Sermon for Pesach
Written by Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 17 April 2020
Three weeks ago, just before lockdown was imposed, I was about halfway through what was probably a mild coronavirus infection. I was incredibly lucky and wasn’t really ill, but I didn’t feel good. I decided that maybe I wasn’t going to bother with Pesach this year. After all, what would be the point? Who is going to know or care what I do? I’m stuck here on my own; No-one else is going to see the inside of my house; I can’t take my usual selection of home-made Pesach goodies to my seder hosts; my friends won’t be coming to me on 2nd night to study and debate and laugh and appreciate my matza balls. Of course I won’t actually eat chametz, but maybe I’ll just set aside one corner of the kitchen and make do with potatoes and vegetables for the week.
Then the sun came out and my energy started to return in little bursts. OK – I will clear out the kitchen cupboards after all … And descale the kettle … And defrost the freezer … And tidy up the books in my study … and so on. So that by yesterday morning, my house was pretty much as it would have been any other year on Erev Pesach. It wasn’t a rational decision: I felt impelled by something much more basic than any religion or history, as if I was driven by a sense of connection with the past: this is what human beings do in spring.
My experience has been that the very process of getting ready for Pesach has had a reassuring, therapeutic value in itself, connecting me with Jews throughout the ages who managed to prioritise this festival of spring and freedom, many of them through much worse circumstances than we are enduring now.
It is the first day of Pesach. Phrases from the Haggadah are ringing in my head. The one which stands out for me this morning is:
B’chol dor vador chayav adam lir’ot et atsmo ke’ilu hu yatsa miMitzrayim
(In every generation, a person is obligated to see themself as having personally come out of Egypt).
This key idea is inseparable from the obligation to tell and re-tell the story to each new generation. It is not only our ancestors who were redeemed … we were redeemed with them. Each of us is commanded to make a personal connection with the story of our people. If that feels far-fetched, and we are tempted to think that there has never been anything like our present lockdown, let me quote a few words from the Pesach story in Exodus (slightly earlier in the chapter than our reading this morning):
וְאַתֶּ֗ם לֹ֥א תֵצְא֛וּ אִ֥ישׁ מִפֶּֽתַח־בֵּית֖וֹ עַד־בֹּֽקֶר׃
None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.
וְעָבַ֣ר יְהוָה֮ לִנְגֹּ֣ף אֶת־מִצְרַיִם֒ וְרָאָ֤ה אֶת־הַדָּם֙ עַל־הַמַּשְׁק֔וֹף וְעַ֖ל שְׁתֵּ֣י הַמְּזוּזֹ֑ת וּפָסַ֤ח יְהוָה֙ עַל־הַפֶּ֔תַח וְלֹ֤א יִתֵּן֙ הַמַּשְׁחִ֔ית לָבֹ֥א אֶל־בָּתֵּיכֶ֖ם לִנְגֹּֽף׃
(For when the LORD goes through to smite the Egyptians), …God will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home.[1]
Stay home. Save lives. The message is the same.
In relation to B’chol dor vador Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg has written in his Pesach Companion: “We speak of the past in order to live its meaning in the present”.[2]
And in the 19th century, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav said: “The Exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year and even in every day”.[3]
The ‘Leader’s Guide’ to one of my favourite haggadot contains an essay by the psychotherapist Dr Joel Ziff. He writes about “Egypt and Exodus as metaphors for personal growth”.[4]
How so? The Hebrew root of Mitzrayim (Egypt) is related to the word tsar (narrow) (as in Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tsar me’od – the whole world is a very narrow bridge). Ziff proposes that we should think of Mitzrayim less in terms of a place in world geography or history, and more in terms of a state of narrowness, of oppression, of being constrained and limited. He reminds us that when Jacob’s family first went to Egypt, it was actually a place of safety, of rescue (from famine in that case). He talks about expressions used for Egypt elsewhere in the Bible, all of which seem to allude to processes of transformation: a womb which nurtures but then becomes oppressive as the growing fetus reaches maturity and needs to emerge as a new self; soil in which a seed is planted; a furnace which uses fire not to destroy but to reshape.
He goes on to explore what he calls ‘stages in the process of redemption’, and suggests that redemption can only begin when we become aware of suffering and powerlessness, because only then do we cry out for help, recognising the need for divine intervention and also connecting us with the divine spark within ourselves.
Ziff then reminds us that liberation when it comes will not only be about joy and relief; there is likely also to be loss and ambivalence and anxiety.
‘B’chol dor vador’ – every generation needs to find its own new meaning in the story of Egypt and Exodus.
We are all struggling to make sense of a world in which, in order to protect ourselves from the ‘Mashchit’, the destroyer which does not discriminate, we are taking refuge in our homes. We are sacrificing some of our freedom, and our normal social lives, for the sake of our own safety and that of others. We are constrained in our movements and our ability to celebrate, separated from those we love, fearful of the ‘plague’ and its potential to destroy.
This can feel like an ‘Egypt’, but let us remember that we are not slaves. We have enough food. We have the miracle of modern technology which (when it behaves itself!) allows us to be together even while we are apart. The restrictions on our lives are for our own good. Mitzrayim is a state of mind: it may feel like a constricting womb, but perhaps if our lives and health are spared, we can also use this time for learning and growth.
We read in Hallel this morning: Min ha-meitsar (another example of ‘tsar’ – narrowness) karati yah, anani bamerchav yah [5]
“Closed in by troubles I call on God, who answers me and sets me free”
In the words of the Hagada:
HaShata Hacha: This year, this Pesach, we are here. It is what it is. Not slaves, but in Mitzrayim, separate and limited.
LeShana HaBa’a: Next year, or God willing sooner than that, may we be … free to celebrate together, free to share meals and to hug one another, in our homes and back at Alyth.
(Chag Sameach)
[1] Exodus 12: 22-23
[2] Wittenberg, Jonathan A Pesach Companion. Masorti Publications 1997 p64
[3] Leader’s Guide for A Different Night. Shalom Hartman Institute 1997 p44
[4] Ibid.
[5] Psalm 118:5