Its Passover next week starting on Monday night. Is Pesach a time to be radical? It is a pretty radical festival. Four cups of wine and a lot of questions alongside some whacky symbols of both our enslavement and freedom.
Raban Gamliel says we need to remember three core parts of the Passover Seder, Pesach, Matzah and Maror.
Pesach, ‘mai’, why Pesach? Pesach is the Passover sacrifice, in the ancient world a little lamb that was butchered for the Passover meal; on our Seder table, just one single lamb bone (a mushroom leg if you are vege!). The Passover sacrifice is the memory of who we were and where we came from. We were a people of sacrifice, of farming stock, wedded to the land who celebrated profound gratitude at each and every harvest. Passover at its core is the spring harvest. In my small way, at this time of spring I celebrate survival, the winter in the rear view mirror, a hard season to endure, this winter has been tough on community and on our family too. I offer thanks for our garden, a space where green things grow, the beginnings of parsley, lettuce, asparagus, chard, garlic and onions to name a few, how fun to have new life in our home and in the green spaces around us.
Matzah, we are a people who sit in gratitude at the Passover table and the primary symbol of the Passover table is Matzah. Passover is sometimes referred to as Hag Ha’Matzah, the Matzah festival. What I love about Matzah is that is the ‘bridge food’, the food that is both our bread of poverty and our bread of celebration. It is both the food we prepared while still enslaved in Egypt fearful of the journey ahead and it is the bread that we baked and ate as we entered the desert. In every generation since, the Jews, in celebration, have eaten Matzah, acknowledging and showing gratitude for our freedom to practice the traditions of our people. It is the food that so tenderly connects us with the aspect of poverty and deprivation. We break the middle matzah, putting to one side one piece for later as a hungry person might, planning ahead for the next meal. It is through the Matzah that we reassert our commitment to those most in need, those most vulnerable, to those who are hungry.
Marror, the bitter herb, on our table both a lettuce leaf and horseradish (sefardi and ashkanazi traditions), we recall our suffering. In order to realise our freedom we must first acknowledge our pain, the journey that we have endured. In the Talmud, in the rabbinic traditions, on the Passover seder (Pesachim 39a), referring to lettuce, Reb Yonatan describes how, like the lettuce, which starts sweet at the tip of the leaf and is bitter at its root, the Egyptian slavery began with kindness, the Egyptians permitted the children of Israel to live and work in Egypt. As the story progresses, they see the nascent Jews as a threat and enslave them. In this way Marror represents threat, the possibility that life can turn on a dime – this is an actual reflection of our lives and something that serves us to embrace, a cruelty and a beauty of the life we live.
What is so radical? Radical is putting it all on the table, with a few glasses of wine (for those who drink) and examine all the four corners of our own existence, our freedom, our slavery, that which holds us back, that which empowers and strengthens us. To ask questions of it all, the essence of its meaning. Our prayer for Passover should be that we can truly question, for many around our tables this is a terrifying prospect but even around the edges, we should ask fundamental questions about who we are and the core teachings of our people around this seminal story of escape from slavery. 2024 has not been kind to our people, it is our questioning and our critical examination of the lives we lead which is our strength and will stand to renew us and enliven our tradition.
Shabbat shalom.
Chag Samayach x
