The Talmud uses the term “pischon peh,” literally, “an opening of the mouth,” to describe the ability to put forth a compelling argument or excuse.

The pesukim that relay Hashem’s message to our ancestors: “Know this day that it was not your children” who saw Hashem’s majesty and experienced all of the miracles in Mitzrayim and during the exodus thereof and those during the desert years, but, rather, it was “your [own] eyes that saw” Hashem’s great acts (Devarim 11, 2-7), offer us alive today such an argument.

Because our ancestors directly experienced Hashem’s might and direction, and were thus rightly accountable to recognize the import of the same on their behavior. But we, their mere descendants, did not witness the exodus and subsequent wonders. What, then, compels us? Do we not have a pischon peh here, an excuse?

Key here is the vital importance of mesorah, the “handed-down,” usually used colloquially to refer to the handed-down law but no less applicable to “handed-down history.”

No one in his right mind today, despite not having been alive then, denies the event we call World War I, or the one we call the Civil War, or the existence of ancient Rome or ancient Greece. That is because history is handed down to us from when it happened.

And ancient Jewish history, with all of its miracles, has been faithfully handed down to us. We were therefore, in a sense and for all practical purposes, “there.” Our eyes, too – those of every Jew who has ever sat at a Pesach seder – witnessed the exodus from Mitzrayim.

What is more, we have something our ancestors had not: Compelling evidence of Hashem’s might: the fulfillment of Hashem’s words.

The Torah predicts Klal Yisrael’s failures and its exile from its land. It predicts our scattering across the world and our persecutions. All of which we, not our ancestors, can attest to having happened. So while they may have personally experienced Hashem’s hand, we have experienced the fulfillment of His promise.

And the Torah predicts, too, the full return of Klal Yisrael to the Torah and to the land (already begun), and the ultimate redemption. May it come speedily, in our day.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran