The Jewish holiday of Passover begins on Monday, March 29th and lasts for 7 or 8 days. (Jews living in Israel and all Reform Jews celebrate for 7 days as described in the Torah. Conservative and Orthodox Jews who live outside of Israel observe Passover for eight days based on a tradition that allowed for “calendar” errors in the days before formal calendars.)
In the first of the Ten Commandments, God says, “I am your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” (Exodus 20:2) Leading the people of Israel from slavery to freedom is integral to Jews are part of our history.
About 4000 years ago, God led Abraham to the land of Israel where he settled with his family. Three generations later, drought brought the Israelite (word to describe the original Jews) people down to Egypt where food was more plentiful. After generations of living in Egypt in peace, the Israelites were forced into slavery by a new Pharaoh. God called on Moses, who was living in Midian, to return to Egypt to free his people. Pharaoh was very stubborn and it took ten plagues for him to change his mind and finally allows the Israelites to leave so they could worship their God and return to the land of Israel. Today, Jews embrace many teachings from this story including our commitment to freedom and justice for others and maintaining hope during difficult times, as the Israelites did standing at the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army closing in behind them. (Pharaoh changed his mind again after finally agreeing to let the Israelites go.) The Passover story includes the miracle of the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, so the Israelites could finally escape to freedom.
The Torah commands us to teach this story and its lessons to our children so each year we have a Passover seder using food symbols to tell the story. The Hebrew word seder means “order” and includes a Haggadah, (service booklet that tells the Passover story), with a set order of how to proceed during the seder. Jews around the world have seders in their homes on the first and second days of Passover. It is a time for family to get together and celebrate. For some families who are spread around the country and the world, they make a special effort to be together for this holiday.
Below is a spiritual interpretation of some of the symbols, prayers and readings talked about at the Passover seder. Many of these teachings are relevant to our students at the family school.
Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season,
Rabbi Michele
PASSOVER SYMBOLS THROUGH A SPIRITUAL LENS
KIDDUSH – Blessing Over Wine/Fruit of the Vine
Kiddush offers us a lovely introduction to the rituals of Passover because it embodies the perfect balance between spirituality and religion. We acknowledge the Creator of the fruit of the vine, when we say the blessing over wine or grape juice. The wine represents the spiritual essence in the ritual. But the cup itself is not dispensable. The cup represents the religious form that is provided to give shape and containment to our spiritual practice.
So it is with the Seder. The point of the Seder is the spiritual uplift, insight and growth we can accomplish that night. Pursuing those goals requires a container to channel and guide our spiritual experience and progress. That’s why the Seder is called “seder”, which means “order.”
The theme of Passover and the Seder is liberation. It is interesting to note that by going through an ordered seder, we are taught that freedom does not mean “doing what ever we want.” The Seder begins with Kiddush to teach that we need order and structure to obtain true freedom.
AVADIM HAYINU – WE WERE SLAVES IN EGYPT
(During the seder we are asked to imagine that we ourselves, were also slaves.)
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto draws an analogy between the Pharaoh’s strategy of forcing the Israelites to work non-stop, and the tactics employed by the negative inclination that abides in each of us. Just as Pharaoh used busyness to deflect the people, so are we all whipped into hyper-activity by the adversary within us. This potent negative inner force urges us to be so busy that will not only be distracted from reaching our goals, but even from setting goals. So many good things to do, so many activities, needs, desires, things… that we haven’t got a moment of freedom to consider who we might be, what we might do, what we might free ourselves from.
THE FOUR CHILDREN: Wise, Wicked, Simple, One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask
Rabbi Israel Salanter used to say “We all have all four children in each of us.” In the course of our lives or even in a single day, we might play all four roles. At one moment we are wise, giving wise counsel to our friends and making good decisions. But in the next, we might well be wicked, caught up in pointless rebellious, contempt of something good, or cynical. At times we are all simple, characterized by naivete or innocence or gullibility. And there are times when we don’t know what to do, because we are bewildered, or clueless, or dull.
Can you take ownership of your wisdom as well as your evil, your simplicity as well as your stunned silence? Can you hear all four answers in the Haggadah applying to you?
THE TEN PLAGUES
(Read after the reading on pg. 28)
“God said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron – Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt…’” (Exodus 7:19).
Rashi notices that it is Aaron, not Moses, who initiates this plague, and he comments that this is to teach us gratitude. Because the Nile protected Moses when he was an infant, it would not have been fitting for Moses to strike the Nile to start the plagues of blood or frogs. This teaching spurs us to consider the place of gratitude in our own lives. If Moses was meant to be so grateful to the river, we ought to be inspired to look at our own lives to see where we also owe gratitude. The river sustained Moses. What sustains you?
The river served Moses involuntarily and yet he was so grateful that he had to restrain his hand from acting against it, even in the service of God’s will. Another way had to be found. And if he was required to show that much gratitude to a factor that served him involuntarily, how much more grateful should we be to people who offer us benefit in our lives, for people have free will, and their gifts to us are voluntary. To whom should you open your heart in gratitude?
MATZAH – UNLEAVENED BREAD
The Talmud tells us that leavened bread is the symbol of arrogance. Leavening causes bread to “puff up,” just as an arrogant person is inflated. Matzah, the Talmud informs us, is the symbol of humility. Humility – which means occupying your rightful space, being neither overblown, nor shrunken away in self-deprecation – is the core of soul-development. In the Seder, matzah is the middle of the 15 steps of the Seder, signifying the central role humility plays in the journey of growth.
At Passover time, we are forbidden even the tiniest crumb of bread, which is an image of how diligent we should be in ridding our hearts of arrogance and self-centeredness. When we eat matzah, we internalize the quality of humility and self-transcendence that is the essence of spirituality.
HILLEL SANDWHICH – Mixture of MAROR (bitter herbs) and CHAROSET (mixture of chopped apples, nuts, sugar and wine) with Matzah
We are suppose to eat bitter herbs to remind us of the suffering of the slaves.
