The many lessons of the season.
Pesah celebrates freedom. Of course, the freedom we celebrate is literal: we express our gratitude for not being slaves. Had we not been liberated from the grip of Pharaoh we would have long ago ceased to exist. The Jewish people would have succumbed to the planned genocide.
Besides relishing our freedom and existence the import of G-d leading the people Israel from slavery was that we developed an empathy for anyone afflicted. Lesson: Torah directs us to be an “or la-goyim” an emblematic light to show how people are supposed to behave as protectors of one another.
Countless times the Torah and our prayers recount the great liberation as an ongoing reminder of this history-changing event. Along with being empathic we are also directed to not venerate the man Moses as the liberator but G-d.
Lesson: there is a caring G-d who is involved in our lives and deeply cares for our wellbeing.
Pesah is also a reminder of a broken-spirited human being. In the midrash we read, Rabbi Abba bar Yudan said: “Everything that God disqualified in animals, He endorsed in people. For animals, He disqualified the blind or broken or maimed, but in humanity He endorsed the broken, downtrodden heart.”
How many of those who were enslaved lived with the ongoing physical as well as psychic pain of having been abused? We live in a community where everyone matters. All are scarred. All are wounded, not by the master’s whip but by verbal abuse, as victims of fraud and deceit, manipulated by those who wanted to impose their power over us. Pesach also teaches: All the broken are cherished by God. And we are all broken.
The table where we sit also seeks to teach us a mighty lesson. It is not only the acceptance of all types of character that the story of the four sons tells but we are also prompted to ask, who is absent? Who is so alienated from our family that they cannot sit with us? Or whom have we cut out of our lives? Who lives in the margins of our community that we cannot even conceive of inviting them to our table? Maybe the undrained cup of Elijah is more than a request for deliverance, maybe it is also a recognition that we have missing parts of our relationships. Lesson: Do not ignore the empty chair.
Pesah is not about flying frogs or getting to the meal more swiftly, it is about becoming aware of the signs and symbols that surround us that can make our lives more meaningful, endowed with a greater quality. Even the great Moses had to be cajoled by G-d to remove himself away from the simple life of a shepherd with few responsibilities to become the champion of the Jewish nation. “In every generation…” begins the narrative. But we could easily change that to read, “In every generation people do their utmost to escape the real truth of their life – that they are endowed with unique gifts that once realized can make their entire life purposeful and meaningful.” Most people want more by doing less. And yet the simple truth that we all know is that our life takes on meaning only when we act upon our gifts, which means doing, sharing, and giving. Think of all the accomplishments you would want remembered when you die. Not the salary or vacation home. Certainly not an accumulation of wealth. Are the aspects that we will be remembered for not all basically the same? They incorporate the things we did for others, not for ourselves. Think of the memories we hold for those who have died: they are invariably about their contributions, not about what they accumulated. Lesson: Life is about what we give, not what we take.
Thought: Saul Levinsky interpreted the meaning of the Star of David. “While the first triangle points one way, the second triangle insists on pointing in the opposite direction.”
Perhaps Pesah’s lesson is to conceive of life differently.
