Tze Ulemad: Go Out and Learn
In the middle of our Haggadah, we are instructed: Tze Ulemad. The simple meaning of these words is “Go (to the verse that follows) and Learn (what it says there about the story of the nation of the Jewish people).” We can also understand this as a calling to literally “Go out, so that we may Learn,” to leave our familiar surroundings and let go of what we already know so that we may approach the Passover seder with new insights.
It is with this second, more expansive understanding of the words “Go and Learn” that we’ve directed the intention for this year’s Passover reader.
This call is central to JTS: this notion of learning is at the center of its mission, fostering spaces where wisdom is transmitted, tested, and renewed across generations.
We are pleased to feature pieces from JTS faculty and students in various formats, including an interview with our chancellor, essays, brief insights, and images from The JTS Library’s Special Collections.
Some of the pieces directly expound upon the concept of “Go and Learn.” By offering new approaches to our texts and demonstrations of the ways Jews in different times and places encountered them, other pieces help us to fulfill this command.
We hope that this Passover reader will inspire you to “Go and Learn”; that the articles here offer fresh ways with which to think about our texts that you may bring with you to your seders, so that you may, in turn, inspire others as well. In this way, we can ensure that Passover is never only remembered—it is reseen, reshaped, and relived, such that the seder is a product of its time and also of all times.
Click here for the PDF of Tze Ulemad: Go Out and Learn
Support for the Passover supplement is made possible by Shelly and Larry Gross, in loving memory of their parents Lillian and Louis Konheim (z”l) and Joseph Gross (z”l).
