We are in Passover time. Each year it means that less than 1% (think of it – a mere one per cent!) of world population will sit down to first, second and last seders, the ritualistic festive Jewish meals that so well represent the Exodus experience and legacy and have allowed millions of Jews, who had lived since then, the rite of cultural, religious and historic passage of their survival. Even in times of severest persecutions, or widespread inability to read and write in the language assigned to Jewish people since the beginning of times, the Jewish continuity converged at seder tables.
For the past two millennia Christians have become intimately familiar with Passover and its story, as it is no secret, no matter how much some have desired to turn it into such, that Christians follow the Hebrew Torah, with more modern, just two thousand years old, eyewitness accounts of the life and, most notably, the death of their god, who was arrested whilst celebrating the last supper, the final meal of that year’s Passover, Pesach, in Hebrew. That actually is the original meaning of The Last Supper that also became Jesus’s final meal with his disciples.
Over the lives of all Jews there is the inevitable hovering of the Jewish Passover spirit, the spirit of the individual exodus, the unchaining from whatever the burdens one’s life may have thrown upon that particular Jew’s or his ancestors’ paths.
Last week, at the first seder, I felt mine. The one that reconnected me with a person I grieved over disconnecting from the most.
I believe that Jesus too, from what I have read and learned in the Jewish history classes in college in US, was an observant Jew, and he celebrated Passover in the best of Jewish tradition, with a kosher meal and the proper order of eating from the seder plate or was it not yet placed on a single plate in his time?!
First the bitters that represent years of captivity, are dipped into salt water, that in turn represents the salty tears Jews shed in Egyptian slavery. Matsoh represent the bread that was flat, since the Jews fled their Egyptian homes so fast, the bread had no time to rise. Horseradish represents the harshness of slavery and also the mortar that the Jewish slaves laid between the bricks at the construction of the pyramids. Haroset, a sweet apple, honey and nuts mixture, reminds the Jews of the sweet reward that the ultimate gaining of freedom represents.
During seder, the red wine is dipped ten times to recall each of the ten exodus plagues, the doomsday prophecies that allowed Moses to lead his people out of slavery into the dangerous, long and never ending process of exodus.
Some of you, who have never actually undertaken any literal exodus journeys, will cringe at this mention. That is only because you are not thinking figuratively, for each liberation, be it from an overbearing friend, or an abusive boss, is your personal exodus, the road traveled to liberty, a reaching of precious freedom you must preserve, treasure, and if so needed, fight for with arms in your hands. For some, to the death.
There is nothing more valuable to a human being than freedom. It is the beginning of life for those who were liberated from the enslavement.
That is why Jews eat boiled egg at the Passover table – an unmistakable symbol of life, its continuity, and its very order. What comes first, though not the official question in the seder rite, is the prominent question in the process.
I am certainly not unique in thinking, to each his own exodus.
Many rabbis and wise men and women before me have said it. It is a given that our roads to freedom, the circumstances, are uniquely ours. The strive for freedom burns similarly within each human being.
I am not familiar with a story of any Jews who willingly remained in Egypt because of the fear of perils of their exodus. That does not mean there were none. For in every circumstance there are those whose fear of roadside perils exceeds their strive to free themselves and their children and their children’s children… Sometimes, they are so hung up on their fear, they enslave themselves to their next slave-master. And their children, and their grandchildren…
Passover is a pathway out of that fear, a reminder of the horrific reality of the loss of freedoms without having to actually re-experience it. Exodus is a reference book for human dignity, honor, perseverance, determination and the ultimate joy of fulfillment.
As to my very personal journey of surviving socialist oppression, a modern day slavery that is misunderstood and misused by too many, I could never wish that to anyone. Not even to my worst enemy. A swift death would be better than slow demise in torturous subjugation to mediocre minds that are taking over and never relinquishing control to the wiser, better prepared for the task, more qualified rulers. Rotting in the socialist oppression is my worst fear. My four decades ago exodus from under hammer and sickle is my own exodus. It never ends.
For first seder this year, 2021, we used a Stalin’s era plate pictured here that actually had the hammer and sickle stamped into it. It brought us additional joy when we listed our dayenus blessings and said, next year in Jerusalem.
Whilst we celebrated, we recalled how we were seated at the tables of our relatives, grandma’s, great aunts’ and others, that, as we look back now, we realize were their Passover tables. Even though they could not tell us anything about the meaning of anything, they continued the rite of passage. Even under the threat of arrests and executions. Even against all hope that we were collectively deprived of in the USSR.
I come from a long line of slaves.
I got freed – read my story in my books.
Becoming free made me happy.
I am a free liberated human being, who understands the value of Truth and the falsehood of Deception.
I need no special recognition, respect or compensation for my sufferings.
I wish you to find your own exodus and to love and treasure freedom.