Bat Yam rabbi gives talk on meaning of Passover
The Bat Yam Temple of the Islands on Sanibel reported that more Jews around the world gather for Passover than for any other event during the year. On April 4, Rabbi Stephen Fuchs gave a talk at the Shell Point Retirement Community in Fort Myers, explaining the essence of the seven-day holiday.
Passover began on April 5 and will end on April 13. It commemorates the Biblical story of Exodus. Jews had been welcomed to Egypt and were living a peaceful life until a new leader appeared, one who chose not to acknowledge Joseph, the Jewish leader. Bat Yam reported that the Jews became personae non grata very quickly and Pharoah turned them into slaves. They remained slaves for 210 or 430 years, depending on the sources one reads. The event of escaping Pharoah became an enabling event in all of Jewish history. It is the celebration of their freedom, which is recorded at Passover every year.
Bat Yam reported that the tradition of the Passover meal — Seder — began after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Before that, the holiday was celebrated by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and sacrificing animals at the temple. The sacrifices ended with the temple’s destruction, as did the power of the hereditary priestly class. Into this vacuum came the Pharisees, a group who enabled Jews to transcend the destruction of the temple. They presented to the world a notion that gained traction, and they revealed an oral tradition of which they were guardians.
They created the Mishnah of essential laws and the Gomorrah, which was a commentary of all the Mishnah’s teachings, Bat Yam reported. The Pharisees and their successors kept Jewish thought and practices alive by formulating a new set of bases for life. God was served in three ways: prayer, the study of the Torah, and deeds of kindness and compassion.
Bat Yam reported that there had always been a custom of intellectual banquets during which religion and philosophy were discussed. It was to this idea that the Jews turned when deciding how to celebrate the story of their liberation from Egypt. Thus, the Passover Seder was born. To understand it is to see it as a war between gods. Pharoah, a cruel taskmaster, was worshipped as a god and God had to go to battle to defeat him. The story is told in a ceremonial setting, with great joy, while eating. Symbols help to illustrate the saga, especially understanding the meaning of what is on the seder plate and why.
Matzo is the bread of affliction; the Jews left in such a hurry that they could not wait for the bread to rise, Bat Yam reported. The bitter herbs represent the bitterness of slavery, the egg represents spring and the circle of life, and the roasted lamb shank bone represents the sacrifice of the first born. The Angel of Death would notice the blood and pass over the homes of the Jews, and the charoset — a mixture of nuts, wine and apples — represents the mortar. Wine in Jewish tradition is a symbol of joy.