The Jewish Passover explained

Passover is the ritual retelling of the exodus, the flight of the Jewish slaves from Egypt roughly 5,000 years ago. It is a story rich in symbolism and long on empathy - each participant at the Seder table is asked to imagine themselves as one of the slaves who was freed from bondage.

But it's more than an encounter group with our ancestors. It is a time for looking at our own lives in a new light, rediscovering our cultural roots and seeing the ways that we remain slaves - to intolerance, to material things, even to traditions that we perform out of duty rather than to revitalize our spirits. The phrase "Next year in Jerusalem," uttered longingly and optimistically during the Passover service, isn't from a travel brochure; it is a metaphor for returning to the very fount of Jewish life.

An essential part of the Jewish character is humility. The phrase "dayenu" or "it would have been enough for us" is the chorus to a Passover song that lays out the multiple miracles God performed for the Jews during the exodus. Those miracles ranged from punishing the Egyptians (with a series of plagues leading up to the smiting of the first-born), destroying their gods and drowning their armies in the Red Sea to providing manna in the desert, giving the Jews the Ten Commandments and building the first Holy Temple when they reached the promised land of Israel. The chorus reminds us that a Jew's faith in God hinges on what God does for us, not promises based on our desires. For a Jew to become impatient with God's plan, to expect liberation in one fell swoop, is to misunderstand the nature of spirituality.

This is how the story of Passover gained its wonderful mix of allegory and instruction; each part of the story (and the ritual of the Seder) is based on the step-by-step liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Even the Four Questions, a sort of FAQ about certain Passover traditions such as eating matzohs and reclining in our seats at the table, and the story of the Four Sons, a portion of the service devoted to addressing the curiosity of a symbolic cross-section of contemporary Jewry - the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son and the son who "wits not to ask" - seem to be more about pedagogy than false piety.

And the list goes on:

The term Passover refers to the act of God "passing over" the Jews' houses on the night of the smiting of Egypt's first born. (The Jews knew to mark their doors with lamb's blood so God would know which houses were to be left alone.)

Comments (4 posted)

Unknown Comment 24/03/2012 02:37:22

The Jewish people will always be Gods chosen people. Christianity allows the gentiles to be grafted to the branches by faith.

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Heretic 24/03/2012 04:34:05

Who needs something explained that is based off a proven wrong creationism theory and silly presumptions on the original sin. Abrahamic based religions all preaching their own ways and take on things, rules on slavery, to kill or fight non belivers. All these people believe in the same God seeing as they believe in earth being made in the same fashion, humans descending from the same people yet all these people sure have contradicting stories about the one true GOD. These funny little people still fresh from the caves. Can you really believe that all humans descended from the same 2 people considering the many huge differences in looks, sizes, genetics, and skin, and that if they did humans "evolved" to fit the region from which their ancestors did. Which would do no more then poke more holes in Genesis based religion and prove that over time animals (yes we are animals) can change or evolve fitting the lifestyle and surroundings faced?

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Hmmm 24/03/2012 06:09:57

"can you believe that all humans really evolved from the same two people"

Why is that harder to believe than all humans evolved because long long ago two amebas accidentally bumped into one another...leading two all things on earth evolving into what they are today?
Personally,I don't know what I believe but I always find it funny that big bang evolutionists can accept the two amebas but not the two people.

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