Before the rise of Reform Judaism, rabbis serving congregations
typically gave only two ‘real guy’ sermons each year. Oh, they might stand briefly each Shabbat and
offer some pearls of wisdom from the Tradition that would shed some light on
the weekly Torah reading. But a sermon,
or drash as we call it, would be a rare occurrence. Twice a year, to be exact.
The rabbi would
stand in shule and give major sermons on Shabbat Shuvah, and on Shabbat
Hagadol. Shabbat Shuvah is the
Sabbath that precedes Yom Kippur. Shabbat
Hagadol is the Sabbath immediately preceding the onset of Pesach. Of course, that’s this Shabbat. The rabbi would expound at length on these
two occasions of the year, in order to deliver clear instruction to his
community, on the laws of observing the respective holy days. On the nuts and bolts of how to do
it. Since it was simply accepted that
these laws were legislation from God Himself, it was considered most important
that everybody carry them out correctly.
Like many teachers,
I find that I learn from my students.
Sometimes I learn such profound lessons from my students, I can only
pray I’m giving them half as much as they’re giving me! My students’ insights are a sublime gift,
that give me the inspiration to go on. Even
on those days when I feel like giving it all up and going fishing.
In my Judaism for
Dummies class the last few weeks, we went out of the sequence of the book’s
chapters to talk about Pesach. Makes
sense, right? Since we were going to
talk about Pesach sooner or later in any case, we might as well talk about it
now. That way, especially my students
who are candidates for conversion can begin to understand as they join the
community for the first time, just what this is all about.
I generally don’t
focus too sharply, as an Orthodox rabbi would, on the nuts-and-bolts of
observance. After all – and this is not
a criticism! – we Progressive Jews tend to be easy-going about our ritual
observance. We do things as we know how. And we ideally draw joy and meaning from the positive
act of observing. Those who want more
help with the nuts-and-bolts, usually come to me individually with their
questions. Or they look them up on a
website.
But of course,
students in my class, which serves for most participants as a basic
introduction to Judaism, are not in the same position as our members
generally. They are ‘trying on’ these
observances, often for the first time.
They are more concerned than you, the members of my community, with the
nuts-and-bolts. If they are to draw the
same joy as you get from the observance of the Passover, they need basic
instruction first.
So these sessions on
Pesach have consisted largely of a series of rapid-fire questions from members
of my class. These, followed by
sometimes long, involved answers from me.
After the first week
of our focus on Pesach, one of my students made an important observation. He told me that he had detected more than a
bit of frustration on my part during class.
He wondered if the students were in danger of missing the forest for the
trees.
I realised that he
was spot-on. Of course it’s important
for these students to know how to ‘do’ Pesach. But it is possible to focus so
strongly on the how, that we miss the why.
I’d like to share
one aspect of the why with you, right now. Of course, we know the basic outline of the
historical reason for the festival. But
there’s a more profound reason why it is important. Why the Pesach defines us as Jews. Why the Pesach serves as a metaphor for life
itself.
The ‘original’
Pesach of course served as a process for an important transition. The transition from slaves to free
people. That wasn’t an easy process! I mean, it was so difficult a transition that
God stretched it out to 40 years. In
other words, in the end the transition simply wasn’t possible. A generation raised as slaves, as the
children of slaves, could not forge a free society under the sovereignty of
God. It would take their children,
born in the wilderness without the yoke of slavery, to accomplish that. Even Moses, the great leader and law-giver,
was judged the wrong guy to lead them into the Promised Land. His function was to lead the people through
the transition. He was not the one who
would lead the people to create a new land and reality.
So a most important
aspect of this observance is that it commemorates the Mother of all
Transitions. Now transitions are generally
difficult. Two weeks ago tomorrow, I
spoke about why we human beasts tend to be ‘conservative.’ We like constancy. It provides comfort. Even when the constant is not an especially
good regime. We see this in our ancient
forebears, in how they rebel against Moses again and again, demanding to be
taken back to Egypt.
So we should see
Pesach as a journey, as a voyage of transition.
And as in any voyage, there’s a danger in focusing too heavily on the hows.
Many of you have
been on cruises, some of you multiple times.
For many, it is a singularly enjoyable way to spend your important
vacation time. And in embarking on a
cruise, there is always a certain learning curve.
When I took a
cruise, the first event was the orientation.
At this session, the Cruise Director and others instructed the
passengers in everything we would need to know to have a safe and enjoyable
voyage. Of course, we needed to know
what to do if there was an emergency at sea.
We needed to know where to find life jackets and how to put them
on. And we needed to know our lifeboat
assignments. But also, we needed to know
when to go to dinner. Where to sit. How to order a special diet. What areas of the ship to avoid all the time,
or during bad weather, or when docking.
What to take when going ashore on an excursion. This was all important information!
But if we would
spend the entire cruise obsessing over the details of what, where, when, and
how, then we would miss the point.
The experience of the journey would simply go by, unnoticed. So when we go on cruises, we don’t worry
overly about these details and obsess over them constantly, right? Once we know what we need to, we shift our
focus to the experience of the voyage.
If we succeed in doing so, then we find the experience refreshing. So much so, that we soon begin contemplating
our next cruise. As long as the food was
memorable…
Pesach is like
that. We do need to know the
nuts-and-bolts. But then we need to
simply do it and let the experience transform us. To absorb the lesson of transition and enjoy
the journey. Because after all, our
lives are nothing if not a series of transitions. Occupational transitions. Personal status transitions. From single to married, and sometimes back to
single. From child to adult to
parent. Geographic transitions. And, for some, religious transitions.
Judaism is,
generally speaking, about distinctions.
Through distinctions, we find our place and create our own space. But Pesach, Judaism’s most important
festival, is about a transition. And its
story provides us with many important lessons about how to make transitions.
May your own
transition this year be a blessing to you and those close to you. Chag sameach.
Shabbat shalom.
No comments:
Post a Comment