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A New Question for Passover

Apr 16, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah

The means to ultimate redemption—and a sure sign that redemption has arrived—is peace between the generations. We can’t hope for redemption of the world, the prophet says, if the hearts of fathers and sons (the literal translation of the prophetic verse) are not “returned upon” each other.

Intent of a Question

Jan 8, 2011 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

Everyone knows that four children are mentioned in the Passover Haggadah and that one of them is the evil child. Probably fewer of us are aware that the question attributed to this child is a biblical verse found in this week’s Torah portion, “What do you mean by this rite (avodah)?” (Exod. 12:26).

A Pesah Message for My Students

Mar 27, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah

This week’s Torah portion reports instructions given by God to Moses concerning Aaron and his priestly descendants. The rest of us, as it were, are invited to eavesdrop.

Engaging Our Sons and Daughters at the Seder Table

Apr 4, 2009 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Pesah

I’ll be thinking a lot about my roles as father and son at the seder this year. Having lost my dad between last Passover and this one (my mom died eleven years ago), I’ll be sitting down at the seder table for the first time as someone without living parents.

The Four Children

Apr 19, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Pesah

We are told to probe the narrative of the redemption from Egypt for insights about what is blocking redemption in our own day and how we can work to bring ultimate redemption into being. The question facing us as we approach the seder, then, is this: What shall we tell our children and grandchildren at Passover—particularly the teenagers, college students, and twenty-somethings who are gathered at the seder table?

How Do We Experience the Season of Freedom?

Apr 14, 2007 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah

Freedom in biblical and rabbinic Judaism is a highly complex idea.

Pesah Three Ways

Jan 27, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

Unambiguous ambiguity is the hallmark of philology, the study of words. The deeper one delves into the meaning of a given word, the more that particular word yields to shades of meaning. This week’s Torah reading, Parashat Bo, presents us with one such example of multilayered understandings and readings. As the Children of Israel depart from Egypt, God issues the first commandment to the Israelites: “This month [Nisan] will mark for you the beginning of the months.” (Exodus 12:2). How are the Israelites to mark this new month of Nisan? On the tenth day of the month, the Israelites are commanded to select a lamb which will serve as the Pesah offering to God. What precisely is the meaning of Pesah?

Moses, the Charismatic Leader

Apr 15, 2006 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Pesah

It would have been sufficient. The refrain of dayenu that reverberated through seders around the world still rings in my ears.

The Meaning of Pesah

Apr 8, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pesah

Next week marks the beginning of Passover; with this annual celebration, Jews gather to celebrate the birth of the Israelite nation.

The Truth about the Exodus

Apr 30, 2005 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Pesah

This past December, I went with my wife and two adult children on a family vacation to Egypt.

The Theology of the Jewish Calendar

Apr 9, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Pesah

With Shabbat ha-Hodesh, we are just two weeks away from the first seder. Passover does not usually fall this late in April. A leap year accounts for its delay. In the Jewish calendar, unlike the secular one, a leap year consists of adding an extra month, and there are seven such leap years within every cycle of nineteen years. The month that is doubled is Adar, the last month of the year, the one in which we celebrate Purim. Hence, in a leap year, Purim comes in the second Adar (adar sheni) and Passover, thirty one-days later.

Passover in the Light of Yom Kippur

If the first half of this week’s double parasha reminds you of Yom Kippur, despite our proximity to Passover, you are not in error. The two Torah readings for that solemn day are both drawn from Aharei Mot. Chapter 16, which we read at Shaharit on Yom Kippur morning, depicts the annual ceremony on the tenth day of the seventh month for cleansing the tabernacle of its impurities and the people of their sins. The English word “scapegoat” preserves a verbal relic of the day’s most memorable feature – the goat destined to carry off symbolically the collective guilt of the nation into the wilderness. Chapter 18, reserved for Minhah in the afternoon, defines the sexual practices which were to govern the domestic life of Israelite society.

Bringing the Messianic Redeption

Apr 3, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah

The most distinctive feature of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath just before Passover, is that it called for a sermon. For in the pre-emancipation synagogue, the rabbi customarily spoke but twice a year: on the Shabbat prior to Passover and on the Shabbat between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah. These sermons tended to be halakhic in character, reminding congregants of the elaborate and proper observance of the holy day to come.

Connecting Pesah with Sukkot

Oct 10, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pesah | Sukkot

The parallelism between Sukkot and Pesach is striking. The Torah scripts them to start on the fifteenth day of the month when the moon is full and to last for seven days. Originally agricultural festivals, their historical overlay links them both to the redemption from Egypt. In each case, the name of the festival derives from the ritual which is its most prominent feature. In tandem, the two anchor the changing of the seasons in the fall and the spring (the two times of year when the seasons actually change in the Middle East) in the biblical calendar. They are the axis on which that calendar turns.

“All beginnings are difficult”

Apr 26, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Pesah | Yom Kippur

“All beginnings are difficult.” This rabbinic maxim resonates with us on many levels. As individuals, we experience the challenge of beginning a new job, a new phase of life, a new relationship or a new place of residence. As a Jewish people, we also recognize and ritualize this truism. We have just concluded our Passover celebration, in which we commemorate and reenact the difficult beginnings of our national identity. The Mishnah instructs us to organize our Seder with the awareness of the difficulty of beginnings: “One begins with disgrace and concludes with glory” (Mishnah Pesahim 10:4).

Pesah vs. Easter

Apr 19, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pesah

The overlapping this year of Easter and Passover, of the Christian Holy Week with our eight-day celebration of Passover merits attention. Unlike the yoking of Christmas and Hanukkah, Easter and Passover are festivals of equal gravity. Side by side they bring to light the deep structures of both religions.

Fourth Sons

Jan 11, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

I am fortunate to be able to teach to people who know how to ask questions. My students are part of the universe of transmitters and receivers of Judaism. Yet I sometimes wonder about people who are not in my orbit. It is as if a traveler comes to Earth and occupies himself with its inhabitants and their activities, and then looks out into the vast deep darkness of space and wonders who is out there in that domain of silence.

Judaism’s Two New Years

Mar 23, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah

In the Middle Ages, when rabbis were largely specialists in and adjudicators of Jewish law, they preached in the synagogue but twice a year, on Shabbat Hagadol prior to Passover and on Shabbat Shuvah prior to Yom Kippur. The ritual intricacies of each festival called for some public instruction. The custom highlighted the affinity between these two seasons which each in its own way initiated the start of a new year.

Dove and Rabbit

Mar 23, 2002 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tzav | Pesah

The experience of the exodus from Egypt, Yeziat Mitzrayim, which we commemorate on Passover, is indelibly marked in the collective consciousness of the Jewish nation. It is this notion — of having been slaves to the Egyptians — that plays such a profound role in defining the moral and ethical demands that the Torah places on us. Having known the experience of oppression, we are commanded to take that to heart, lest we turn to oppress our fellow human beings. Thus, Passover is a time in which we dwell on the essence of what it is that defines us as a people: how does our experience of slavery shape the way we behave today? What does it mean to be a chosen people? And how is that we as a people deal alternately with powerlessness and power?

Yikzkor: The Order of Giving

Synagogue attendance always swells at Yizkor. No matter how attenuated our sense of being Jewish, we are drawn back for a moment to offer a prayer (“may God remember”) in memory of those we have loved and lost. The observance ofYahrzeit and Yizkor remains hallowed. The proximity of death still fills us with reverence if not foreboding.

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