Rabbi's Message

RABBI’S MESSAGE:

The True Meaning of Passover

There's a passage in the Haggadah so strange that it cries out for explanation. It says: "Go and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob. For Pharaoh issued a decree only against the male Israelite children, but Laban sought to destroy everything."

Consider: on Seder night all our efforts are directed towards remembering the night long ago when the Israelites were about to go free after centuries of slavery. We tell the story and relive it, tasting the bread of affliction and the bitterness of servitude. How then does it make sense to say, in effect: "You think Pharaoh was bad? Laban was even worse!" This minimizes the very event we are trying to recapture. Besides which, where does it state that Laban actually tried to kill Jacob and his family? To be sure, he was less than friendly. But to accuse Laban of attempted genocide goes against the plain sense of the Torah and cuts across the central theme of the Haggadah.

In this connection, I once heard a beautiful explanation in the form of a parable. The sun and the wind were having an argument as to which was the more powerful. The sun said, "I am the greater power. I give light and warmth to the entire planet. Without me, nothing could live." The wind said, "I am greater. When I blow, rocks crash, trees are uprooted and houses collapse. Against me, nothing can stand." Just then a farmer came out into his field and began plowing the ground. The sun proposed a test. "Let us see which of us can part the farmer from his jacket." The wind agreed. It began to blow, gently at first, and then with increasing force. But the more it blew, the more tightly the man held on to his coat. Eventually the wind gave up, exhausted. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds. Feeling the warmth, the farmer removed his jacket. The gentle heat of the sun did what the raging wind could not.

So it has been throughout Jewish history. There have been times, many of them, when Jews were persecuted. Yet the Torah says at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, "The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread." The harder the wind blew, the more Jews held on to their identity. During the many centuries of Jewish suffering, no one ever asked the question, "Will we have Jewish grandchildren?"

What has threatened Jewish continuity has been not the wind but the sun: not poverty but affluence; not slavery but freedom. While Jacob was living with his father in law, it was not Laban's hostility that threatened Jewish survival but the fact that Jacob had become prosperous and might easily have settled there, forgetting his destiny and identity. That is why this passage occurs in the Haggadah, as if to say: "Do not think that the challenge of Passover ends with the exodus. Leaving Egypt was only the beginning. There always were two threats to Jewish identity. One is physical, the other spiritual. The physical threat is persecution. The spiritual threat is the allure of freedom; and the second is sometimes more devastating in its effects."

As it was then, so it is now. There is only one antidote, and it is provided by Passover itself. Just as the Seder service begins with the questions asked by a child, so we must always put the needs of children first. This means three things: firstly that we create schools and synagogues to give our children a sense of belonging and pride; secondly that our families are strong; and thirdly that we tell the story of Jewish identity not only in terms of suffering and persecution but also in the positive language of aspirations and ideals. Passover was more than the escape from Egypt. It was the beginning of the journey towards Mount Sinai.

The Mishnah says that in telling the story on seder night, "We should begin with the bad news but end with the good." We must tell our children, "Yes, we have eaten the bread of affliction but we also drink the wine of freedom. Judaism is more than a scroll of suffering written in tears. It is also the story of how to serve God in joy, see freedom as His blessing, and give thanks for all He has given us."

            Wishing you and your families a very Happy Passover Holiday!