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Jewish World Review March 31, 1999 /14 Nissan 5759

Don Feder

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At Passover, Egypt is a state of mind

(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
IT HAS BEEN ESTIMATED that by the year 2005 there will be 1 billion personal computers -- that isn't a typo -- on this on-line planet.

The speed of change is hard to compute. In a world that seems to accelerate with each revolution, the timeless holiday of Passover beckons.

The Passover meal, or Seder, may be the world's oldest continuously observed religious ritual, dating back over 3,300 years.

Jews with almost no other connection to Judaism will have a Seder this evening. Jews whose observance of Jewish law is indifferent at best will scrupulously abstain from eating bread and other products of five prohibited grains for the next 8 days.

Passover has slipped into the popular consciousness, in a superficial way.

At a signal from Charlton Heston, Cecil B. DeMille parts the Red Sea. (Jeffrey Katzenberg did it better in his animated feature.) Jews eat tasteless crackers to commemorate the hasty departure from Egypt. There wasn't time to hit a convenience store for proper provisions.

If you think Passover is just about physical liberation (let my people go), you're missing the most important point.

Rabbi Nachum Braverman, author of "The Bible for the Clueless but Curious," notes the Passover Haggadah (that contains the Seder service and recounts the Exodus) doesn't mention Moses. Braverman comments, "Moses is a cipher -- the tool God uses to set his people free."

If Moses is a cipher, Pharaoh is a foil. In his initial confrontation with the Levite, the ruler of the Upper and Lower Nile haughtily inquires, "Who is G-d that I should listen to Him?"

Hand-baked matzah
Other tyrants have flung this question at the heavens. Frederick the Great said G-d is with the side that has the best army. Stalin wondered how many divisions the Pope commands. Blinded by power, princes and potentates can't discern an authority higher than themselves.

Their question is always answered with finality. Hitler died by his own hand, a cornered rat. Stalin raved and cringed on his deathbed. Pharaoh perished with his host in the Red Sea.

Ultimately, Passover is about sovereignty. The rabbis often ask rhetorically: "Why thank G-d for taking us out of slavery? He put us there!"

(See the concluding chapters of Genesis.)

He did so to fulfill His design. In a reference that seems oddly out of place, the Haggadah relates, "Once our ancestors (pre-Abraham) worshipped idols." The crucible of Egypt was necessary to burn off the spiritual dross of idolatry.

To manifest His supremacy, G-d had to take everything from the Israelites, so that a totally debased people could be given everything (freedom, dignity, nationhood, land), and one thing no other people had -- a mission.

Slavery is but the most visible form of servitude. In preparation for Passover, the observant Jew will search his home forchametz (food made with yeast or its derivative). It's leaven that gives bread and cake its taste and appeals to our senses.

Bread baked with yeast is compared to the ego, which also becomes inflated. (Rabbi Braverman, "The difference between matzah and a slice of Wonderbread is just a lot of hot air.")

Thus chametz has come to symbolize all of the things that enslave us with their cunning allurements. In the words of the Artscroll Haggadah, it is "the symbol of self-assertion and indulgence."

As our culture becomes richer and more worldly, the forms of bondage multiply -- food, alcohol, drugs, sex, entertainment, money, career, fame.

They control our existence as surely as the edicts of any tyrant. Their incessant demands sting us like the taskmaster's lash. They drive us ceaselessly.

We used to say man will bow to G-d or he will bow to tyrants. That was before the era of mass entertainment and a consumer culture.

Now we say man will worship G-d or he will bow to Hollywood, Madison Avenue, video rentals, the Internet, electronic gadgets, the World Wrestling Federation, the Home Shopping Network, personal autonomy and Dow Jones.

As the observant Jew sweeps bread crumbs from his house, the Passover calls upon us to disavow that which enslaves us, to sweep it from our lives. Egypt is a state of mind.

The rabbis say redemption wasn't completed with the Exodus, or the giving of the Law at Sinai, or the possession of the Promised Land, or the building of the Temple. Its fulfillment is in the future.

Passover celebrates the redemption that was and anticipates the redemption that will be, when the world is at last free of chains -- psychological as well as physical -- when all humanity will acknowledge His dominion.


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©1999, Creators Syndicate