(SBA) - Last week, I wrote about spring holidays in other cultures, so I thought this week, I would write more about Passover, an important holiday in Judaism. A generation ago, there was a large Jewish population in Sioux City, but many of those congregants have moved or died and today, there is only a single synagogue in the City. Many Christians think that they understand the holiday of Passover, but few know anything more than the ramifications of the final plague when all of the first-born son among the Egyptian families perished while Jewish first-born were spared, because those families spread blood over their doorways which kept the Angel of Death away. Passover is not so simple.
According to the Hebrew Bible, Jewish settlement in ancient Egypt began when Joseph, a son of the patriarch Jacob, the founder of one of 12 tribes of Israel, moved his family there during a severe famine in his home country of Canaan, For many years, the Israelites lived in harmony with the Egyptians in the province of Goshen, until their population grew so large that the Egyptians began to see the Israelites as a threat. After the death of Joseph and his brothers, a hostile pharaoh, fearing the power of the Israelites, ordered the enslavement of the Jews and the drowning of their first-born sons in the Nile. (Exodus 1:8-10) One of the infants chosen to die is Moses, who, when his Jewish mother places him in a reed basket above the water, is rescued from the Nile and adopted into the Egyptian royal family. This son, Moses, enjoys a life of plenty and considers himself an Egyptian until he is an adult and learns the fate of his own people. After killing an Egyptian who beat an enslaved Jew to death, Moses is forced to flee to Midian, where he marries on of Jethro’s daughters, Zipporah, and becomes a shepherd in his father-in-law’s fields. One day Moses comes upon a burning bush and hears a command from God to go to Pharoah and ask him to let the Jewish people leave Egypt.
Pharoah refuses Moses’ request and so God inflicts 10 plagues on the Egyptians including turning the Nile red with blood, diseases among the livestock, boils, frogs, hailstorms, locusts, three days of darkness and, finally, the slaying of each first-born boy in every Egyptian family. The Israelites, however, spread lamb’s blood over their door posts and lintels so that the Angel of Death recognizes that Jews live in that home and spares the first-born of each family. Terrified of further punishment, Pharoah decides to let the Jews depart, but at the last minute, changes his mind and sends his army to bring the Jews back. Moses parts the waters of the Red Sea to enable the Jews to escape, but all of Pharoah’s army is drowned. For the next 40 years, Moses and his people wander in the desert, searching for a new home country.
God commands that each year, the Jews must observe the anniversary of their exodus from Egypt by removing the leaven from their baked goods and to eat unleavened matzah, instead. God also demands that the Jews tell the story of their redemption to their children. Passover is observed on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew year. This year, the holiday is celebrated from April 12-20th.
On the first night of celebration, the Jews celebrate a ritual feast called a “Seder” where each family gathers to sing Psalms of praise for their ancestors’ release from Egypt and to eat a meal that follows the direction for the meal as proscribed in the Haggadah (“the telling”) Children are central to the meal, as they ask the questions that increase their understanding of the suffering, sacrifice and eventual arrival in the promised land of Israel.
Years ago, I was teaching in Northern Virginia at a school with a large Jewish population. I mentioned in class that I had never participated in a Seder and soon after, one of my students invited my children and me to participate in a Seder meal in her family’s home. My children were six and ten at the time and were moved by the whole celebration. The youngest child at a family meal reads the questions ascribed in the Haggadah, and although Kelly was only six at the time, she read her portion beautifully. The family truly enjoyed having young children to participate in the meal.
A Passover Seder (“order”) is a formal endeavor where the participants drink four cups of wine (over a long period of time) and share a Seder plate that includes bitter herbs (to signify the trials of the Jews in Egypt), an egg to represent the circle of life, a shank bone often taken from a lamb, and they taste a paste of nuts, apples, pears and wine (to signify the mortar that held the stones together in Egypt), vegetables dipped in salt water (to signify the tears of the Jews in Egypt) and matzah (unleavened crackers which the Jews took with them into the desert.) The consuming of the traditional components of a Seder plate is followed by a festive meal replete with traditional Jewish dishes including lamb, chicken soup, gefelte fish, and assorted fruits and vegetables.
