Through the Haggada, more than a hundred generations of Jews have handed on their story to their children. The word “haggada” means “relate,” “tell,” “expound.” But it comes from another Hebrew root [a-g-d] that means “bind,” “join,” “connect.” By reciting the Haggada, Jews give their children a sense of connectedness to Jews throughout the world and to the Jewish people through time. It joins them to a past and future, a history and destiny, and makes them characters in its drama. Every other nation known to humankind has been united because its members lived in the same place, spoke the same language, were part of the same culture. Jews alone, dispersed across continents, speaking different languages and participating in different cultures, have been bound together by a narrative, the Pesaḥ narrative, which they tell in the same way on the same night. More than the Haggada is the story of a people, Jews are the people of a story.

“The Story of Stories,” The Jonathan Sacks Haggada

☛ REFLECT How can a story link us to Jews across generations and across geography?