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Seders Are Done, But Passover Isn't!

My column for the April 2019 bulletin for Temple Beth Abraham:

One way to experience Pesach (Passover) is: Two nights of Seder, followed by a week of matzah. Two nights of a unique happening – around a table, with people very familiar and/or new to you, part recitation and part roleplaying, with symbolic foods and special foods, detours for discussion, hopefully much singing. Then – a week of just figuring out how to eat.

In fact, Pesach is meant to be so much more expansive. A long, immersive experience of first-time freedom. The Seders are supposed to launch us into a week-long new year festival. We’re intended to continue to read and reflect on the meaning today of our people’s Exodus from Egypt. We’re meant to experience freedom as though these were our first free days and our first free steps.

The Seder scripts the very first steps, just as the Torah says our ancestors were guided step-by-step through the days leading up to and through the first Pesach. But part of freedom for them meant that they didn’t have a simple script for the next days, the first days as a free nation.

And it’s the same for us. It’s on us as Jews to define what those first days of freedom are going to be like. We have special food for the journey – matzah and other Kosher for-Passover things. What will we make out of our freedom?

In the Talmud, the sages Rav and Shmuel argue over what freedom essentially means. Shmuel says the story of the Exodus begins: “We were slaves in Egypt.” Rav says: “Long ago, our ancestors worshipped false gods.”

For Shmuel, the story culminates in the final escape from Pharaoh. For Rav, the story peaks when the Jews arrive at Mt. Sinai, to make a covenant and speak directly with God. Shmuel argues that the Exodus is primarily about physical and political oppression. So Pesach is a celebration of being freed from tyrants and tyrannies.

Rav argues that it’s about spiritual oppression, about being freed as well from the falsehoods of Egypt. So Pesach is about how we get ourselves to Mt. Sinai, how we decide to use our freedom.

This year, we need both a Shmuel perspective and a Rav perspective on our situation as Jews. We should use the whole of Pesach, not just the Seders, to reflect and learn about what it means to be free Jews today, and commit ourselves to some actions as a result.

In a Shmuel perspective, we need to reflect and learn about anti-Semitism, from the murders in Pittsburgh to the slanders of Rep. Omar. Here’s a book to read during Pesach, if not before: Anti-Semitism: Here and Now by Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt. Prof. Lipstadt is one of the most sought-out teachers and commentators on the matter. She is a Holocaust scholar, the central figure in a major trial in the U.K. about Holocaust denial, and someone up close to campus anti-Semitism from the left. Read her book or find her writings online.

And if you have been feeling paralyzed by reappearance of anti-Semitism in any or all of its forms – resolve to take some action. If you are within a group that needs to be called out, do that from the inside. If you can be an ambassador for Jews and Judaism, among people who might know very little, do that. Invite someone to services with you, or invite them to coffee with you and if you like with me.

In a Rav perspective, we should remember that true freedom has to be for something, toward something. Pick something new to learn about Judaism. Come to a class, engage with the weekly Torah reading online or with a study partner or with me. Get your own copy (or borrow a child’s copy!) of Rabbi Telushkin’s Book of Jewish Values. While you are eating your matzah, resolve on a way you can strengthen our own Jewish community. In a joyful way, through Shabbat meals or at services or celebrations. Or when we need each other the next time you see an announcement about a house of mourning.

And as you take your first steps from Pesach toward Mt. Sinai, think about the next mitzvah that your soul is begging to focus on. It could be some aspect of tzedakah (giving) or lashon ha-ra (gossip). Maybe you even want to partner up with someone to do it together – create the next Beth Abraham tzedakah collective, or buddy up on a gossip management project and check in each week!

Whatever you do – don’t let Pesach just be about something that happened more than 3000 years ago. Don’t let the days after the Seder slip away without savoring the first moments of freedom and responsibility, without noticing that the way you’ll notice every crumb of matzah in the seat cushions!

Wishing all of you a Zissen (Sweet) and Kosher Pesach,
Rabbi Jon

E-Maggid: Counting Time

Last week we began the period of the year known as Sefirat Ha-Omer, the counting of the omer.  Between Pesach and Shavuot, we count fifty days to trace our journey from slavery to receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai.  This chasidic story is about counting time.  What can we learn from it in an age when the exact time is displayed everywhere, not only on watches and clocks but on phones and music players and computer screens?

 

* * * * *

 

When the Seer of Lublin died, he left very few possessions to his children.  One item was a clock.  His son took it, and once on a journey when he could not pay for his lodging, he gave the clock to the innkeeper.

 

Some years later, a young rabbi was staying at that same inn.  He arrived late and the inn was full.  But the owner had compassion and allowed him to spend the night in the master bedroom.

 

All night long, the innkeeper heard dancing from the room where the tired rabbi was staying.

 

In the morning, the innkeeper asked the rabbi what he had been doing all night.  "It was the clock!" exclaimed the rabbi.  "When I heard the ticking, I know It belonged to my teacher, the Seer of Lublin!  All other clocks, when people hear them ticking and tocking, they are simply counting down the moments to death.  But the clock of the Holy Seer was different.  He used it to count down the time to the next mitzvah.  'When can I say the morning Sh'ma?'  And he used it count how much closer he was coming to his goal of serving God with all his heart."

E-Maggid: Song of the Sea

According to tradition, the crossing of the Sea of Reeds is celebrated on the seventh day of Pesach.  In services that morning we will read Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea.  In the middle of the song is the most familiar quotation:  Mi cha-mocha ba-elim Adonai, "Who is like You, Adonai?"

 

The Torah tells us that "Moshe and the Children of Israel sang."  The word for "sang" is in the singular, though the subject of the verb is plural.  The word for "sang" is actually in the future tense -- yashir.  So how did they sing?  

 

Rabbi Nechemia interprets:  Moshe and the Children of Israel sang.  Everybody got the idea for the same song individually at the same moment, through divine inspiration.  Then they all sang together.

 

Rabbi Eliezer ben Taddai interprets:  Moshe, then the Children of Israel, sang.  Moshe taught part of a line, the people repeated it, and then the people added their own words to complete the line of song.

 

We prepared for Pesach by thinking ahead about freedom and redemption.  At our Seders, we reflected and talked together.  Now, on this side of the Seder, each of us has to seal in the meaning of freedom.  The song has to be our own, so we'll know what to do with it when we leave the Sea.  Perhaps you have been struck by a new inspiration.  Or perhaps from a teacher, Seder leader, or fellow participant, you have been given a hint to build on.  Either way, each of us has to make the song of liberation our own.  Each of us has to take this Pesach and keep it as a guide, as we march now into the days of counting the Omer.

Parashat Emor: Counting Time

Parashat Emor is one of several places in the Torah where the annual Jewish holiday cycle is detailed.  One detail unique to the list here in Leviticus is what came to be called Sefirat Ha-Omer, the "counting of the omer."  On the second day of Pesach, the Israelites were instructed to bring to the Sanctuary a measure of grain -- an omer -- representing the new grain for the new year.  That day became the beginning of a counting of seven weeks, leading to the 50th day -- the holiday of Shavuot or "Weeks", also known as the holiday of Bikkurim, the "first fruits."  So it's not really "counting omers", but the counting that is triggered by the omer offering.

 

The mitzvah of Sefirat Ha-omer is unusual in its simplicity.  All you have to do is to say the blessing and count -- "Today is the xth day of the omer."  There is no other act required, other than to say a number.  We take great care not to say the number before the blessing, since once you say the number you have in fact performed the act and there would be nothing left to say a blessing over.  So you'll hear people say, "Yesterday was the such-and-such day" before the blessing is said.  That's to check and make sure the count is right before saying the blessing,  or so that others can say the blessing and then count the proper number.

 

What is the significance of this counting of time?  For modern people, this mitzvah exists against a backdrop of constantly counting time.  We have our watches and clocks everywhere.  Our schedules are detailed.  Each new device we acquire -- computer, cellphone, PDA, iPad -- tells us the time.  We always want to know exactly what time it is. 

 

Not really what time it is.  What our clocks really do is to alert us to how long before the next obligation on our schedule.  How many minutes until I have do something down the line.  When I was in high school, classes were long and often boring, and I used to look at the clock, counting the minutes until the end of the period.  This moment, what I was doing now, became secondary to the end of it, to the next thing.  Then of course I would do it again, waiting for the next period to be over.

 

Sefirat Ha-omer is also about looking ahead.  But the focus is different.  It's not an endless , cyclical counting of our routine or the times of the day.  We count toward something of utmost importance:  revelation from God, receiving the Torah.  Sefirat Ha-omer does not mean that this day and this moment are subordinate to the fiftieth day.  Rather, what I am doing today gets its meaning because it is a step toward Torah.  It brings me closer to being ready to hear the word of God.

The counting is as simple as looking at a watch and noting the time.  Almost.  We add one thing -- a blessing.  To remind us that what is or could be happening this day is meaningful for today, and for the fiftieth day.  The day we hope to be ready, this year, to truly hear the words of the Torah when they are spoken to us as if for the very first time.