"My father was a wandering Aramean." (Deuteronomy 26:5) This text from Deuteronomy begins the Haggadah narrative at the Passover Seder. Scholars debate whether it refers to Abraham, who wandered from the land of Aram in Southern Mesopotamia to the Land of Israel, or to Jacob who "wandered" from Israel to Egypt.

I prefer to read the word "father" as symbolically representing all of the patriarchs and matriarchs as Aramean wanderers. The extent to which you see this text as defining you personally determines, I believe, the depth of your Jewish religious commitments. When this text defines your soul - you are a Jew who knows that having a land to call "home" is not a luxury to be taken for granted and that "wandering" is a scourge to anyone who suffers it. Wandering is exile. Exile, in Jewish terms, is a curse. This text is a call for action.

Exile is a curse but we need to understand it as a metaphor, a powerful Jewish symbol for the world not being whole. Exile is brokenness, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, terror - in short, a metaphor for all that ails our world. Exile is not simply related to a physical home, although a safe home is a prerequisite for all other repair.

When you say, "My father was a wandering Aramean" and that statement defines your soul, you as a Jew stand as one with all who live in need. This call is the voice of Passover that has been summoning our people to great deeds for more than 2000 years. We need to hear the fervor in that call this year with special urgency. We live in a Jewish community that has become entranced with the allure of a phony Jewish mysticism that invites us to a world of mantra, chant, meditation, relaxation exercises, guided imagery and escape. This world tries to seduce us to grow inward, to find our own inner selves and commune in harmony with the beauty of nature and our own placid being.

"My father was a wandering Aramean" is a wake-up call to shake off this lethargy of religious introspection and self-satisfaction. Outside is a world that desperately needs freeing from pharaohs and Egypt. To be a Jew is to respond with the first and only authentic response possible. When God calls, we say "Hineini: Here I am; put me to work."

The organized Jewish community seems to be in danger of turning inward. The national Jewish population studies of both 1990 and 2000-2001 showed a Jewish community in decline in raw numbers as well as affiliation and commitment. The response of the Jewish establishment seems to me both predictable and counterproductive: more money for Jewish summer camps, education and other youth programs. This is simultaneously good (these experiences are expensive), but also wrongheaded.

What we lack is an exciting Jewish agenda that engages the world with a program of tikkun, repair. Young people won't leave Judaism because it asks too much, only because it asks so little as to appear trivial. Our challenge is to infuse our mandate of tikkun with a religious energy and burning passion that calls out to us from our ancient texts. "My father was a wandering Aramean!!! Hineini!!!"

Respond generously to our Passover Mitzvah Project (see page 7) and may the beauty of your Passover Seder inspire you to great acts. Chag Sameach!!!