Out of Egypt

Today is the first day of Pesach (Passover), which is a celebration of the Israelites' exodus out of Egypt (slavery) and toward the Promised Land (freedom).

Since Pesach is regarded as one of the most significant Jewish traditions, last Thursday I asked our Hebrew teacher, Varda, how long Pesach typically lasts. Her answer was interesting. She remarked that it lasted for as long as it needed to. She smiled as I mulled this information about in my head.

Initially, this struck me as a sign of sheer brilliance--a holiday that ended whenever one desired! As a byproduct of the United States, I couldn't help but wonder how we ever let that idea slip past!

I mean we're the leisurely-minded entrepreneurs who gave the world the LA-Z-Boy, clap-on lighting, and the greatest lazy man's invention of all time!

Americans come out of the womb wondering how we can make even that process easier. How in the name of push-button 4-wheel drive did we not jump aboard that bandwagon?

This mystery eluded me for the better part of four days.

However, I should note that the most pressing concern for myself is the inconvenient truth (an actual truth, Al) that all of the stores are fresh out of bread. This means that it's all matzah all the time. And matzah, for those who may not know, is unleavened, hardened bread. It's like eating a flat and tough Saltine cracker without all the flavor of a typical Saltine cracker.

What's that you say? Saltine crackers don't have any flavor to begin with? Well, that's a fine point you make. What's that? I'm having a mock conversation with myself and need to cease immediately?

Much appreciated. Moving right along, then.

Needless to say, matzah is not very appetizing. But that's essentially the point. The matzah represents a particular dynamic within the story told in Exodus. The Israelites had to flee Egypt in such a hurry that there was literally no time for the dough to rise in their bread. Hence the creation and significance of matzah.

As is Jewish custom, families will gather together and celebrate today for a seder dinner. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or secular, Passover is regarded as an essential element of Jewish identity.

And in Israel, the holiday carries an even greater significance. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. by the Roman Caesar Titus, nearly two thousand years of Diaspora displaced the Jewish people to the four corners of the earth. Such a fate should have surely resulted in the death knell of the Jews and Jewish tradition.

But it was not to be.

The story of Judaism's survival through the ages is one of the most remarkable tales in mankind's history and perhaps the topic for a future blog post. What's important is that the Pesach tradition survived during those two thousand years. And in 1948, a new reality soon set in for God's Chosen.

The restoration of the state of Israel drew her people back home and with them, traditions that had grown and been internalized in ways likely unimaginable for the Jews of millennia past. The restoration of Israel, like the Exodus out of Egypt, brought the Jews back to the Promised Land--out of bondage and servitude to others and into freedom--freedom to once again have a sovereign say over their own destiny.

So while Pesach is indeed a celebration and acknowledgment of God's deliverance from Egypt, it is also an acknowledgment, be it direct or implicit or grudgingly, by Israelis of God's promises kept through the generations.

And I realize now what Varda meant when she said that "it lasted as long as it needed to." Passover is not a single day or week or event that is commemorated, stowed away, and brought back out of the box the following year. Passover is about God's promise. It's about freedom.

And that's not something that merely lasts for a season. It's something that lasts for eternity.

!פסח שמח