A Teaching for Passover: Beginning with Shame
Last week I began a training to learn more about helping others heal from the kind of trauma we experience when our parents or primary caretakers are unable, for many reasons, to address our basic needs. One of the many interesting things I learned was that as small children, we are often forced to choose between a loving connection with our parents and our own inner authenticity. That loving connection is absolutely essential to our survival. So when the environment around us fails to address our needs, we can’t blame our parents; we need to be stay connected to them. So instead we blame ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. This self-blame, or shutting down our own authenticity, creates deep shame that often continues into our adult lives.
I was intrigued by this especially in connection with Passover, which is rapidly approaching. Shame plays a key role in telling the Passover story. In fact, according the Mishnah (Pesachim 10:4), which was the first guide to helping families tell the Passover story, we must start with shame and conclude with praise. Later generations argued about what was so shameful – was it that fact that we were slaves or that we were idolaters? But in any case, that basic framework of beginning by addressing our shame has been built into every Seder for at least 2000 years.
What an extraordinary instruction! Shame is one of the most powerful, uncomfortable emotions we have. It causes our faces to burn or close down. It separates us from ourselves and from others; the impulse of shame is to hide. We feel deeply unworthy, embarrassed, humiliated, unfit. We remember shameful episodes for a long time and that sense of discomfort stays fresh long after the fact. So why would we start telling our liberation story with shame?
The Haggadah gives us an answer: In every generation we are to see ourselves as if we came out of Egypt. This is not a ceremony about what happened once upon a time in some mythic context. This is our story. It is about us, our lives. Liberation is only possible when we begin healing the shame we carry with us.
But how do we start that healing? The way we tell the story on the night of the Seder opens up some possibilities. According to the trauma healing model I began studying, curiosity is one of the antidotes to the self-hatred that comes from that early shame. Curiosity is actually a form of connection. It is engaging with openness, not with judgment. When we are curious about our experience or someone else’s, we are attentive and present. Curiosity could even be considered a form of love.
And the Seder is all about teaching us to be curious. It is instructive that we have the four questions, but not the four answers. What are all those symbols on the Seder plate? What is this strange ceremony that weaves its convoluted way through the story of the Exodus? Why is this night different than all other nights? Get curious, the Haggadah hints to us. The way we get from shame to praise is through the questions which help us cultivate a new relationship to loving connection.
Of course, rituals can shut us down as much as open us up; that it is their greatest tragic flaw. But if we bring an intention to cultivate our curiosity, the Seder might help us be better able to connect with the deep, even intergenerational sources of our shame. When we can do that, we can start to heal. We can imagine true liberation. We can explore what it means to connect more fully to ourselves, to our ancestors, our kids and even to our God. Now that would indeed be reason to offer praise.