Pesach 2013

 

 Tsav and Pesach

 

 

Every year we sit down and re-tell the story of Pesach. We do it because it's natural. We're used to it. Actually though, it's an action commanded by God.  With a mighty arm and a strong hand God freed us from the Pharaoh of Mitzrayim.

However, it’s important to also experience this holiday within an expanded frame of mind. Same story, let’s say, but a different way to offer it-up to God.

This is not an unusual process in Judaism. We are continually re-interpreting Torah. We can easily find diverse teachings that not only explain but elucidate each other simply through contrast. We also find teachings…everywhere…that exemplify both the necessity…and the miracle…of this diversity. Here’s one:   If we look at Exodus 32:15, we read that the tablets were written on both their sides. Rav Hisda, an amora of the third generation, a student of Rav, says that this means that the writing went all the way through the tablets. Therefore the mem and the samech, both closed letters, stood on their own by a miracle. In other words, the ability to read the letters from within and without (from both sides) is so holy that God infuses Himself beyond human experience into the letters themselves.

Here’s another example of how our teachings  can contrast and therefore elucidate each other: This Pesach we are to chant the Thirteen Attributes. God here is seen as compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, loving until the thousandth generation, forgiving but also punishing the wicked until the third and fourth generation. So when  Rav Hama questions how we can walk after God when God (Devarim 4:24) says that He is a devouring fire. Rav Hama then explains that we are to walk after the attributes. This does not mean we are to try to be just like God. It means we are to work to be like the divine reflection we see here on earth.

This is a great example of how two interpretations (even from the same teacher) can merge to form not only a blueprint for our behavior but also a greater understanding of our connection with holiness.

Now, with this understanding of Torah,  let’s look at the story of Pesach.  Maybe the Exodus and the crossing of the Reed Sea really happened (despite the lack of archeological evidence) and maybe it didn’t. Maybe the bones in the Haftarah section (from Ezekiel) really do rise up and walk. Maybe they don’t.  I don’t need someone to prove any of this on a reality map. What I do need is to bring this story to the present so it can also allow a blueprint for our behavior and also emphasize our understanding of holiness.

 First, we tend to want to understand the story in the frame of who we are. Who are we? According to Torah, what is a human?  What’s the definition?  Are there any boundaries?  Well, there are.  Right before we chant the Thirteen Attributes we study that a man/woman cannot see God’s face and live. Once we see God’s face we have crashed through the boundaries of our human selves and have entered a new arena. It has to do with light and divine sparks (as Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak  Kook and other great mystics have written). Revelation , the goal of Pesach, is  found not only in the Promised Land but in the light we can shine there.

 So, if we apply our Jewish way-of-analysis to Pesach, we see this: We can show and tell the Pesach story as human trials and tribulations, as a good plot with a goal and protagonists and antagonists, the good Israelites and the bad Pharaoh but only telling in this form keeps us enslaved! How very ironic!  Instead, it would be great to also experience the sequence of events as the offering of our divine sparks, the light in our smile, in our laugh, in our tears…to the sparks in God and in each other. Simply in the weaving of the story in this way we can reach poetically…in form…to the Revelation itself.

We can see the smiting of the first born of Mitzrayim, for example, as our need to cut off darkness at the seed when possible. When we start entertaining thoughts of self-defeat, we can think, oh, we don’t need to feel this way. This attitude is not helping at all!  Once the shadows become huge and riding dark horses or rising to life from basic bones, we can see our need to embrace them with the flow of Torah. Sometimes the only way to deal with shadow…or the yetzer harah…is to drown it in love.  Mitzrayim isn’t some other evil person racing to capture us. As William Blake (the poet) says, it’s the mind-forged manacles that we create within our very singular beings. Mitzrayim isn’t them. Mitzrayim is us. We place ourselves in our own mind-prisons.

 Of course…and I must say this…there’s always Amalek, the very depths of evil. But this week is not about Amalek. It’s about the evil in-between. 

There’s something highly fun and theatrical about clinging to story. We all love it. We all need heroes and bad guys. We all like to celebrate. And the story must certainly be honored at all levels.  But there are many stories in this world, some of them focused against us, the Jewish people.  And if the world obstinately sticks to the literal interpretation…well, first in many cases (Judaism certainly) this would ring of a lack of authenticity.  If we celebrate ourselves without seeing and acting-on the over arching metaphoric theme of our very existence, Peace will ultimately depend on our ability to conquer rather than to heal, on our lack of forgiveness rather than forgiveness itself.  This is not the path we want to take.

 So we may as well focus on our personal transformation this Pesach as we approach the Promised Land. It is, after all, what God has commanded us to do.