Passover, some thoughts.....

Last year I made a comparison between Passover and Baseball. The comparison can be seen in the archives in April 2005.

This year I think of Passover in a slightly different light.

As you are aware, Passover is both an historical and religious holiday because it presents the story of how the Jews were slaves in the land of Egypt and how they were freed from bondage. That is the historical aspect of the story. The religious aspect of the story of Passover includes divine intervention to free the Jewish people from their tyranny.

Tyranny has caused the Jewish people to suffer throughout the ages. Tyranny is, in essence, a sense of empowerment over someone else or some other people to impose your will upon the oppressed. After innumerable experiences in history of being the oppressed people, controlled by the tyranny of the oppressor (and in many ways, we remain an oppressed people), we must never lose sight of our need for compassion and empathy for those who are also being oppressed throughout the world.

Passover, in my opinion, is a time of reflection to consider why we, as humans, must stop being oppressors. We must ask what is in the human make-up that makes it essential for certain people to dominate and rule over others (like the Egyptians over the slaves) and to impose their will.

When Moses requested "Let my People go", was he in essence asking the Egyptian Ruler to provide the Jewish people compassion and to forget their enslavement and to allow them to live as a free people.

Of course, the request was ignored and the divine intervention portion of the Passover story tells how the plagues made the Egyptian people suffer for the tyrannical evil of its ruler.

As a Jewish people we should not permit ourselves to suffer from either external or even internal tyranny. We should remember that Passover is a time to remember that compassion, for your fellow human being is the Jewish and morally proper thing to do.

Shalom. Jeremy