The Passover paradox: Being given freedom from slavery, but also new strict rules
Surely, freedom means the overthrow of rules? Why leave one bondage merely to enter another, even if only a symbolic one?
'Moses Parting the Red Sea' by Hans Jordaens.(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)ByMORDECHAI BECKPassover is half a celebration; it recalls an incomplete redemption, the genesis of a process that is yet to be consummated. In the half-baked matza, we recall both the slavery in Egypt and the exodus from it. To leave Egypt physically is not enough; we are obliged to struggle until we are freed for good from both external and internal bondage. Ahad Ha’am, one of the leaders of the Eastern European Zionists, was fond of quoting the Maharal of Prague, who had observed that it is much harder to take the exile out of the Jews than the Jews out of the exile.
In his book Exodus and Revolution, Prof. Michael Walzer writes of Passover as the archetypal revolution; a paradigm for effective protest against tyranny. “The Book of Exodus (together with the Book of Numbers)” he observes, “is certainly the first description of revolutionary politics.” The example of the Children of Israel was used by the Catholic Savonarola, the German Peasants’ Revolt, Scottish Presbyterians John Knox and John Calvin, Oliver Cromwell and the English Protestants, the American Revolution, the American black slave community, the South African Boers, and, latterly, the Black Nationalists, Leninists in Russia, and liberation theologians in South America.
As significant as these movements are, none of them do full justice to the primal Passover. The biblical event celebrates the first breath of freedom taken by a people liberated from the iron chains of Egyptian slavery. Yet, even before this first step is taken, the Hebrew slaves are beset by rules and prohibitions: They must mark the month of their exodus for all time as their premier month; they must slaughter a lamb, an Egyptian deity, and daub its blood on the doorpost of the dwelling place of their bondage; the lamb they slaughter is to be eaten by a discrete group of people only; they must eat matzah and nothing leaven for seven days, and so forth.
This strange juxtaposition of liberation and legalism strikes a paradoxical note. Surely, freedom means the overthrow of rules? Why leave one bondage merely to enter another, even if only a symbolic one? A rule is a rule; it invariably restricts freedom.
The Egyptian Passover and the exodus had a major impact on many of the laws in the latter part of the Torah, especially ones dealing with slaves, property, and personal dignity. In the Book of Jeremiah, for example, the prophet upbraids his fellow Israelites for breaking a covenant that God “made with your fathers, the day (He) brought them out of the land of Egypt.. saying: ‘At the end of seven years you shall release every man his Hebrew brother who has been sold to you; and when he has served you for six years, you shall let him go free. But your fathers did not listen to me... Therefore, says the Lord...I will remove you to all the kingdoms of the Earth.” (34; 8 passim).
ARTIST EDWARD Poynter’s depiction of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. Below, the Children of Israel on their 40-year journey in the desert. (credit: WIKIPEDIA)For Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, it was this transgression and not working the soil of the Holy Land during the seventh year of shmita that was the main cause of Israel’s exile after the destruction of the first Temple. The “proclamation of liberty” referred to by the prophet was not one of rights as is common in the West, argued Leibowitz, but rather one of obligations. Jews had to ensure that their fellow Jews were liberated. Slaves – those individuals unfortunate enough to have lost their means of livelihood – were the responsibility of the entire community. Every Jew is by definition his brother’s keeper, every Jew is connected one to the other by a mystical root whose branches know no bounds. This is what makes Passover peculiarly Jewish, though it could provide a model for other nations.
In his book Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton suggests that “feeble and decadent societies do not undergo revolutions,” and that “revolutions are, perversely, a sign of strength and youth in society.” Freedom takes a certain kind of strength to sustain it.
Freedom that does not lead to responsibility ends in the howling wilderness; liberation without purpose or thought is consumed by terror or boredom, or both. As Haim Lifshitz, Jerusalem rabbi and psychologist, observed: A water fountain is beautiful to behold, but its spouting waters dribble away to nothing.
Liberty abhors a vacuum; without content or meaning, it is an empty gesture. If it is restricted, it fails in its ultimate purpose. When it benefits only aristocrats as in Greece and Rome; or the bourgeoisie as in the French Revolution; or some select cabal as in the communist revolutions of Russia and China; or only one nation, can it really be called liberty?
“Modern society,” wrote that stubbornly spiritual psychologist Erich Fromm, “affects man in two ways simultaneously: He becomes more independent, self-reliant, and critical, and he becomes more isolated, alone, and afraid.” Passover points a way between the merciless enslavement to the pharaohs of this world and the cosmic loneliness that is the lot of contemporary civilization.
The meaning of the exodus is both practical and allegorical. A slave, for example, who refused to be free is to have his ear pierced and stuck to a door and thus “become his master’s slave forever” – that is, until the next jubilee year (Exodus 21;6). The cry against the very idea of slavery is apparent here. The shame of Egypt is never to be replicated. On this verse, Rashi comments: “The ear that heard at Sinai ‘the Children of Israel are My servants’ (lit. slaves), went and took upon himself a master; let his ear be pierced.’”
But why, it might be asked, is the slave to be pinned to the door? Why not some other piece of furniture? Is it perhaps because the door symbolizes the opening up to new horizons and opportunities? It is this that the slave rejects. He (or she) refuses to use his or her own potential to step over the threshold, to go beyond oneself. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the first Passover began with a doorpost, while the ritual of our own ceremony ends with the opening of the door to greet Elijah, the ultimate precursor of the final, universal redemption.
Passover Seder (credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90)In a powerfully personal passage in the Book of Numbers (9; 614), Moses is approached by a group of people who were unable to keep Passover, having been rendered impure by contact with the dead. Their request to keep Passover is one of the few occasions when Moses has to seek direct divine guidance. God tells Moses that in cases where people are unable to keep the primal mitzvah of Passover on the correct date, they can do so exactly one month after, in a symbolic way, eating the paschal lamb alongside a sandwich of bitter herb on matzah. A similar rule has already been given (Exodus 12.8), but it is this second formulation which is quoted in our Haggadot on Passover. In the rabbinical literature, the repeat of the rule in the Book of Numbers is known as Pesach sheini (Pesachim 66b) – literally, “the second Passover” – which takes place in Iyar, the second month of the annual cycle.
The question arises as to why this novel situation posed such a problem to Moses. Perhaps his puzzlement was connected to the very fact that the Children of Israel had been asked to prepare so punctiliously for the original Passover that it seemed almost blasphemous to be given a minimum replay a month later. After all the detailed laws governing the month of Nisan and Passover, this was a strange anticlimax.
However, the reason for this delay was not arbitrary. Those desert wanderers who complained did so because of the ultimate impurity – contact with the dead. This is the real spiritual function of Passover a spiritual cleansing out, a revitalizing of dead spiritual muscle and tissue. This was the second Passover, the inner aspect of the festival. Moses’ question was directed at the individual who wants to celebrate both the spirit and the word of Passover. His question was whether one needs an additional time for such a celebration. Tradition seems to say no. Although the original desert generation may have abided by God’s order, history has telescoped the two, as signified by the bitter herb and matzah sandwich which is an integral part of the Seder. This unique blend of food suggests that Passover demands that we face some bitter truths about ourselves and the world we live in, without which a more profound and vital freedom is not feasible.
In the mishna that heads the tractate of Pesachim we read: “Ohr le’arba asar bodkin et hahametz be’or haner.” In a comment attributed to the Maharal of Prague, “ohr” is taken not as the physical daylight but rather as God Himself. Only when the eternal light is allowed to enter our personal hametz is a meaningful liberty possible.■
