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Sermon Passover Eigth Day- Concluding Thoughts

Eighth day Pesach is complicated. The highs of Yetzias Mitzrayim, the love and passion of shir Hashirim, the crescendo of Krias Yam Suf are all behind us. For those who say Yizkor the day presents an emotional challenge and for those with relatives in Israel jealousy might be the order of the day. Regardless of personal feelings this final day gives us an opportunity to contemplate all those lessons that have been taught and studied before and during Pesach.

Starting with Shabbat Hagadol and in particular the very first one, 3326 years ago. This was our coming of age moment, the Bnei Yisrael grew up and became great/GADOL. Standing up to the society which had embittered their lives and openly defying the religious order transformed the slave nation into a liberated nation. They were still confined to the Egyptian borders but their spirits were free and when the time came to leave they walked out tall and pride. Shabbat Hagadol demanded something from us, to be courageous! To be a GADOL!

The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all, one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and, today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics are important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we’ve lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we’re feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage.

Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. I see it in my classroom when a student raises his or her hand and says, “I’m completely lost. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Do you know how incredibly brave it is to say “I don’t know” when you’re pretty sure everyone around you gets it? The truth is many times lots of others are just as lost.

When we share our stories of vulnerability and imperfection with our children we teach them that it is possible to be brave and afraid at the same time, courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. How confidant are we in our own Judaism? How certain are we that we would have taken the sheep and smeared the blood on our own doorposts ? With the interfaith work I have done I keep on being amazed by the confidence and certainty that others have with their own traditions and the absence of that pride when it comes to our own community. The lack of pride in the state of Israel expressed by the dearth of people attending Yom Haatzmaut tefila/Israel Independence Day prayers compared to the masses who turn out for Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Memorial Day, the nervous way we express Jewish customs and rituals to ourselves, our children and those of other and no faith. Shabbat Hagadol demanded that we become courageous, great and confident that we live with the truth of our Torah and to take pride in our mesora. If we need one more reason to do the right thing, consider this:  our children are watching us, deciding how to live their lives in part by how we’ve chosen to live ours.

Seder night gives us the wonderful opportunity to unleash hidden talents. Some become quiz show hosts as families divide into competing teams to discuss yetzias mitzrayim. Others become budding thespians and act out the story with varying levels of skill. All parents have the chance to become teachers that hallowed profession that is often dissected and discussed around many a Shabbos table, many believing as Oscar Wilde did “that everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.” Vehigadta L’bincha- tell your child. What are you passing on? Memories of boredom? The burden of Seder night or the majesty of Jewish tradition?

It might have been tempting to point at a family member when the marror was spoken of or to have poured salt water into an annoying relatives Kiddush wine but we must remember that the Torah specifically required the Israelites to eat the Pesach meal with family. The focus on the home and family as the nation is about to be liberated reminds us that the freedom is best enjoyed in the safe environment of the home whilst being surrounded by family. Seder night is not an easy ritual. Young family would have worked in school to produce beautiful resources that they might wish to share, cantankerous older members might have wished to get it all over with. Moshe demanded that Pharoah release the entire nation from young to old and somehow we needed courage to accommodate all our guests around our own tables without leaving anyone grumbling that slavery would have been less gruelling than a Seder night.

There are a number of modern innovations that are creeping into the Hagadah. One rather eclectic one is the singing of other songs that deal with the slavery in Egypt. Go Down Moses that famous African-American slave song. A Hebrew translation of the song is a common element in the Seder in Israel. However the lyrics whilst appearing appropriate miss a crucial point.

When Israel was in Egypt’s land: Let my people go,

Oppress’d so hard they could not stand, Let my People go.

Go down, Moses,

Way down in Egypt’s land,

Tell old Pharaoh,

Let my people go.

Let my people go! Sounds great, who amongst us will not applaud the melody of freedom, many will die so others can have freedom, but Moshe never asked for that, shalach ami v’yaavduni- let my people so they may serve me!

The history of freedom has been as colourful as depressing. Too often yesterday’s heroes of the liberation had a melodramatic quality of turning into tomorrow’s unconscionable tyrants.

Rabbi Soloveitchik taught: “The purpose of the Exodus is not political freedom, but the conversion of a slave society into a kingdom of Priests – mamlekhet kohanim v’goi kadosh and a holy nation.” 

Freedom must have purpose and direction. If the slaves are simply freed to go off and do whatever they want, that is a lower level of freedom. But, with freedom with purpose, the Jewish people are asked to go to God, giving them meaning, a system of Mitzvot about how to live and how to perfect the world.  That is freedom with purpose. 

Two American academics, Hubert Dreyfus of Berkeley and Sean Dorrance Kelly of Harvard published a book called “All Things Shining.” 

They write: For the past hundred years or so, we have lived in a secular age. That does not mean that people aren’t religious.  It means there is no shared set of values, so individuals have to find or create their own meaning.

Individuals are usually not capable of creating their own lives from the ground up.  So, modern life is marked by frequent feelings of indecision and anxiety.

“Many people nonetheless experience intense elevation during the magical moments that sport often affords.  They call this experience “whooshing up.” We get whooshed up at a sports arena, at a music concert, or even walking through nature.”

Many Jews don’t have a regular pattern of Jewish moments; they only have these occasional Jewish whooshing up moments. They choose spiritual moments and ideas like a buffet, but lack any ultimate purpose and direction.  Our tradition has a different approach. We do have ultimate purpose and direction.  We are given the gift of the Torah, with its core eternal ideas of perfecting the world in the image of God.

We are blessed to have that purpose.  We have freedom with purpose, with direction.   The period between Pesach and Shavuot becomes blurred in Halachik minutia. The bridge that connects the two Chagim brings the freedom we experience on Pesach to its zenith, freedom with purpose, that purpose being the Torah.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben (son of) Levi said, on every day a heavenly voice emanates from Mount Horeb, announcing: ‘Woe to them, the people, because of the affront to the Torah.’ For anyone who does not study is called ‘rebuked,’ as the verse says ‘As a golden ring in a swine’s snout, so too is a beautiful woman who has turned from sound reason’ (Proverbs 11:22). It also says, ‘And the tablets were the handiwork of G-d, and the writing was G-d’s writing engraved on the tablets’ (Exodus 32:16). Do not read ‘charus’ (engraved), rather ‘chairus’ (free). For you will not find a freer person than one who is involved in the study of Torah.

Rav Hirsch explains that as long as there are people who will not recognise the true worth of the Torah who will not employ it for the spiritual and moral perfection and sanctification of both the inner life and outward actions Mount Sinai will stand as a rebuke, humanity not the Torah suffers when the Torah is abandoned.

A person who does not allow the Torah to influence his physical and spiritual life for his ennoblement and betterment is unworthy of being near God. A truly devoted study of Torah makes us free, free from error, free from temptations of physical lust and desires and free from the crushing and degrading power of the multitude of worries and troubles of daily life.

V’hasianu es birkas Mo’adecha- this is the brocho/blessing of 8th day Pesach, to have one more day to contemplate the Yom Tov of Pesach. Freedom with responsibility gets us to Har Sinai, we are already one week into the Omer, the journey has begun, as we put our homes back tonight make sure that you only put your Pesach dishes away and not the lessons, and let’s keep looking forward and marching towards Har Sinai.

Yorumlar


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