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Lev. 23:4-5 4 These are the appointed seasons of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season. 5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at dusk, is the LORD'S passover.
The festival of Passover is known in Jewish tradition as the "Season of Our Freedom." Its central theme is Release. There are two ways to view and interpret the message of the Passover:
The three aspects of the Passover festival run parallel to one another: the dark and dreary winter corresponds at once to the dark era of bondage and to the black night of ignorance, while the burst of new life in spring corresponds, in turn, to the flowering of Israel and the burgeoning of freedom. In each case, the release is accompanied by a positive achievement; it is not simply an escape. It is also a cooperative act between God and man.
Yet the freedom which is celebrated in the Passover festival is freedom of a special kind. Our own modern concept of freedom has developed through diverse channels and is today a fusion - or, perhaps, a confusion - of several originally distinct categories of thought. It is mixed up, for instance, with ideas of sovereign independence, personal liberty and democratic government; yet none of these ideas - however fervently Jews may today adhere to them - enters significantly into the Passover ideal. In Jewish tradition, freedom, in the modern sense, is scarcely a virtue; at best, it is an opportunity. What matters is one's willful dedication, and it is this and this alone that forms the theme of the Passover story. If Israel had gone forth out of Egypt, but not accepted the Covenant at Sinai, it would have achieved liberation; that is, mere release from bondage but it would not have achieved freedom, in the Jewish sense of the term. For the only freedom, says Judaism, is the yoke of the Torah (one's bond and link to God's instruction); the only true freedom and independence is the apprehension of God.
The complex of ideas which today make up the Passover festival is the result of a long process of development and, more especially, of Judaism's inspired transformation of a primitive seasonal ceremony.
Answer for yourself: Did Judaism reinterpret the ancient's seasonal celebrations and observances and infuse them with their understanding of God's message entrusted to them? Yes. Let us see the proof. Leviticus chapter 17 holds the key we need to understand Judaism's transformations of the prior ancient's celebrations of equinox and solstices observances. God is now reinterpreting them and bringing to them deeper meanings (Gnosis) expressed above (historically and soul related meanings).
Leviticus 17:1- 1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 2 Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them: This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, saying: 3 What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp (understand that one's sacrifice was to be his meat and food for his family as well), 4 and hath not brought it unto the door of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering unto the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people.
Time for us to catch up with what is being said. The Rabbis teach us that God, at this time in Israel's past, takes their current festivals and holy days and "reinterprets them" for Israel. No longer are the children of Israel to practice these observances in the ways in which they had inherited; new meanings were to be attached to them for the children of Israel and they are to keep these same seasonal observances (equinox and solstice observances) forever.
5 To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace-offerings unto the LORD. 6 And the priest shall dash the blood against the altar of the LORD at the door of the tent of meeting, and make the fat smoke for a sweet savour unto the LORD. 7 And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the satyrs, after whom they go astray. This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout their generations. 8 And thou shalt say unto them: Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that offereth a burnt-offering or sacrifice, 9 and bringeth it not unto the door of the tent of meeting, to sacrifice it unto the LORD, even that man shall be cut off from his people.
Before I comment on the above passage it benefits us to look at how the KJV translates the above 7th verse of Lev. 17:
Lev 17:7 7 And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations. (KJV)
What we find here is that God, YHWH, instructs the Moses and the children of Israel that no longer are they to sacrifice in open fields animals unto false gods and goddesses; from now on and forever the children of Israel are to bring their sacrifices to the door of the Tabernacle and the Levitical Priesthood and all offerings and sacrifices are now to be continually devoted to YHWH alone! There is definitely a re-definition of the sacrificial system as it existed previously to the Levitical Priesthood and practiced by the ancients. But let us understand as well that is the very "same" festivals and seasonal observances connected with the sun and the changing of the seasons which were to be continually kept; only with new meanings and emphases attached per the instructions given to Moses by YHWH.
The nature of the Passover ceremony is described in detail in the twelfth chapter of the Biblical Book of Exodus. At full moon in the first month of spring, we read, it was customary for every family to slaughter a lamb or goat at twilight and then, in the middle of the night, to eat it in common, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Answer for yourself: Why a lamb or goat and not a bull or ox? If you have been a reader of Bet Emet Ministries for long then you know that due to the precession of the equinoxes the constellation of Taurus which had rose with the Vernal Equinox for over 2,100 years had moved and the constellation of Aries (lamb/ram) had taken its place. The changing of a "bull-Taurus" centered religion of Egypt to a "bull-Aries" centered religion proposed by Moses and others before him like Pharaoh Jacoba (Jacob) was the reason for the Exoduses (that is right...there were more than one). The eating of this lamb had to be done "in haste," and whatever portion of the meat remained unconsumed had to be burned before the break of dawn. Moreover, as soon as the slaughtering had been effected, a bunch of hyssop was dipped into the victim's blood, and a few drops were sprinkled with it on the doorposts and lintels of each house. The application of the blood of the lamb to the door is in reality a literary confusion with the earlier Exodus by Pharaoh Jacoba when he invaded Upper Egypt and his secret followers (Aries-lamb proponents as was Pharaoh Jacoba) marked their houses so to escape the fury of Jacoba and identify themselves as secret followers of Pharaoh Jacoba. This way they marked their homes and the fury and possible death at the hands of Jacoba's army would "pass over" them. Pharaoh Jacoba would lead his followers out of Upper Egypt as the first Exodus. This all important ceremony grew and came to be known as "pesah", and was followed immediately by a six-day festival, called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, during which no fermented food was allowed to be eaten, and the first and last days of which were regarded as especially sacred and marked by a total abstention from work (a high sabbath).
Pruned of its later interpretations, this ceremony falls into a common pattern of seasonal festivals in many parts of the world. The essence of such festivals is to restrengthen the bonds of kindred and community at the beginning of a new agricultural cycle. This is done by partaking of a meal in common -"breaking bread together"- for thereby a common substance is absorbed. The practice is well attested in antiquity. When, for example, persons or tribes entered into compacts with one another, as in the case of Abraham and Abimelech, or of Moses and Jethro, in the Bible, the agreement was usually sealed by eating together - a custom which underlies our own word "companion" (properly, "one who eats bread with another") and which survives also in the familiar usage of "having a drink on it."
On such occasions, however, it is not only how one eats but also what one eats that is important, for the food consumed is believed itself to impart new life and vigor. Accordingly, special precautions have to be taken to ensure that it is pure and free of putrescence, and in a Near Eastern country this means that it has to be eaten at once and "in haste," and not lie around in the sun. It means also that no fermented food may be absorbed with it, since fermentation is the result of putrefaction, and that bitter herbs must be eaten at the same time as an effective cathartic against any impurity that may inadvertently have been consumed.
Let us remember that over time this seasonal festival evolved. Once the meal is finished, it becomes necessary to mark by some outward sign those who have participated in it and thereby entered into renewed ties with one another. The usual method of doing this is to sprinkle some of the animal's blood on the foreheads of all present or on the flaps of their tents or doorposts of their houses.
Answer for yourself: Is this a carry over from Pharaoh Jacoba's invasion of Upper Egypt where his secret followers marked their homes to signify by a lamb's blood that they were secret followers and supporters of Pharaoh Jacoba and the changing of a Taurus-Centered Egyptian faith into a new Aries-Centered Egyptian Faith? Yes, it is.
This, for example, is the practice among the Amur Arabs of Palestine and at New Year ceremonies in Madagascar. Additionally, this sprinkling of blood serves a further purpose. In primitive societies, the family consists not only of its human members but also of its god. He, too, therefore is regarded as being present at the communal meal and as being bound by the bond which it cements. Accordingly, the mark of blood on the forehead or the doorpost affords a means whereby he may readily recognize those individuals or households with whom he has entered into a pact of friendship and protection. It thus becomes, in effect, a device for averting supernatural hurt. Again we find this common theme from Pharaoh Jacoba's incursion into Upper Egypt in his attempt to unify all of Egypt under the sign of Aries.
The old meanings associated with this festival were to change according to Lev. 17 as we saw above. The Israelites took over this primitive rite and gave it a meaning all their own, thereby relating it to their own historic experience and justifying its continued observance.
The Exodus from Egypt, they said, had coincided with the traditional pesah ceremony, and because their ancestors had so meticulously carried out the prescribed regulations and dashed the blood upon the doorposts of their houses, Jehovah had been able instantly to recognize His own protégés when He came to smite the firstborn in the land. To fully understand the above statement it is necessary to gather a few pieces of information. First archeology and historical records outside of the Old Testament which was rewritten by Ezra indicated that the Jewish race began from intermarriages between Egyptians and Semites. That being the case then it is very important to understand the Jewish race as the children of Egypt. This explains why Judaism today carries, for the most part, identical religious tenants held sacred by their Egyptian parents who were themselves monotheists. Sadly few understand the Egyptian religion correctly or the history that surrounds it and these facts escape their attention. Jacoba's Exodus following his failed attempt to unify all of Egypt did end in an Exodus of him, his army, and his followers from Upper Egypt. Since a Pharaoh was believed to be a God of sorts or God's representative then it is easy to see how the story is somewhat altered over time to reflect Jehovah "recognizing" His own people when he came to smite the firstborn in the land instead of Jehovah's/God's representative in the form of a Pharaoh who was able to recognize His own people when he invaded by them putting a lamb and lambs blood on their doors and homes to signal that they were secret followers of Pharaoh Jacoba and the religious changes he proposed for all of Egyptian religion.
All of the elements of the traditional ceremony were then fancifully explained as memorials of that momentous event. Let us remember what we saw above; namely, that the food consumed was believed itself to impart new life and vigor; therefore special precautions had to be taken in order to ensure that it was pure and free of putrescence, and as we saw above this means that it has to be eaten at once and "in haste," and not lie around in the sun. It also meant that no fermented food may be absorbed with it, since fermentation is the result of putrefaction, and that bitter herbs must be eaten at the same time as an effective cathartic against any impurity that may inadvertently have been consumed.
Knowing this then it is not hard to understand how the "story" changes as we find the evolution of historical events becoming blurred over time. Thus we find taught that the unleavened bread was necessitated that since Israel was forced to make a hurried departure from bondage then there had been no time to wait for the dough to rise and the bread had therefore to have been baked without yeast. The eating "in haste" comes to commemorate the haste with which the departure had been made. Indeed, the very name of the festival (the original significance of which is obscure) was now connected ingeniously with the Hebrew word pasah, "skip," and taken to imply that, on seeing the sign of blood, God had "skipped" or passed over the houses of the Israelites and spared them from the plague. In reality Pharaoh Jacoba had skipped over the houses of his secret followers and supporter in the South of Egypt and spared them an equally sure death.
Much of this explanation is, to be sure, historically frail and is only coming to light with current archeological studies when coupled with the historical accounts of Manetho. Modern scholarship has made it virtually certain that the Biblical narrative of the Exodus represents a foreshortened and anachronistic account of what really took place. In the light of historical and archaeological research, it has become increasingly improbable that all of the tribes of Israel, as they later existed, ever went down to Egypt or came out of it. It is now generally conceded that the confederation was of later origin and grew up gradually in the Holy Land after the Conquest, so that the story of a common ancestor who went down to Egypt with all his sons is erroneous as to time and place as inherited by us in the Old Testament. Only a certain portion of what subsequently became the Children of Israel, according to some scholars, only the Joseph tribes, ever went down to Goshen, and the conquest of Canaan was the result not of a single coordinated invasion but of the successive expeditions and gradual infiltration of various Hebrew tribes, which had begun before the Exodus and continued for some time after the arrival of the "redeemed" Holy Land.
Then, too, it must be borne in mind that the Biblical narrative is a saga, not a factual report, and therefore embellishes the record of events with all kinds of fantastic and legendary details drawn from the storehouse of popular lore. Moses' staff, for example, has parallels in the magical wands and weapons borne by heroes and deliverers in the folk tales of many nations; the miraculous parting of the Red Sea finds counterparts in the ancient Indian myth of Krishna's flight from the tyrannical King Kamsa and in the statement of various Greek writers that the Pamphylian Sea drew back and gave passage to the troops of Alexander the Great when they were marching against the Persian hosts of Darius III.
Nevertheless, even though the story of the Exodus as depicted in the Old Testament cannot yet be confirmed from any extra-Biblical source, and although we may readily detect in it several obviously legendary traits, in broad substance it is indeed consistent with everything that we now know about political conditions in the Near East at the period in question. The historical records of Pharaoh Manetho details these "Exoduses" from Egypt over theological diversities on several occasions (basically star wars/constellations). Historical records have confirmed that there indeed existed at that period, in virtually all parts of the Near East, a special class of persons (not, however, an ethnic unit) known as Hebrews, who did not enjoy full civic rights and who lived largely as mercenaries and freebooters, and who on several occasions made marauding raids upon Palestinian and Syrian cities. History also confirms that the land of Goshen (modern Wadi Tumilat), on the eastern confines of Egypt proper, had long been recognized as a free grazing ground or reservation for neighboring nomads, and it establishes that in the fourteenth century B.C.E. there was indeed a change of regime in Egypt which was unfavorable to aliens, for at that date the Hyksos, or Foreign Princes (Abraham for example), who had been in control of the country for some two hundred years, were finally expelled and replaced by a native Egyptian monarch. Furthermore, we know that the new Pharaoh's successor, Ramses II (1298-32 B.C.E.) did indeed renovate for himself the abandoned Hyksos capital in the Delta and call it after his own name, and that he also built a store city named Pithom, just as is described in the Bible. Lastly, an inscription of Pharaoh Merneptah (1232-24 B.C.E.), discovered in his mortuary chapel at Thebes, mentions the presence of the Israelites in the Holy Land in 1227 B.C.E.
Against this general background, it would seem not at all improbable that a particular group of Hebrews (what the Bible describes as the "family of Jacob"....who were themselves supporting Aries over Taurus) should have migrated from the Holy Land to Goshen, to settle under the more favorable regime of the Hyksos (themselves Aries oriented over Taurus since recognizing the precession of the equinoxes had moved Taurus from behind the Sun); that it should at first have thrived and prospered but subsequently, after the fall of that regime, have been viewed with suspicion and enslaved; and that it should eventually have sought freedom by linking up with other Hebrews in a concerted attack on the Holy Land. We just jumped over the Exodus of Akhenaton, the Biblical Moses, whom himself was a supporter of Aries over Taurus as well. And that, when the legendary trimmings are stripped away, is substantially the story related in the Bible. These were literally "star wars" fought over the message of God in the Heavens and the recalcitrant attitude of part of Egypt to change its Taurus centered religion that had existed for well over 2,100 yrs. This theological debate and wars precipitated several Exoduses according to Manetho. This revolution in Egyptian religion was short lived and the residue of these Aries centered faith will venture to Palestine and replant that faith in another Equinox Temple of which we read about in the Old Testament. Simply said the Patriarchs and Jewish heroes like David and Solomon were in reality Egyptian Pharaohs and this knowledge is only coming to light in the last one hundred years. These were the leaders of an Aries oriented faith which finds its ultimate and successful expression in the children of these Egyptians; the Jewish Nation. Nor, indeed, is it in any way remarkable that these events do not find large mention in Egyptian records, for it must be remembered that to the Egyptians of the period, the Children of Israel were in no sense a formidable or important power, but merely a motley crowd of gypsies on a relatively distant reservation who would desire freedom and follow those who offered it to them. Following someone who challenged the existing Egyptian authority (religious, military) like Moses was their ticket to freedom; especially following prior failed attempts to change Egyptian religion from a Taurus based faith to an Aries based faith. These Egyptians/Semites were considered outcasts after such failed attempts and put to hard labor since being considered traitors to Egypt by the Taurus controlled Priesthoods. They welcomed Moses attempt to again change Egyptian religion and welcomed the Exodus to their freedom; both political, physical, and religious where they could worship God as they saw fit with the Gnosis they had received from Him.
In Judaism, however, the story of the Exodus has long since been lifted out of a purely historical context. The Jewish attitude toward it stems from the premise that events transcend the moments of their occurrence; that anything which happens in history happens not only at a particular point in time but also as part of a continuous process and therefore involves as its participants not only a single generation but also all who went before and all who follow after. The Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt (a mixed multitude of Egyptians and Semites) involved also both the patriarchs of the past and their children's children of the future, for it validated the mission of the former and determined the destiny of the latter (followers of Aries over Taurus). It is this ideal Exodus, this Exodus detached from a mooring in time, that is really celebrated in the traditional Seder service on the first two evenings of the Passover festival.commemorates one's freedom and liberty to search for God and His truths without restraint; both past, present, and future as had been done by their ancestors during that 2,100 year period of the change from Taurus to Aries at the Spring Equinox in Egypt. The Passover Seder not only commemorates at this special time of the season God's goodness and provision to his people (new grain, rainfall, sunshine, photosynthesis), but historically the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt. It it celebrates the emergence from mankind's bondage and idolatry. The Seder commemorates the birth of the Jewish nation: Israel was prepared to face the hazards of the wilderness, so God, in His providence, brought it to Sinai, gave it the Law, and concluded the Covenant. But behind all of this enumeration of God's goodness we see man's search for and God's gift of freedom: physically, emotion, and spiritual whereby man can attain an accurate vision of God. In so doing man has to cast aside his idols and repudiates his ignorance, and in that very act God reveals His presence and imparts His knowledge. Let me close this part of the article and mention again the courage of those who undertook the colossal task of challenging the religious status quo of Egypt who clearly was not in step with God and His new message to them in the Heavens.
Ps 8:3 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; (KJV)
Ps 19:1 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (KJV)
The Seder (the word means simply "order of service" or "formal procedure") is at once a substitute for the ancient paschal sacrifice and a fulfillment of the Biblical injunction (Exod. 13:8) to retell the story of the Exodus to one's children.
Exod 13:8 8 And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the LORD did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. (KJV)
The principal feature of the ritual is the eating of various foods traditionally associated with the departure from Egypt. These are:
Moreover, the meal is introduced by the consumption of parsley dipped in salted water. During the course of it, a minimum of four cups of wine must be drunk, recalling the four expressions used in Exodus 6: 6-7 to describe God's deliverance of Israel, viz.,
In addition, besides the food actually consumed, the shank-bone of a lamb and a roasted egg have to be placed on the table. The shank-bone symbolizes the paschal offering, while the roasted egg is, in all probability, a later importation from pagan custom and, like the corresponding Christian Easter egg, exemplifies the beginning of life in spring (reminiscent of the cosmic egg of Egypt in their creation accounts.
There is a strict religious protocol about the manner in which the ritual foods are to be eaten. The matzah, for example, consists of three cakes placed one above the other and popularly known as "the priest, the Levite, and the Israelite." At the beginning of the service, the celebrant breaks the middle cake in half and sets one of the halves aside, wrapping it in a napkin. This, known as afikomin, is subsequently distributed among the company and constitutes the last thing eaten at the ceremony. The bitter herbs, in addition to being eaten separately, are also served in a "sandwich," between pieces of matzah, thereby carrying out to the letter the Biblical commandment (Exod. 12:8) which enjoins that unleavened bread and bitter herbs be eaten together as an accompaniment of the paschal meal. At the conclusion of the supper, an extra cup of wine is filled for the prophet Elijah who, it is believed, will come on Passover night to herald the final redemption of Israel. The main door of the house or apartment is flung open for a few moments to permit his entrance.
Those present at the Seder ceremony are expected to adopt a casual, reclining posture, symbolizing that of freemen at ancient banquets. In some parts of the world, however, everyone appears in hat and coat, with satchel on back and staff in hand, thus re-enacting the Departure from Egypt.
The narrative portion of the ceremony is known as the Haggadah, or Recital, and consists in a repetition of the Scriptural story of the Exodus, embellished by rabbinic comments and elaborations and rounded out by the chanting of psalms, hymns and secular songs.
The narrative is introduced by a series of questions (Mah Nishtanah), asked by the youngest member of the company: "Why is this night different from all other nights?" All that follows is regarded as the answer.
High points of the Haggadah are: the "Section of the Four Sons," the "Litany of Wonders," and the chanting of "Hallel."
The first of these is based on the fact that the Bible speaks four times of "thy son's" inquiring about the meaning of Passover, and each time poses his question in different terms:
This variation, said the sages, is purposeful; in each case the form of the question typifies the character and attitude of the inquirer, who is respectively wise, wicked, simple and too young to ask. Each must be answered differently, in appropriate fashion.
The "Litany of Wonders" is a cumulative poem reciting the benefits conferred by God on Israel at the time of the Exodus. Not only did He lead them out of Egypt, but He also punished the Egyptians; not only did He part the Red Sea, but He caused them to pass through it dryshod; not only did He lead them to Mount Sinai, but He gave them the Law; not only did He give them the Law, but He brought them to the Promised Land; not only did He bring them to the Promised Land, but He built the temple in Zion. As each of these benefits is recited, the company responds loudly with the word Day yenu, "Alone 'twould have sufficed us !" In all, fifteen benefits are enumerated, alluding, so the rabbis said, to the numerical value of the Hebrew word Yah, one of the names of God (cf. Exod. 15:2; Ps. 68:4).
The Hallel ("Praise") is the group of psalms, 113- 118, which is recited at all new moons and at all festivals and which is introduced by the word Hallelujah, "Praise ye the Lord." In the present instance, they are deemed especially appropriate, because one of the psalms (Ps.114) in fact describes events connected with the Exodus. These psalms, it may be added, were very probably the hymns intoned by Jesus and his disciples at is observance of Passover; called incorrectly the Last Supper.
Properly understood, the Seder ceremony is no mere act of pious recollection, but a unique and inspired device for blending the past, the present and the future into a single comprehensive and transcendental experience. The actors in the story are not merely the particular Israelites who happen to have been led out of bondage by Moses but all the generations of Israel throughout all of time. In an ideal sense, all Israel went forth out of Egypt, and all Israel stood before Sinai; and all Israel moved through darkness to the Presence of God, in the wake of a pillar of fire. Whenever the trumpets sound in history, they sound for all ages; and when the bell tolls, the echo lives on forever.
This is not a rarefied piece of modern rationalization. The conception of the Seder as an experience rather than a recitation runs like a silver thread through the whole of Jewish tradition and finds expression on every page of the Haggadah. "Every man in every generation," says a familiar passage (quoting the Mishnah), "must look upon himself as if he personally had come forth out of Egypt. It was not our fathers alone that the Holy One redeemed, but ourselves also did He redeem with them." Similarly, in the Litany of Wonders, it is not "they" but we who are said to have wandered for forty years and to have been fed upon manna in the wilderness, and finally to have reached the Promised Land. Everywhere the emphasis is placed squarely on the durative and ideal significance of the Exodus rather than on its punctual and historic reality. The Haggadah is the script of a living drama, not the record of a dead event, and when the Jew recites it he is performing an act not of remembrance but of personal identification in the here and now.
The Seder ceremony, said the sages, is valid only when the "bread of affliction" and the bitter herbs are actually before you. In a sense larger than they intended, these words epitomize its essential significance.
It may be said, in fact, that the central theme of the Seder is not-as commonly supposed-the Exodus from Egypt. That is merely its highlight. The central theme is the entire process of which that particular event happens to have been the catalyst. In Jewish tradition, the deliverance from Egypt is important only because it paved the way to Sinai; that is, to Israel's voluntary acceptance of its special and distinctive mission as the carrier of God's Laws to the nations; and what the Seder narrative relates is the whole story of how Israel moved progressively from darkness to light, from the ignorance and shame of idolatry to the consciousness and glory of its high adventure.
All through the ages, the very structure of the narrative has evoked its acceptation. In ancient times it began, on a note of shamefaced humility, with the words, "At first our fathers were worshipers of idols," (or, in an alternative version: "A wandering Aramean was my father") and ended with the triumphant chanting of the Psalms of Praise. Today, even though later accretions have somewhat obscured this dramatic sequence, it still opens (in most parts of the world) with a reference to the "bread of affliction" and closes in a breathless and inspired climax with the defeat of the Angel of Death. Moreover, the very sentence which begins with the words, "At first our fathers were worshipers of idols," ends significantly with the proud affirmation: "But now the Presence of God has drawn us to His service."
The several features of the ritual and the several elements of the narrative in turn reinforce this sense of continuousness. For neither ritual nor narrative is the product of a single age or environment-a mere heirloom or museum piece passed down intact and piously conserved. On the contrary, some parts of each go back to the days of the Second Temple, while others are no earlier than the fifteenth century. Ritual and narrative alike are therefore dynamic, not static creations - virtual kaleidoscopes of Jewish history - reflecting in their growth and development the various phases of Israel's career.
The form of the meal, for example, with the reclining on cushions, the preliminary dipping of parsley in salted water, and the customary consumption of eggs as an hors d'oeuvre, reproduces the typical pattern of a Roman banquet, and one may even suppose that the recital of the narrative and the conclusion of the repast with the chanting of psalms may have been modeled after the Roman practice of having literary works read aloud at meals and regaling oneself afterward with choral entertainment. Indeed, it is not at all impossible that the initial invitation to the hungry and needy, and the prescription that at least four (originally, three) cups of wine must be drunk, are likewise of Roman origin. For the fact is that it was common Roman practice for "clients" to wait upon their patrons during the day in order to pay their respects to them; and for this attention they were often rewarded by a formal invitation to join the company at supper. Similarly, pace the traditional explanations of the three or four glasses of wine, it is not without interest that a normal Roman dinner actually entailed a minimum of three cups - one for the preliminary libation to the gods, a second for the mutual toasting of the guests, and a third in honor of the hosts or, under the Caesars, of the emperor. To be sure, this minimum was usually exceeded; but so, too, are the minimum three or four cups of the Seder!
On the other hand, the afikomin is distinctly Greek, although the term now bears a meaning quite different from that which attached to it in Hellenic speech. The Talmud says that "men must not leave the paschal meal epikomin." This last word was really the Greek epi komon, a popular expression for "gadding around on revels"- the common nightly pastime of the "gay blades" of Hellas. The term, however, was subsequently misunderstood, and the sentence wrongly rendered: "Men must not leave out the afikomin after the paschal meal." The curious, unintelligible expression was then taken to refer to some special condiment or "dessert" which had to be served at the conclusion of the repast, and thence arose the custom of distributing small pieces of unleavened bread and calling them afikomin!
Similarly, when the door is opened "for Elijah," we are plunged at once into the Middle Ages, for the real purpose of this act seems to have been to provide an effective rebuttal of the terrible Blood Libel which asserted that Jews employ the blood of Christian children in the preparation of matzah. The door was flung open so that all might have a chance of beholding the complete innocence of the proceedings.
Lastly, the secular songs and ditties with which the service now concludes and which constitute its most recent - though most familiar - feature take us straight into Renaissance Europe. One of these songs, the famous "Ehad mi yodea" ("Who knows one?"), for example, has been traced by students of comparative literature to a popular and widespread "counting- out rhyme," the earliest specimen of which appears in Germany in the fifteenth century. In that earlier version, incidentally, the successive numbers refer to God, Moses, and Aaron, the three Patriarchs, the four Evangelists, and the five wounds of Jesus! Similarly, the Had Gadya ("Only One Kid") finds its earliest prototype in a fifteenth-century German folk song, Der Herr der schickt das Jockli hinaus, though here again, the wide popularity of the song is shown by the fact that early versions of it have turned up in most European countries.
It should be observed also that, in Oriental lands, quite a different set of popular chants is appended to the Haggadah. The Sephardim, for instance, have many such chants written in the Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, dialect current especially in the Levant, while elsewhere, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian songs are in use. The inclusion in it of those "native" compositions likewise bespeaks the true character of the Seder as an expression of the total, continuous experience of the Jewish people.
Even the illustrations which adorn the older editions of the Haggadah conspire to create a picture of the entire stretch of Jewish history. The "wicked son" (who balances on one leg from one Seder to the next) is simply a Roman centurion; the one who is "too young to ask," and who holds up his hands like a questioning child, is taken directly from an earlier print of a slave in supplication before Hannibal; while the store-cities of Pithom and Raamses, which the Israelites were compelled to build for Pharaoh, are the walled towns of fifteenth-century Europe! All the centuries seem, as it were to blend and blur.
Nor is it only in the accidental development of its form, or in the externals of the traditional "book of words," that the "continuous" character of the ceremony is evoked. Several of the poems which have been added to the narrative portion of the Haggadah revolve around the theme that Passover was the occasion not only of the deliverance from Egypt but also of all the main deliverances - and, indeed, of all the main events - in Jewish history. This, of course, is pious fiction, but the fact that it was invented shows that in the minds of successive generations of Jews the Seder has always exemplified a continuous and durative experience. Moreover, that experience is projected into the future as well as retrojected into the past. Every detail of the Exodus, it is maintained, foreshadows an element of Israel's ultimate redemption.
On the final night of deliverance-the "night of vigil," as the Bible calls it (Exod. 12:42) - God will come to Israel as a lover serenading his beloved and eventually winning her as his own.
In another sense, too, the Passover story is a continuous experience. For if it is true that the punctual event which it celebrates possesses also a durative character, involving the children of all generations, it is equally true that the particular historical occasion of the Exodus represents a situation which is in itself seemingly perpetual and which is by no means confined to a single moment of time. In a larger sense, the villain of the piece is not a particular Egyptian Pharaoh - Seti I or Ramses Il - but all the tyrants who have ever opposed Israel at any time; the Sea of Reeds is not the particular Lake Timsah (or any other similar expanse of water) which the Israelites had to cross on their way to Sinai, but all the obstacles which Israel has ever encountered throughout its career and which have yielded when the emblem of God was lifted above them; the manna is not the peculiar gum of Tamarix gallica mannifera, as learned botanists assure us, but that divine sustenance on which Israel has been fed continually while it has been roaming the world's desert to the place of Revelation - that "bread of angels" which has to be gathered afresh every morning and which (as the sages acutely observed) tastes different to every man. And the journey through the wilderness, in the wake of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, is the eternal progress of Israel toward the Kingdom of God.
As we saw in the beginning of this study above the Passover is not to be understood only on the historical plane but as well On the seasonal plane. Passover marks the time when, in Palestine, the heavy rains of winter give place to the light showers, or "dews," of spring; and for this reason special prayers for "dew" are included in the morning service of the first day. But this dew is not merely a blessing of nature; it is also a symbol of God's beneficence toward Israel both in the past and in the future. It is the dew which was mentioned in Isaac's blessing upon Jacob (Gen. 27, 28); to which Moses compared his final discourse (Deut. 32:2); which fell upon Gideon's fleece as a sign that Israel would be saved from the Midianites (Judg. 6:37-38). It is also the dew of rejuvenation and resurrection - the "dew of youth" with which God annoints His Messiah (Ps. 110:3), and the "dew of lights" which, as the prophet says, will eventually fall on the "land of the shades" (Isa. 26:19).
The Passover festival then has two basic messages for modern man.
Much of this material was adapted from various books in my library; in particular excerpts taken from Theodor H. Gaster's Festivals of the Jewish Year.