Hear Our Voice

Did you know that the first observance of Passover took place before the Exodus from Egypt? Sounds strange, doesn’t it? But in the book of Exodus, Chapter 12, God commands that we observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread with meat from a slaughtered lamb, “roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs.” With apologies to vegetarians, this is the most real Passover there is. Simple and to the point, this is “OG” Passover! (check this definition if you need to learn what “OG” stands for): Slaughter the lamb, put some of its blood on your doorpost, bbq, slice, and eat with a cracker and some hot but savory spice. And that was Passover; that and not eating bread products for a week and remembering and retelling how once we were slaves, and now we are free.

But as I said before, we were commanded to do this before we were free. And since then, especially once the second temple was destroyed in 70CE, and Judaism goes through its own kind of fundamental revisions, freeing itself from the Levitical details of the sacrificial system, Passover has been our primary source text for what it means to be Jewish. In part because we chose this story as the driving force of our tradition AND because we have had ample reason, over and over and over again, to refocus on
freedom, because our people has been regularly and consistently the target of enslavement. Telling and retelling the story that once we were slaves, and now we are free, has been the trope of Jewish life. It’s why Abraham smashing his father’s idols, and Moses acting so punitively in the shadow of the Golden Calf, and why Mordechai not bowing down to Haman have endured in story and in relevance to this very day. It’s probably why we have attracted so much antagonistic sentiment as well. We Jews
“suffer” from our commitment to truth – the truth that states that God’s intention is that each, and every one of us, whether you are part of the 99.88% of the world who are not “MOT’s,” or the .02% who are, has inalienable rights and concomitant obligations to ensure those rights for oneself and all others (as long as those exercising their rights aren’t trying to kill us in the process).