Madison — If you have no problems or troubles in your life, you may stop reading right here.
Ah, I see you kept reading. Parents, children, spouses, friends, money, business, work, war, health, time — there is nothing in human life without problems. As a rabbi and an observer of communities, I see that every problem or trouble that can happen does happen.
Our holy days were given to us for the relief of trouble and the elevation of the soul. But this can easily get lost. Even preparation for a holiday can become an occasion for pain, bother and aggravation.
Take Pesach. Among people I know, Pesach is accompanied by two kinds of problems, one involving families, the other time.
Families: Holidays are of course times of joy and happiness, the stuff of good childhood memories, good food, love and satisfaction. But when families gather, they also gather their problems.
In such questions as where do we celebrate, who makes the seder, who gets invited or not invited, who is invited willingly and who coldly, are contained all the complicated dynamics of any family. Who is close, who is distant, who wants to be left alone and who feels neglected.
The Israeli novelist A. B. Yehosuha, in his novel “A Late Divorce,” recognizes this when, after 10 chapters each devoted to a member of a large extended family, the book’s climax occurs at an explosive seder.
And time: How can I get everything ready for Pesach in time? There is so much to do.
For Pesach in particular, when done in the traditional way, there is no end to the details — cleaning, koshering, acquiring kosher for Pesach foods (for some, settling family disagreements over what is and is not kosher), preparing for the seders, arranging time off from work or school, travel arrangements.
We are not slaves
A number of recent popular books have lamented how, despite our prosperity and technology, people feel they never have enough time — “down time,” “quiet time,” family time, time for peace of the soul. And here again in what is supposed to be a holy time comes the same tension of time.
As we prepare for Pesach, let us remember that Pesach is supposed to be an answer to problems, trouble, tension and confusion. Pesach, of all our holy days, most holds out our ideal that we should all be rescued and redeemed from oppression.
Conservative Rabbi Isaac Klein, who died in 1979, wrote, “When Moses first approached Pharaoh regarding the liberation of the Jewish people, the king of Egypt asked: ‘Who is this God that I should obey Him and free Israel?’ (Exodus 5:2) Pharaoh knew of no god who redeems the oppressed…
“In the words of contemporary theologian Ignaz Maybaum: ‘What makes the exodus from Egypt the pattern of redemption for all mankind is the interpretation of the prophet who sees God as a redeemer from tyranny….’
“Pesach does not focus on the exodus simply as a historical event that took place long ago…. ‘One must look upon himself as if he himself had come out of Egypt personally’ (Mishna Pesachim 10:5).”
The importance of this last remark is that we should apply to ourselves the basic idea of Pesach, the idea that God wishes us to be free of oppression, in whatever our actual situation is.
Fortunately we are not actual slaves. But we are “slaves to our problems,” “slaves to our ideas,” “slaves to our jobs,” “slaves to demands of work and time.”
The basic idea of Pesach is that we are not slaves. God does not wish it so. We know what Pharaoh never understood, and that is our glory.
Klein continues, “Kabbalists have understood freedom as the emancipation from the powers of evil [and moral enslavement]….
“Thus Rabbi Kook writes: ‘The difference between a slave and a free man is not only a difference in status; that is by a matter of chance one person is subject to another person, and another person is not. We can find a wise bondman whose spirit is filled with freedom, and a free man who has the spirit of a slave. Authentic freedom is the exalted spirit to which a man and a people as a whole are elevated so that one is faithful to his inner self, to the image of God that is within each person.’”
As we do everything to prepare for Pesach, let us relax our souls. No external cause can harm the soul. God has created us to be free and at peace. Enjoy every act of preparation for the holiday, from buying a potato to making a plane reservation to reading the finest lines of the Haggadah.
The message of Pesach is that every bit of the holiday and its preparation should come as an antidote to trouble, a balm to our problems and a step toward the peace of our own souls, the freedom and dignity of the Jewish people, and the peace of the human race.
Rabbi Kenneth Katz is spiritual leader of Beth Israel Center, Madison’s Conservative congregation.
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