Passover

Happy Passover! Chag Sameach. This is Passover week. This is a time we recall our Exodus from Egypt. The word in Hebrew for Egypt is Mitzrayim. It means narrow place. In Egypt the ancient Hebrews lived a narrow, limited existence. As slaves for four hundred years their ability to live their traditions fully and with full human dignity was filled by the terror inflicted upon their community by the Pharaoh and the edicts heaped upon them. In the book of Exodus we read:

The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites the various labors they made them perform. Ruthlessly they made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field (Ex. 1:13-14).

A community of Israelites that had been connected to the highest power in the land (Joseph) was now reduced to hard labor, enslavement and menial work. The Pharaoh even ordered that all the male children that were born to be thrown into the Nile.
Their Hebrews lives were constricted. And in truth all of Egypt lived in the narrowness of the Pharaoh’s provincial thinking. The Pharaoh could not think broadly. Instead his own fears about the Israelites rising up against his authority colored his ability to engage any meaningful vision for Egypt. Egypt as one of the most advanced societies of the ancient world could have brought justice and lifted up the people who lived there. But these came into the world by God’s strength and wonders shown through the Ten Plagues brought upon Egypt by the stubbornness of the Pharaoh (another symptom of narrowness).
The Egyptians dealt foolishly with God and Moses and the Israelites. They paid a very heavy price for their narrowness.
In our day and time we can learn from the Passover story and the Seder experience. Each of us has our own places of fear and narrow thinking. In these perilous times those fears can get the best of us and cause us to lose our ability to think broadly about the future. It can keep us from seeing hope. But our Seder meal is all about hope. It is the hope that we too will be redeemed as the ancient Israelites were redeemed from the narrowness of Egypt. The Seder rituals with its symbolic foods, special songs and words can help us unleash the power of transformation to turn our fears into courage. The maror or bitter herbs we eat show we can conquer bitterness. The cups of wine or grape juice we drink can show us that there must be time for honoring, for celebration and for liberation from that which still enslaves us. God’s promise to take us out of Egypt (of the narrow places) is still a promise in our own day and time.
So just as God lifted the Israelites’ on eagles’ wings we pray that we now can also feel uplifted toward a day of renewal, promise and yes, tikvah-hope.

Happy Passover-Chag Sameach.