April 2nd: Conclusion of Pesach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Passover is an experiment in imagination. Whatever our current situation, we are asked to put ourselves into the Torah’s narrative and imagine what it would have been like to experience both slavery in Egypt and the miraculous rescue. As Rabban Gamliel teaches in the Mishnah (Pesachim 10.5): “In every generation, each person should feel that he/she personally went out of Egypt, as it is commanded in Exodus 13, “You shall tell your child on that day, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”
Pretty much everything in the Seder is devoted to this purpose—this extended imaginative experience. That is why we dip the parsley in salt water. That is why we eat the bitter herbs. That is why we eat the matzah and charoset. That is even why we scrounge around for a lamb shank bone. Remember, the whole Passover Seder experience comes from that single commandment (though repeated three times), “You shall tell your child.” Telling the story is the purpose, and our Sages developed the entire narrative meal to get us to immerse ourselves in the story.
Some years, it is easier to feel the story. Depending on our mindsets and circumstances, the story may resonate more or less with our souls. Indeed, the phenomenon of the Passover story being applied to current events is an example of this imaginative enhancement. Think about the “Freedom Seders” held when the current oppressive concern involved Civil Rights for African Americans. Remember the fervor when the Seder’s message paralleled the need for freedom for Jews in the Soviet Union. There is also the continuing tradition of Women’s Seders, Jewish celebrations which run a double track, recounting the Exodus from Egypt and yearning for full liberation for women.
While the story of Yetzi’at Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt, is our story, it is also a universal story. I remember, in particular, a model Seder I led in the early 1990s at a Metropolitan Community Church—a Christian denomination dedicated to LGBT individuals and their families and friends. I as led the Seder and told our story, the eyes of the participants glistened with the tears of their hopes and struggles. The hope for liberation and meaning is universal.
Of course, there are some great ironies in the story’s application. Back in the 1800s, while African slaves in America were aligning their stories with that of the Israelites in Egypt, so were the Dutch South Africans—the Afrikaners. In their Transvaal Trek to escape British domination, they saw themselves as the Hebrew slaves marching across the wilderness to the Promised Land. Here was a group that developed one of the most oppressive racist regimes in the world, while their nationalistic mythology cast them as the oppressed Israelites yearning for freedom.)
By the time most of us are in our teens, we know the story quite well. We might even be able to tell our Christian friends about it—as we explain why we eat Matzah for lunch at school. We know the parts of the Seder, and we have opinions about the tunes and the recipes and the way the Seder is conducted. But, do we really feel the story? Do we respond to the prompts of the Seder and, as Rabban Gamliel’s urges, feel as though we personally experienced Yetzi’at Mitzrayim?
Of the many teachers with whom I have studied, one of the most inspirational and insightful was Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z’l. He had a particular take on this notion of putting ourselves into rituals that I find most helpful. Borrowing from Maslow’s terminology, Reb Zalman spoke of moments like Yetzi’at Mitzrayim as peak experiences. Collected in Torah, our communal spiritual memory, they happened once but, hopefully, continue to happen in our lives. How do we relive these peak experiences? In our rituals. They, according to Reb Zalman, are peak experiences domesticated. They are our efforts to take moments that are miraculous and completely unexpected and make them accessible when we need them in our lives. These rituals, he taught, are the ways that we can experience God’s awesome presence and be reminded of the Divine’s ever-present possibility.
So, when we chant this week’s Torah portion, Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), we are urged to put ourselves in the minds and souls of our ancient ancestors—just escaped from Egyptian bondage, seemingly safe, but then faced with terrifying death. The thunder of the Egyptian cavalry was a horrible reversal of the reversal of fate that God had wrought. They knew the ferocity and ruthlessness of the people who had enslaved them for 400 years. They knew what the Egyptians were thinking. “The foe said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; My desire shall have its fill of them. I will bare my sword—my hand shall destroy them!” (Exodus 15.9) The certainty of death was so intense that our ancestors cried out to Moses, “What? Was it for a lack of graves in Egypt that you brought us out here to die?” (Exodus 14.11)
As Professor Dvora Weisburg teaches (in this week’s Ten Minutes of Torah on the Union for Reform Judaism website, ReformJudaism.org), “When the Israelites saw the Egyptians, they forgot about the power of God manifested in the ten plagues; all they could think of was their present peril.” But then, there was the miracle: the Sea split, and a pathway opened up before them. “The Lord is our strength and our might; God has become our deliverance!” (Exodus 15.2)
This is the feeling—the historical and holy sensibility—that we are taught to regain and to reimagine. This is the spiritual memory we are taught to preserve. When we read Shirat Hayam in the Torah, or we chant Mi Chamocha in our services, we have the opportunity to sample a peak experience domesticated—and to feel awe and amazement and joy and appreciation. God is an ever-present possibility.
“Who is like You, O Lord, among the mighty?!
Who is like You, glorious in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?!” (Exodus 15.11)