Passover 5784
Russ Resnik, UMJC Rabbinic Counsel
Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?
Many voices within the Jewish community have noted how deeply our observance of Passover in April 2024 is marked by trial and difficulty. How can we celebrate the Season of our Deliverance, Zeman Cherutenu, when over 130 of our brothers and sisters remain in bondage in the tunnels of Hamas? How can we celebrate new life and resurrection hope when Israel is embroiled in deadly warfare? When antisemitic words and deeds are proliferating on campuses and in the public square across America and around the world?
But all this is not what makes this Passover different. Indeed, our Haggadah clearly reminds us, “in every generation they rise against us and seek to destroy us . . .”
I’m talking about another theme of Passover, highlighted throughout the Haggadah, which looks different this year. It’s the mitzvah of remembering Passover, keeping the festival alive for all generations, as Moses teaches us: “This day shall be for you Yom Zikaron, a day of remembrance, and you shall keep it as a festival to Adonai; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a festival” (Exod 12:15; see also 12:17, 42; 13:7–8, 14).
This mitzvah of generational transmission has always been demanding, but in recent years it has become uniquely challenging. Telling our children and grandchildren a story rooted in ancient history, and equipping them to pass it on, amidst our culture of endless sound bites and news flashes can be challenging indeed. That’s why Passover in this current generation may be different from all other Passovers.
I recently came across a review of a new book, The Crisis of Narration by philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in First Things, April 2024. Han contends that “narratives—formally constructed stories, rich with allusion and suggestion, open to interpretation by the community [like the Passover story]—are disappearing.” The reviewer continues,
But, one may object, isn’t the world full of narratives? Don’t people turn to their phones in search of Instagram stories? Aren’t politicians always trying to construct a compelling “narrative”? Not so: “The more we talk about narration or narrative,” Han cautions us, “the more we’re alienated from it.” The stream of pseudo-narratives one finds on TikTok, Instagram, or X are replacement calories for a narrative-starved hive mind. Han calls this development “the inflation of narrative.”
The reviewer goes on to say that these pseudo-narratives are a weak substitute for “the complex, allegorical, future-oriented, rich, and humanizing narratives that Han locates . . . in the past”—an apt description of the Passover story that we reenact each year in the Seder.
The “inflation of narrative”—another “every generation” passage in the Haggadah can help us address its challenge:
In every generation let a person look upon himself or herself as personally coming forth from Egypt, as it is written, “You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I came out of Egypt (Exod 13:8).’”
This narrative of our deliverance is not inflated, but has profound substance and personal relevance. It’s about far more than me, of course; ultimately it’s about the power and goodness of the God of Israel, who is the God of all humankind. But this God seeks to bring each of us individually into his story, and did so most decisively in Messiah Yeshua, who offered himself as the ransom for our souls, and rose on the third day during Passover long ago. This personalized element—this personal relevance—of our observance of Passover is a key to transmitting it from generation to generation.
All this ties into Sefirat ha-Omer, Counting the Omer, a custom that tracks the days from the present—Passover, season of our deliverance—to the future— Shavuot, Festival of Weeks, season of the giving of Torah (Lev 23:15–17). It’s a tradition of looking toward the future, anticipating what lies ahead, and we capture it in the UMJC tagline for this year’s Counting of the Omer, Kadima: Forward! As we are still in the first week of counting the Omer, I encourage you to join in if you haven’t already. Download your guide to counting the Omer here.
This Omer theme recognizes that keeping the Passover story alive from generation to generation means raising up a new generation of leaders—rabbis, teachers, worship leaders, and members with leadership qualities. But, if you’ve been involved in Messianic Judaism for very long, you know that we’ve been talking about the challenge of generational transmission for years. Thank God, we can see a good number of younger leaders and committed members who’ve been added to our community or equipped within our community in recent years. In truth, however, the numbers are not yet enough to sustain a whole new generation and the generations beyond.
Our haftarah reading for this Shabbat, Ezekiel 37:1–14, provides a clue to addressing the challenge of generational transmission. The reading opens as the Lord brings the prophet in the Ruach, the Spirit of the Lord, to a valley filled with dry human bones, and asks, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, you know.” It would seem impossible for these “very dry bones” to just start living, but the prophet has walked with God long enough to know that with him nothing is impossible, and he answers accordingly. And then the Lord hands the impossible task over to Ezekiel.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause ruach—breath—to enter you, and you shall live . . . and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezek 37:4–6)
In context, the bones are the whole house of Israel, exiled and without hope in the “graves” of the nations, and Ezekiel is granted a vision of their spiritual reawakening and return to their own land (37:11–14). But Jewish readers over the centuries have also seen this text as a vision of the promised resurrection at the end of the age, one of the themes of the Passover season, enacted in advance in the Passover resurrection of Messiah Yeshua.
Comparing today’s Messianic Jewish community to a valley filled with dry bones might seem histrionic, or at least overly pessimistic. My focus here, however, isn’t on the bones, but on the prophet. Ezekiel provides a two-fold lesson:
In the face of the impossible, he says “Lord, you know.” Our ultimate hope is in God. In his grand scheme, even what appears hopeless to us, whether in our personal and family lives or in the morning news, may unfold in life-giving ways.
He has a part to play in response to the impossible. The prophet tells the bones to live. In our modest way, through prayer, through financial support, and through deeply connecting with our younger generation men and women, we also have a part to play in bringing what might appear as a scene of dry bones back to abundant life.
This Passover may be different from all others, but its age-old message of hope is still alive and at hand for our community today, as promised through the prophet: “I will put my Spirit among you and you shall live!” (Ezek 37:14).