במדרש שה"ש "נשיר למי שעשאנו שרים בעולם." דכ' "עם זו יצרתי לי תהלתי יספרו".
וביצ"מ נעשו בנ"י כבריה חדשה ונתיחדו לברר מלכות שמים בעולם. וזה הסיפור יצ"מ וכן בכל יום שמעידין על הבורא ית'. ובירור זה תלוי בעבודה שבלב כפי מה שמבררין בלב יחוד המעשה אליו ית'.
וזה ימי הספירה דכתיב וספרתם לכם.
וכל שיר השירים נתיסד על זה שהאירו בנ"י במעשיהם והמשיכו כל הדברים שבעולם לשורשן להעלות מהם ריח ניחוח אליו ית'. וזה הבירור עיקרו מזה החג ומצות סיפור יצ"מ דכ' למען תזכור כו' כל ימי חייך וזכירה הוא בפה. ולילה זו נותנת כח על הבירור והסיפור של כל ימות השנה.
In the midrash on the Song of Songs: "Let us sing to the One who made us like princes/songs in the world!" As it is written "This people I formed to tell of My glory" (Isaiah 43:21).
When they came out of Egypt, Israel were re-formed, like new creatures set aside to manifest the kingdom of God in the world. This is why we tell the tale of liberation from Egypt, bearing witness each day to our Creator. This act of manifesting God's kingdom depends upon the inner work we do in our hearts, as we make clear in our hearts how our deeds are joined to God.
We do this [especially] in the days of counting, as it says: "you shall count for yourselves" [ or "tell yourselves" -- usefartem/ve-sippartem].
The entire Song of Songs is based on this: Israel creating light by their deeds, drawing all things in the world to their root, Raising them up as with pleasing scent to the Lord. We see this especially on this holiday and in the telling of the story of the Exodus of Egypt as it is written " so that you remember the days when you came out of Egypt all the days of your life" (Deuteronomy 16:3). " remembering" means "mentioning" orally; the telling of this night gives us the power to continue the clarification and the narrative of all the days of the year.
As humans, we are interpreting beings. We all have daily experiences of events that we seek to make meaningful. The stories we have about our lives are created through linking certain events together in a particular sequence across a time period, and finding a way of explaining or making sense of them. This meaning forms the plot of the story. We give meanings to our experiences constantly as we live our lives. A narrative is like a thread that weaves the events together, forming a story.
We all have many stories about our lives and relationships, occurring simultaneously. For example, we have stories about ourselves, our abilities, our struggles, our competencies, our actions, our desires, our relationships, our work, our interests, our conquests, our achievements, our failures. The way we have developed these stories is determined by how we have linked certain events together in a sequence and by the meaning we have attributed to them....
...Narrative therapists, when initially faced with seemingly overwhelming thin conclusions and problem stories, are interested in conversations that seek out alternative stories – not just any alternative stories, but stories that are identified by the person seeking counselling as stories by which they would like to live their lives. The therapist is interested to seek out, and create in conversations, stories of identity that will assist people to break from the influence of the problems they are facing.
Alice Morgan, "What is Narrative Therapy?"
Here, the telling of the Exodus tale is uplifted from the realm of ritual to become, as in the Bible itself, a description of the sacred task of Israel throughout our lives. Each day, by our deeds as inspired by our words we are to tell the world that God brought us slaves out of Egypt and that we have not forgotten!
The religious life that stems from this imperative is one that most of us have hardly begun to live, but one that calls upon us from the pages of scripture as it does from the Sefat Emet.
- Arthur Green