology. I did not want to offend my guests by referring to the villains of the Passover story as “the Egyptians.” Even though I know that the phrase refers to ancient Egyptians, the sound of it and the conflation of time and texts might feel personal and uncomfortable to my guests. I said, “I know you have the story of the Exodus in the Quran. What do you call, for lack of a better word, the ‘bad guys’?”

My guests were quick to respond that they refer to the people who oppressed the Hebrews as “Pharaoh’s people.” They expressed the assumption that not all of the Egyptians were bad and that they, too, were living under tyrannical rule. By renaming or re-referring to the villains as “Pharaoh’s people,” they resisted vilifying and dehumanizing an entire group of people.

My friends’ understanding of the conflict in the Exodus story reminded me of an interpretation about the oppressors in the Exodus story. In the story of Egyptian slavery as told in the Book of Deuteronomy, we read the verse וירעו אותנו המצרים ויענונו ויתנו עלינו עבודה קשה, typically translated as “The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us” (Deut. 26:6, Revised JPS Translation, 2023). 

In his commentary on this verse, the Netziv of Volozhin (Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816–1893) reinterpreted the first of these words—vayareiu. Instead of understanding it as simply meaning “The Egyptians mistreated us,” he apparently understood it grammatically as a �󾱴�’i��, a causative verb meaning “The Egyptians made us into the wicked ones, who lacked gratitude” (HaEmek Davar on Deut. 26:6). They propagandized the Hebrews, vilifying them as an entire people, an essential step in the process of oppressing a minority group. 

A close reading of the text indicates that the biblical narrative also perpetuates a generalization about the Egyptians, suggesting that they all participated in the oppression of the Israelites. However, we know that Pharaoh’s daughter saved Moses as a baby, and there is no reason in the text to assume that all Egyptians participated in the oppression of the Hebrews. A more accurate statement would be that Pharoah and his people, his leadership team, perpetuated vilifying propaganda against the Hebrews. In conflict, all too often, vilifying and generalizing takes place in both directions regardless of power and privilege.

From these two stories—the Egyptians who attended my seder and from the Natziv’s telling of the story of the oppression of the Hebrews—I gained three specific insights about communicating in the presence of conflict. First, I try to avoid using the definite article “the” (such as, “the Egyptians”) so as not to generalize and label entire groups of people. Second, I try to identify and name the specific people or institutions that took specific actions. This clarity calls for a sense of accountability. Finally, I practice hakarat hatov, recognizing the good actions taken by people. I hope that these insights offer a helpful model for disrupting generalization and transforming conflict at our Passover seders and beyond.

This piece was adapted from a speech given at an azkarah (memorial gathering) for Rabbi Eliezer Diamond (z”l). 

This year we lost a beloved teacher, Rabbi Eliezer Diamond (z”l). A longtime member of the JTS Talmud faculty, he taught with equal parts head and heart. For Rabbi Diamond, learning and teaching were devotional enterprises, and he worked to bring the tradition to life and to connect our learning to our lives. Every year around Pesah, Rabbi Diamond set aside class time to teach about the holiday so that when we sat down at the seder table, we were prepared to see ourselves as participants in the story, as people journeying from slavery toward freedom.

Rabbi Diamond pointed out that one of the challenges in casting ourselves in the Passover story is that the Israelites do not play a particularly prominent or active role. In fact, the Torah suggests that the Israelites don’t believe Moses when he tells them that God is coming to free them from slavery. In Exod. 6:9, they are described as mikotzer ruah, which we might translate as “spiritually exhausted.” They are so worn down by Pharaoh’s oppressive regime that they cannot hear Moses’s prophetic message.

I am not a slave in Egypt, thank God, but this year I do identify with the feeling of spiritual exhaustion. I am exhausted by the constant barrage of bad news about global chaos and violence and assaults on our civil liberties. It’s painful to identify—even in measure—with the spiritual condition of the Israelites before they are liberated from Egypt. It’s hard to make a difference in the world around us when you feel as impotent as the Israelites.

Rabbi Diamond would have pushed back on this sentiment. He taught a Midrash Tanhumah on Parashat Pekudei that describes the origin of the copper mirrors that women donated as materials for the construction of the Mishkan. That takes us back to the scene of the enslaved Israelites:

While the Israelite men were making bricks in Egypt, Pharaoh decreed that they were not to sleep at home so that they would not sleep with their wives [thereby conceiving children]. R. Simeon the son of Halafta said: What did the Israelite women do? They would go to the Nile to draw water, and the Holy One, blessed be He, would fill their jugs with little fishes. They would [sell some of these fish and], cook and prepare [them], and buy some wine [with the proceeds of the sale], and then bring it to their husbands in the fields, as it is said: In all manner of service in the field (Exod. 1:14). While the men were eating and drinking, the women would take out their mirrors and glance into them with their husbands. They would say: “I am more attractive than you,” and the men would reply: “I am handsomer than you.” In that way they would arouse their sexual desires and become fruitful and multiply. The Holy One, blessed be He, caused them to conceive on the spot.

I love this midrash because it tends to make people blush a little bit. When you get over your embarrassment and look at the story again, the women in the midrash emerge as powerful, active characters resisting Pharaoh with the simple tools they have on hand—copper mirrors. They resist Pharaoh by holding tight to their relationships, loving one another, and investing in their families.

This midrash complicates the Torah’s image of the Israelites as immobilized and exhausted, and it also challenges us to find a different way to relate to the story. Though we may not be able to hear Moses’s prophetic call right now, perhaps we can hear this midrash and Rabbi Diamond calling us to hold fast to our relationships. Loving one another—our families, friends, and communities—is in and of itself a profound act of faith and an investment in a liberated future.

Zikhrono livrakha. May Rabbi Diamond’s memory and teaching continue to be a blessing that reminds us of the power of love in a broken world. 

We posed four questions to students this year and are thrilled to share some of their responses. They are offered not as conclusions, but as invitations. Consider using these questions at your seder table.

Tze ulemad (Go out and learn) is not confined to the beit midrash. It unfolds wherever honest reflection meets shared conversation. May these questions help spark your own.

What question are you carrying into this Passover? It might be textual, theological, personal, or unresolved. Why does this question feel alive for you right now?

Every year, I think about the רשע (wicked child). In the Haggadah, the רשע asks: “What is this service to you?” By saying “you,” he excludes himself. Therefore, we reply: “Because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt.” For me and not for him. It concludes saying that the רשע wouldn’t have been redeemed. Why does the רשע’s question imply exclusion? And why must we respond so harshly to this question? This interpretation of the רשע reflects the Rabbis’ worries about students challenging authority in a way that would challenge the foundation of Jewish tradition. However, these worries and this interpretation reflect a changing religious landscape in which it was necessary to have a firm foundation to ensure survival.

Our society today is not like that. Today we live in a relatively stable religious landscape. I believe we should shift the focus away from ensuring survival to ensuring accessibility. While the ancient Rabbis were aiming to promote a specific paradigm for learning, Jewish educators today recognize that each child learns differently. And, more importantly, these differences aren’t a reason to dismiss a child’s curiosity. I view the רשע’s question as one many Jews today are asking: Why does Jewish practice matter to us? Why should this matter to us? These questions are valid. I believe we need to ask ourselves: Does there need to be a villainous figure in our Haggadah’s metaphor for the next generation of Jewish children? Does the רשע need to exist at all?

We posed four questions to students this year and are thrilled to share some of their responses. They are offered not as conclusions, but as invitations. Consider using these questions at your seder table.

Tze ulemad (Go out and learn) is not confined to the beit midrash. It unfolds wherever honest reflection meets shared conversation. May these questions help spark your own.

Describe a moment when you arrived as a teacher and left as a learner, or expected to learn and found yourself teaching. What did that moment reveal?

The Torah speaks of four archetypical sons and prescribes different approaches to teaching each of them. As for my son, there’s only one of him. But is he wise? Is he wicked? Or simple? Does he even know how to ask a question?

Consider the evidence: There was that one time when he intentionally failed (and eventually dropped out of) a Judaics elective at school. I made him learn Mishnah Pesahim with me instead. Once a week, he begrudgingly allowed me to yammer at him about the things a bunch of ancient Rabbis once said about Passover. We had only managed to slog through the first half of that book by the time Passover came along. One day before the holiday, I found myself scrambling solo to scrub the kitchen. My mother-in-law was in the hospital, my wife had flown down to Baltimore early, and my daughters were too young to help. And my son had made the mistake the previous day of thinking that scootering at high speed down a steep hill was a fun thing to do on a Shabbat afternoon and so all he could do was sit in the kitchen with his ankle elevated, feeling bad that he couldn’t help with anything. That night, with the kids bundled into the car for the mad dash down I-95, I tasked him with reading the entire second half of Mishnah Pesahim (the half we hadn’t gotten to yet) out loud in the car because I wouldn’t be able to get us to Baltimore in time for a siyyum (and I really didn’t want to suffer through the Fast of the Firstborn after an overnight drive). The siyyum, a traditional celebration to mark the completion of the study of a tractate of Talmud or a book of Mishnah, requires its participants to eat and supersedes the minor pre-Passover fast. My son was suddenly eager to participate in this ritualized rabbinic loophole. And at the seder, 12 hours after we triumphantly recited the hadran at our little two-person siyyum, my son interjected with things he had learned in those mishnayot. The same nattering of bygone rabbis that felt like cruel paternal torture only a few months earlier had become elevated wisdoms that he could use to contribute to, and thereby enhance, our ancient conversation.