Dear Friends,
Ultimately, Passover did not happen 3300 years ago. It is happening today.
Our tradition teaches that there were two "Passovers," Pesach Mitzrayim—the Passover of Egypt—and Pesach lAtid, the Passover of the future. We remember the original Passover of Egypt, but we live in the Passover of today.
We read in this week’s Torah portion, "And when your children ask you, ’What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’" (Exodus 12:26-27)
Thus, Passover demonstrates the continual tension between living in our history as Jews and living in the present. The two are intertwined. Those who are only interested in Jewish history—understanding and replicating the experience of our biblical forebears—miss the powerful experience of translating the meaning of Passover to our present experience.
Passover, though it is the seminal event of Jewish history (that is, until the expulsion from Spain and the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel), was our formative, foundational moment. Yet, its values and messages continue—hence, the Passover of the Future.
Passover gives us a format to understand the oppression of other people today and in recent history. The continued effort to organize American slavery and American history—including the recent 1619 Project—suggests that the rituals of Passover, vicariously experiencing both oppression and liberation in an annual Seder, might give historical meaning to American slavery.
Similarly, the exodus of over 10 percent of Ukraine’s population in the last year of war may require a ritual and even an historical prayer structure for the Ukrainians and the Western world to assimilate the horrors that were perpetrated there by the Russians.
In short, Passover lives in antiquity and in modernity. It is a ritual for all time to concretize the tragedy of oppression and the universal yearning for liberation. That its Jewish history doesn’t diminish its message for all peoples.
This year, as we prepare ourselves for our Second Seders and we continue to eat matzah, the bread of affliction, we let its taste and context expand to the concerns of our wider world.
For a meaningful Passover and a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Ultimately, Passover did not happen 3300 years ago. It is happening today.
Our tradition teaches that there were two "Passovers," Pesach Mitzrayim—the Passover of Egypt—and Pesach lAtid, the Passover of the future. We remember the original Passover of Egypt, but we live in the Passover of today.
We read in this week’s Torah portion, "And when your children ask you, ’What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’" (Exodus 12:26-27)
Thus, Passover demonstrates the continual tension between living in our history as Jews and living in the present. The two are intertwined. Those who are only interested in Jewish history—understanding and replicating the experience of our biblical forebears—miss the powerful experience of translating the meaning of Passover to our present experience.
Passover, though it is the seminal event of Jewish history (that is, until the expulsion from Spain and the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel), was our formative, foundational moment. Yet, its values and messages continue—hence, the Passover of the Future.
Passover gives us a format to understand the oppression of other people today and in recent history. The continued effort to organize American slavery and American history—including the recent 1619 Project—suggests that the rituals of Passover, vicariously experiencing both oppression and liberation in an annual Seder, might give historical meaning to American slavery.
Similarly, the exodus of over 10 percent of Ukraine’s population in the last year of war may require a ritual and even an historical prayer structure for the Ukrainians and the Western world to assimilate the horrors that were perpetrated there by the Russians.
In short, Passover lives in antiquity and in modernity. It is a ritual for all time to concretize the tragedy of oppression and the universal yearning for liberation. That its Jewish history doesn’t diminish its message for all peoples.
This year, as we prepare ourselves for our Second Seders and we continue to eat matzah, the bread of affliction, we let its taste and context expand to the concerns of our wider world.
For a meaningful Passover and a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
