The True Message of Passover

April 10, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     When intelligent people of different faiths dialogue, it is often in kind terms, but too often there is a note of xenophobia, a disdain or dislike of foreigners, a chauvinism. In many religious dialogues -- as in everyday conversations -- there may be an invisible elephant in the room. That  elephant is fear: fear that by ultimately agreeing and accepting one another, we will lose something very precious to us, our distinctness. If we are able to confirm too much that is Jewish in Christianity, or too much that is Jewish in Islam, we may find no leg to stand on to insist that there is a distinctive place for Judaism and a distinctive reason for remaining Jewish. In particular, we are frightened that our people may shrivel up and disappear, not so much through persecution, but through acceptance and assimilation.

     Once a year, in every High Holy Day season, we confess this xenophobia, this Jewish chauvinism as a sin. It is a sin we commit in our hearts that divides us from others, that hides the distinct truth that we are all created in God's image, whether we are Jewish or Catholic, Muslim or Protestant. It is all too easy for us to slip into the mode of thinking that divides us and makes us preach that others are not as "chosen" as we are, not as beloved by God as we are, not as good as we are. It is all too difficult for us to retain an awareness of the strengths of our own religion while accepting the strengths of other religions.

     We remember it is a sin to deny how close our religion is to Christianity and Islam at times like the High Holy Days, but when Passover rolls around it seems difficult for us to let slip the notion that we Jews are "chosen" above all others to carry forward God's work, that we are distinctively better than other peoples, that God has reached out to Jews in ways that God does not reach out to the other religions of the world. Passover has become the most xenophobic of all Jewish celebrations simply because Passover repeats the myth of our Jewish origins from one generation to the next. On Passover we are commanded to relive that beginning, to repeat one article of faith. As the Passover Haggadah puts it: B'chol dor va-dor chayav adam, "In every generation, it is demanded that you see yourself as one who has personally gone out of Egypt." And what is the proof of this according to the Haggadah? "As it is said: You shall tell your child on that day, ‘I do this because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt."

     And the Haggadah continues by saying, "For the Holy One redeemed not only our ancestors, but us along with them. For it is written: ‘You led us out of there, that you might bring us to the land You promised to our ancestors.'"

     Naturally, we read this as meaning the Jews, the Jewish people. Naturally, we see in this a command to tell our children so that our children will remain Jewish. Naturally, we see in this a command that sets us apart from all other peoples of the world. Naturally, this is chauvinist as far we are concerned. God led no other people out of Egypt, God led no other people to their promised land.

     But is this the reality? Or is this the elephant in the room? We must not allow the elephant to block our vision, to keep us from the true end goal of our Jewish teachings. The command to see ourselves as coming forth from Egypt is not a command to see others as not coming forth. The Jewish saints, those Jews we most admire and wish to emulate, are not lesser saints than those of other peoples, nor are they greater saints than those of other peoples.

     In my youth, I remember being invited to Seder at the home of my closest friend in Dallas who happened to be an Orthodox Jew. On the wall of the dining room was a framed portrait of Theodor Herzl. Yet I knew that Herzl was not an Orthodox Jew, but an assimilated and secular Jew. Nonetheless, he was a saint to my Orthodox friends and a saint to me, for he had reached out to do what he could to save the Jews of Europe. If he had had his way, millions of Jews would have been rescued or would have rescued themselves, millions would have been spared the desecration of the Holocaust. Millions would have come out of a modern Egypt, a bondage that was entirely real, to the Promised Land. What better portrait could have adorned the walls of an Orthodox home on the occasion of Passover? Though Herzl, like Moses, never reached his ultimate goal, he led the Jewish people through his force of character. It made no difference if he was Orthodox or secular. He was a Jewish saint, a near-messiah to the Jews. And that same portrait hung in Jewish homes throughout the world in those days.

     And if we were to openly acknowledge the truth of our religion -- that no faith is to be disparaged -- then we would also hang the portraits of Mother Theresa and Albert Schweitzer on the walls of our synagogues, for they also led people to freedom. And we would hang the portraits of Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King, Jr. on the walls of our synagogue, for they also led people to freedom. They are also our saints because what is written in the Haggadah is not only a message for the Jewish people, but a message that was sent by the Jewish people to be announced to the whole world.

     Our mistake is to think of being Jewish as a religion. Our sin of xenophobia derives from this mistake. Judaism is not a religion. It is a pattern of life that calls on us to live in the image of God and the image of God is not limited by religious boundaries. Religions are the husks, the exterior protections of ideas and ideals, but they are not the ideals and they are not the ideas. The ideals and the ideas that are expressed by being Jewish go beyond all religious boundaries and borders. They are not confined to the synagogue and they do not survive because the synagogue insures their survival. When they are confined to the synagogue, when they separate us from the church and the mosque, they seek to destroy our faith. They undermine the very meaning of freedom. This is the error of all orthodoxy with a small "o." This is the error of all fundamentalism. This is the sin of separation and prejudice, of xenophobia.

     Any true understanding of Passover calls on us to rise above this petty division of religions. I am the true brother of every true Catholic and every true Protestant and every true Muslim. The husks of my religion fall away when I join hands with others -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- to create new ways of leading people to freedom -- freedom from bondage, freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, freedom from tyranny. The truth of our Passover celebration is not the continuation of Judaism, but the glorious fulfillment of the missions of the likes of Mazon and the Northwest Assistance Ministries that feed the hungry, help the needy, protect the innocent, deliver help to the widow and the orphaned, find employment for those who have lost it, restore those who have fallen into slavery to addictions to lives of worth and value.

     So let us truly understand the meaning of the Passover Haggadah. In every generation you must see yourself as created in God's image, to do God's work on earth. You must tell your child on this day, we were created to lead all peoples to freedom, to create just and equal societies where all peoples may live together in peace and tranquility, for this is the promised land, a place where everyone behaves in accordance with the highest human image of God. And to reach that place, we need to be more than Jewish, we need to do more than light candles on the Sabbath, we need to love one another as we love ourselves, with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our might. And let us say: Amen.