The People of the Bloody Doorways |
We, the Jews, make quite a big deal of the Passover holiday. According to one Pew Research survey, the Seder (a ritualized meal in which we retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the beginning of our journey to the Land of Israel) is the Jewish practice that is celebrated the most by American Jews, more than lighting Shabbat candles or fasting on Yom Kippur. To the best of my knowledge, the widespread and well-loved nature of the Seder extends to other Jewish communities in the Diaspora as well. And in Israel, roughly nine out of every ten Jews attends a seder.
So we like this holiday. And we make a point of commemorating it. Many think of Passover as a holiday of liberation. But as we say in the Haggadah, “Now we are here; next year in the land of Israel. Now we are slaves, next year, we shall be free.” And we say it in Aramaic, no less! The prototypical language of Diasporic Judaism. So much for freedom. The Seder has come to mean not merely freedom, but rather the aspiration of freedom. And hope endures. Long past the slavery and long past the emancipation, hope endures.
But hope of what? The story’s there in black and white in Exodus 12, and it’s only tangentially about freedom. The word, such as it is, doesn’t appear there. Sure, the text tells us that God took us out of Egypt. But it wasn’t an act of liberation. It was an act of commitment.
This is the first time that the Torah uses the term “Edat Yisrael”—translated as “community,” “congregation,” or “ethnicity” of Israel, take your pick. The Israelites of Egypt were no longer just the Sons of Israel, a familial and tribal moniker, but rather something larger as well. Behold, we were now one thing: a people. And indeed, it was God who called us by this name. And He did so as the start of a grand covenant: the merging of God and His people. This agreement was a bilateral process. God told us to sacrifice one lamb for every household and to place the lambs’ blood on our doorways. We did so, and God passed over our houses as he enacted the final plague: The death of the firstborn.
And God called the blood a sign! It was a symbol of our commitment and his protection. A divine engagement ring. And so we marked our houses, and sat inside them, and ate our ordained meal: roasted meat with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. And we ate with “Chipazon”, anticipation, with sandals on our feet and walking sticks in our hands.
I read the word “Chipazon” as connected to two similar words, “Chafetz,” meaning “desire” and “Chupah,” the word for the canopy under which Jewish brides and grooms get married. I cannot provide a firsthand account of one’s wedding day, but I suspect there’s no small amount of anticipation. Putting it together, I envision the “Chipazon” of the original Seder as this electricity of the soul, the energy of an internal motor propelling and compelling us onward.
So all of this starts to sound like marriage. The sign. The food. The remembrance every year on our anniversary. God brings us springtime flowers, and we make Him dinner. On Passover, we get engaged to God. We exchange vows, and make a symbol of our commitment to Him and Him to Us. On Shavuot, we participate in the marriage, and in the Land of Israel, we come together to build our home as newlyweds. But that relationship between God and the Community of Israel starts with the days leading up to the Seder night.
So the Seder becomes about unity and union, twice over. We become a unified people on the way toward entering into a union with God, to be completed at Mount Sinai. “Am Yisrael Chai”—The Nation of Israel Lives. As a singular entity. A community.
And the Seder is thus a communal occasion. No wonder it’s the most widely practiced Jewish event on our calendar. The text itself tells us to share with our neighbors, and come together with them, if they lack the means or the numbers to make a meal on their own.
I think those that conceptualize Passover solely as a holiday of freedom do it a disservice. The Seder is not a story of freedom actualized, but rather a reliving of commitment memorialized. It is not about the expectation of liberty or the entitlement of rights, as I suspect many Westerners think of the term “freedom,” but rather, it is about another quintessential American value: unity. E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. A People, powered by the anticipation of hope fulfilled. A hope, not of unrestrained freedom, but rather self-imposed restriction through commitment.
Next year, may we be free. Free to do what? Free to serve our People and our Partner. There’s both a nationalistic and a religious element to this idea, and I think that’s by design. For those that cannot connect to one, there’s the other. And for those who can connect to both, so much the better. And for those who cannot connect to either but express an interest in joining the event, then we should—as the Haggadah tells us—open the conversation to them, as one child to another.
The story of the Exodus is the story of the founding of our People. And that begins in the days leading up to the Seder, when we are told to set aside the paschal lambs and when we receive our new moniker, Edat Yisrael. It continues on the eve of Passover, when we are told to sacrifice our lambs, and we establish our new symbol: before the Menorah or the Star of David, we were the People of the Bloody Doorways.
Notably, the exile began with a bloody symbol, Joseph’s multicolored coat stained with blood by his brothers as a way of convincing their father of Joseph’s fate. It is only fitting that it ends with a bloody symbol as well. One of unity rather than division.
“And the blood will be for you a sign.” As I read that line, I cannot help but think about all the blood on our doorways over the last few weeks and months and years. The blood of our brothers and sisters massacred on October 7, and afterward, as the murderous attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other terrorists both foreign and domestic have continued to this day. I think about a Jewish People under attack around the world. I think about the paint-stained “bloody” hands of anti-Israeli instigators and provocateurs in Hollywood, on campuses, and on the streets. I think about the blood libels we face daily, and the ancient hate of us now resurgent.
We remain at war—in the media, on the battlefield, and sadly, even as we shelter in our own homes and saferooms. I see our suffering. I feel our pain. I see all the blood, literal and metaphysical, and on Pesach, all I can do is try to live in Chipazon, that divine feeling of assurance and electric anticipation, to know beyond belief that the blood will be a sign for us and for God, that he will protect us yet again and deliver us to safety in the Land of Israel.
Next year in Jerusalem. Chag Sameach.