Pesach 5772

The following is excerpted from articles by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

The Pesach (Passover) seder puts the education of our children at its heart. The narrative of the Haggadah is constructed in response to a child’s questions: first the famous four questions, and soon after, the passages describing the four sons’ differing approaches to the seder.

In Torah, (Shemot/Exodus 12:26, 13:8, 13:14), when Moshe (Moses) addresses the people as they are about to go free, his theme is children, education and the distant future. “And when your children ask you, what does this ceremony mean to you?...On that day, tell your son, I do this because of what the L-rd did for me when I came out of Egypt…In days to come, when your son asks you, what does this mean?” Moshe recognizes that it is education that helps build and sustain a free society.

Throughout history, Jews have been scattered amongst the nations of the world. Faced with persecution, assimilation and numerous life-threatening challenges, Jews have proven to be a stubborn people -- a people that not only overcame these obstacles, but thrived. How has this happened? It is because Jews have known that to defend a country, you need an army, but to defend a civilization, you need education. You need to teach children why freedom matters and how it was achieved.

Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression. True freedom requires the rule of law and justice and a judicial system in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others.

Freedom begins with what we teach our children. Freedom is won not on the battlefield but in the classroom and the home. That is why Jews became a people whose passion is education, whose heroes are teachers and whose citadels are schools.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on Pesach, when the entire ritual of handing on our story to the next generation is set in motion by the questions asked by a child.  Pesach’s central lesson is quite simple: encourage your children to ask questions and teach them the history of freedom if you never want them to lose it.

Chol HaMoed Pesach 5771

Jewish tradition teaches that Passover is so named because G-d passes over the houses of the Jews during the tenth and final plague. This disturbing image of G-d, hopping and skipping over the Jewish homes while causing the death of first-born Egyptians is also hinted at in the Song of Songs, which is read on Passover. "Behold the voice of my beloved comes skipping over mountains, hopping over valleys."

The oral tradition emphasizes that it was G-d himself who skips. The Jerusalem Talmud establishes that G-d personally comes to redeem Israel. He does not send an agent. A verse from Shemot (Exodus) reads: "I will perform judgment. I am G-d." (Here G-d calls Himself the unpronounceable tetragram YHVH.)

What is the significance of G-d's personal involvement in the Exodus?

The Jews in Egypt deteriorate to nearly the lowest level of spiritual impurity and moral decadence. Our Sages teach that G-d saves them just before they fall to the very lowest level of total impurity. Such impure Jews hardly seem worthy of liberation. But G-d frees them anyway.

Judaism teaches that the essential name of G-d is YHVH, and that the essential attribute of G-d is love and compassion. Another name for G-d is Elokim. It is the name for G-d that appears throughout the story of creation, and refers to G-d when He is revealed as Judge, committed to laws, order, justice, consequences, cause and effect. G-d as Elokim responds measure for measure to the choices and deeds of the people. But the name Elokim is only an aspect of the name YHVH. In other words, the divine attribute of justice is an aspect of the attribute of love, and subordinate to it.

Such is the way of parenthood. Because we love our children, we set rules and regulations. We create a world of law and order where choices incur consequences. We judge our children, reward them and discipline them, all for the sake of empowering them to take responsibility and reach their potential. However, because our judgment is due to our love, and therefore subordinate to it, there may be times when we are compassionate towards our children even though they do not deserve it. We will "pass over" our standards of judgment and be compassionate, in order to save our children. We will overrule our rules in the name of love.

On Passover, we remember that when G-d passes over the homes of the Jews, He passes over His attribute of judgment and justice in the name of love. On Passover, we remember that G-d's love is unconditional -- He loves us enough to redeem us even when we are not worthy.

(Excerpted from the writings of Rabbi David Aaron.)