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Pesach Pesach This article was written by Stephen Butterfass for Religious Living on the Web. "In all generations, it is your duty to consider that you yourself had come forth from Egypt: As it is said 'You shall tell it to your child on that day, saying, It is because of what the Eternal did for me when I came out of Egypt'..." Mishnah, Pesachim 10.5 The origins of Passover (Pesach) may have been several diverse and ancient festivals that pre-date Israelite culture. According to this theory, there were at least two spring festivals: shepherds celebrating the spring lambing by sacrificing sheep and perhaps smearing the blood on their dwellings, and farmers welcoming the new harvests of barley and wheat by clearing out the old crop from their stores and subsisting on unleavened bread until the new crop was in. Somehow, over centuries, a transformation of symbols, a merger of ceremonies was supposed to have occurred. The Festival of Matzah and the Festival of the Pesach came to be part of a more momentous tradition: the liberation from slavery in Egypt, by a God who intervened in history to redeem the helpless and suffering clans who called themselves B'nai Yisrael, the Children of Israel. According to the Torah, the word "Pesach", is derived from the Hebrew word "Pasach", translated to "pass over", and used to describe how the first born of Israel were spared inclusion in the terrible tenth plague. Another form of the verb means to leap or skip, to jump, or to dance, and could conceivably describe the scene at an ancient lambing festival. By the time the Torah had become a written text, the story of the Exodus had combined these two separate ritual observances and memorialized them as symbols of the deliverance from Egypt. At Exodus 12:3-14, the households of Israel are commanded to acquire an unblemished yearling lamb (a male sheep or goat) on the tenth day of the month later named Nisan, and, on the fourteenth day, to kill it, roast it, and eat it hastily. Having put the blood of the animal on the side posts and lintels of their houses, they thereby escape the death awaiting the first born of Egypt. This became the paschal sacrifice, to be eaten with bitter herbs and matzah, and observed every year in Jerusalem until the Temple was destroyed and sacrifices were no longer possible. The command to sacrifice a lamb is immediately followed (Exodus 12:15-20, 13:6-10) by the command to remove leaven and to observe the feast of unleavened bread for seven days as a sign of the redemptive power of God. At another place, the festival of unleavened bread is further linked to the story by the explanation that the hasty departure from Egypt allowed no time for the dough baked by the Israelites to rise. THE SEDER The pesach sacrifice was not possible without a Temple to bring the offerings to. Over time, the ritual of each family sharing a roasted lamb was replaced by an elaborate meal, modeled on a Greek-Roman banquet, that combined eating with discussions. This became the Seder, which means "order". Once the story of Passover was put into its own special text, called Haggadah (narrative or telling), that pattern for the celebration became the tradition. Before proceeding to a discussion of some of the elements making up the Seder, it should be noted that it is a mitzvah to refrain from eating chametz (leaven and products containing it) during the entire Pesach period, which in Reform Judaism is celebrated for seven days, and by Orthodox and Conservative congregations, for eight days. You may wish to read the article on this web-site entitled "Looking for Chametz in All the Right Places" that discusses the practice of removing leaven the evening before the first Seder and after the house has already been cleaned thoroughly. No Jewish celebration in our cycle of holy times can be complete without attempting some repair of the world's ills. Therefore the giving of Tzedakah before Pesach is mandated by our tradition. Called me-ot chitin, literally "wheat money", it was collected from the community to let the poor among them have a proper Seder and to enable them to purchase matzah and whatever else they needed to celebrate properly and with dignity. In our time, Dorot, a Jewish organization in New York City, distributes Passover products to the poor, elderly, or shut-in. Mazon, an organization that calls itself "a Jewish response to hunger", solicits contributions during this season. Both are worthy recipients of our Tzedakah if we don't know where else to contribute our me-ot chitin. It is also a mitzvah to invite to our Seder guests who normally would have nowhere else to go. The Haggadah that my family uses is published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (there are hundreds of alternatives of every sort, enjoy sampling) and is entitled simply enough "A Passover Haggadah". It sets out the theme and hope of this Festival at page 26: "Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are in want share the hope of Passover. As we celebrate here, we join with our people everywhere. This year we celebrate here. Next year in the Land of Israel. Now we are still in bonds. Next year may all be free." The Seder is a symbolic ritual meal, built around a real meal. The point of the Seder is the telling of the story, and all participants are supposed to regard themselves as personally experiencing the going out from Mitzrayim, which in Hebrew means a tight spot, a narrow place, and is the word used for Egypt. The symbols are contained in a special plate placed before the one leading the Seder. All the participants should recline, (using a pillow is customary) the symbol of a free people at leisure to enjoy a meal unmolested. On most Seder plates, arranged in convenient slots (sometimes with painted representations of the symbols) and on the table itself, are the following: Three pieces of Matzah, representing the Lechem Mishneh, the two loaves of bread set out in the Temple during Shabbat and Festivals, and the third matzah, symbolic of Pesach; Zeroa, the symbol of the Passover sacrifice, usually represented by a roasted lamb shankbone; Karpas, parsley, lettuce or other somewhat bitter green vegetable, for dipping in salt water, and the symbol of spring, hope, renewal; Maror, the bitter herb, recalling the bitter helplessness and degradation of slavery (on most Seder plates there are two types of bitter herbs: the top part of a horseradish root, and prepared or grated horseradish to be eaten together with matzah as part of the ritual observances); Charoset, a combination of chopped nuts, apples, raisins and wine (Sephardim and others use dates, prunes, apricots, etc.) to represent the mortar used by the Children of Israel to build Pharaoh's projects (Why is charoset so sweet? Perhaps to remind us that Israel preferred slavery to the hardships and tests of a freed people?); Beitseh, a roasted egg, that recalls the Chagigah, the festival sacrifice offered in the Temple on the three pilgrimage holidays of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Four cups of wine are required to be drunk at the Seder, corresponding to the four divine promises of deliverance at Exodus 6 (quoted at the beginning of this article). The Mishnah preserves the decree of the rabbis that even a poor person must be given the four cups of wine, even though supported by the community's charity. Later, there was a debate among Talmudic teachers concerning whether a fifth cup of wine should be drunk because of a fifth promise that follows at Exodus 6:8: "I will bring you into the land... and I will give it to you as a heritage". The compromise was to fill a fifth cup that would not be drunk from and over which a blessing would not be said. Because it was believed that Elijah the Prophet would resolve all controversies in a future time, the fifth cup came to be known as Elijah's Cup. Over the ages this cup has stood for the belief that Elijah will surely one day appear to announce the messianic redemption, which would take place in the month of Nisan, as did the redemption from Egypt. The Sabbath before Pesach is called Shabbat Hagadol (the Great Shabbat). The haftarah reading for this special Shabbat is from Malachi 3:23: " Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Eternal. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." The welcoming of Elijah with a cup of wine as he arrives at each Seder comes towards the end of the evening, when many are tired, stuffed with food and wine, and perhaps more than a little amused by the notion of standing and welcoming an invisible guest. Don't be patronizing, be impressed by the wisdom of this custom. Why is this night different from all the other nights? Because the questions asked and the answers given, if done with love and respect, should transform us, if only for awhile. They should remind us that Pesach looks back to an ancient redemption to teach that each generation must seek redemption anew. "Therefore, even if all of us were wise, all of us people of understanding, all of us learned in Torah, it would still be our obligation to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt" (A Passover Haggadah, p.34) It is not the intention here to describe the entire Seder ritual. Every Haggadah lays out the order of the service and the meal, offers the telling of the story and the prayers and benediction. Each of us must do what is meaningful within the framework of the ritual. (Questions and discussion should be encouraged. Perhaps asking your guests to come with some readings, poetry or songs will enliven the shared experience of the celebration). The principal that guides the narration of the story is explained in the Mishnah: "one begins with shame and ends with glory". It is however, important that the story gets told properly. Rabban Gamliel, the leading sage of his day, decreed (Mishnah, Pesachim 10.5) that the failure to speak about the meaning of the Passover symbols does not fulfill the obligation of the Seder. What are these symbols? "Pesach" "Matzah" "Maror" (it has been suggested that his concern was over Jewish-Christians already reinterpreting the symbols of the sacrificial lamb and the bread) - "Pesach" because God passed over the dwellings of our ancestors in Egypt, sparing their lives; "Matzah", because unleavened bread was eaten as we were delivered from Egypt; "Maror", because the Egyptians embittered our lives. "The Jew at the Seder is supposed to experience the depths of depression in which her ancestors had agonized and to travel vicariously with them along the historical road leading to the heights of dignity". (A Passover Haggadah, p.10). Pesach is certainly about redemption, and it is also about hope and the celebration of a life force that bursts out in springtime. It is a tradition to read the Song of Songs (Shir Ha-shirim) on the Shabbat that falls in the middle of the festival: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land". The Song is a collection of love poetry, some quite erotic and sensual. Our sages declared the verses to be allegorical, symbolic of the love of God and Israel and included them as part of Hebrew Scripture. The poems speak about the renewal of the earth, about growth and life cycles, and about the physical love of human beings which is necessary for our life cycle. In addition to following the traditions of the season, it is important to retain joy in our observance and to recognize the power of love in our lives, which in the end will bring us out from Mitzrayim.
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