Mysteries
of the
PASSOVER
What is the
hidden meaning of the Passover celebration,
and WHY are so many so ignorant of the profound and
deep significance of the various emblems of Passover?
Many
thousands, missing these vital ingredients, have been
woefully misled into stunning error and misunderstanding!
In this
article, we take a deep look into the fascinating
inner mysteries of the Passover celebration.
William
F. Dankenbring
Around the middle of the second
millennium before the present era, or about 3,500 years ago, the family of
Jacob numbering about 70 souls, went down to Egypt to escape famine in the land
of Canaan. As they remained in
Through a remarkable series of
miracles, God used Moses to rescue His people from the Egyptian servitude and
bondage. After an incredible series of
ten plagues upon the Egyptians, on the night of the Passover, Pharaoh finally
relented, and gave the Israelites their freedom -- and commanded them to make
haste, and leave the country, "ASAP" -- as soon as possible -- for the
Egyptians were fearful they would all perish in the calamity and catastrophe
which had befallen Egypt.
Says Lesli Koppelman Ross in Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holidays Handbook:
"During the night, as their firstborn
were struck down, the Egyptians urged the
Israelites to leave, taking their flocks and belongings with them. And so, already
dressed for a hasty getaway, 600,000 Israelite men, plus
women and children (said
to have totaled three million), walked out of the house of
bondage.
"Realizing
the valuable resource he had released, Pharaoh reneged
-- just as he had
following every other plague, once he was out of immediate
danger. He sent his
chariots and soldiers after the Israelites . . . who were
immediately ready to turn
tail
and resubjugate themselves to Pharaoh rather than die in the wilderness. It
would be one of their many expressions of losing faith,
indications that getting the
people out of slavery was much easier than getting the
slavery out of the people"
(Celebrate!,
page 4).
At the Red Sea, God miraculously delivered His people once again
-- causing the waters to roll back, creating a dry roadway for Israel to walk
through to freedom, but when the Egyptian army assayed to follow them, He
caused the sea waters to return, drowning every last one of the Egyptian
soldiers.
Passover Commanded To Be
Observed FOREVER
God in His Word commanded His people
to observe this miraculous deliverance and salvation of an entire nation as an
annual festival, called the Passover, or Passover and Feast of Unleavened
Bread. He commanded:
"And this day shall be unto you for a
MEMORIAL; and
ye shall keep it a FEAST
to
the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance
FOR
EVER. Seven days shall ye eat
unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall
put
away leaven out of your houses . . ." (Exodus 12:14-15).
The Passover, therefore, has a very clear historical
connection. It is, on one level, the
celebration of an ancient and very meaningful historical event -- the
deliverance of our ancestors from Egyptian slavery. However, in a deep sense, it is much more
than that. Joel Ziff, in Mirrors in
Time, writes about the Passover celebration, saying:
"The liberation from slavery in Egypt
marks the birth of the Jewish [or Israelitish]
nation;
it also serves as a symbol for all periods of exile and redemption in Jewish
history. The exodus represents deliverance, not just
from oppression in Egypt but
from
all exiles in the past, present, and future.
It speaks both to the inevitability of
oppression
throughout history, as well as to the trust in an equally inescapable libera-
tion. The event serves not only as a marker of
turning points in the development
of
the Jewish people; it is also symbolic of critical moments in our own
lives. For
this
reason, we read in the Hagaddah that 'each of us is obligated to
consider our-
selves
as coming out of Egypt.' The coming out
of Egypt is an archetypal image of
life
transition. It embodies every narrow
passage we traverse as we give birth to
ourselves: leaving home, career changes, marriage,
divorce, birth, sickness, death,
addiction,
and recovery from trauma" (p.61-62).
Along this theme, Ziff points out that the inevitable
difficulties of life from time to time can overwhelm us, leaving us feeling
defeated, hopeless, and depressed. He
goes on:
"If we view these experiences solely
as oppressive events, we find ourselves also
enslaved
in Egypt and unable to escape. The
stress can destroy our will, energy,
and
capacity to respond constructively. The
story of slavery in Egypt offers us a
different
possibility: the Israelites not only
overcome the adversity; they develop
into
a nation. Viewing our lives through the
mirror of the Israelites' experience,
we
may be able to envision a similar outcome for ourselves in which we not only
overcome
difficulties but also develop new capacities in the process" (p.62).
The period of slavery in Egypt was not an
"accident," Ziff points out.
It was part of God's Plan that Israel should go down to Egypt, and there
multiply into a nation. It was also part
of His Plan that they should become enslaved, so that they could experience the
process and the events of the Exodus -- the redemptive process which involved
the participation of the Israelites, and the miraculous intervention of
Almighty God. The primary lesson this
should teach us is that since God is ultimately in control of the Universe, and
everything within it, there is always "hope" for the future, no
matter how bleak or desperate the present circumstances.
Egypt
the Womb and Narrow Passage
How
can we understand the Exodus in a positive way, and apply it to our own
lives?
The Hebrew word for
"Egypt" is mitzrayim, and means "narrow place." If you look at a map, you will see that the
Nile river runs from the south of Egypt to the north, emptying into the
Mediterranean Sea. Most all life and
population in Egypt is along this thin line, the Nile, located within twenty
miles or less of the river. The rest of
Egypt is trackless desert, for
the
most part.
Egypt, then, represents a narrow,
confining, constricting place or passage.
Shneur Zalman, the founder of modern Hasidic Judaism, associates Egypt
with the narrowness of the womb. Just as
Egypt offered sanctuary to Jacob and his family, initially, so the womb offers
warmth, sustenance and protection for a newly conceived baby. But as the fetus reaches full term, and is
ready for delivery, the womb becomes a constricting, oppressive place. It is time for the "birth" to take
place, and for the new baby to be "ejected" from the narrow,
oppressive "womb."
So it was in Egypt. What was at first a place of refuge became,
in time, a narrow and oppressive reality.
Says Joel Ziff, "The image of the splitting of the sea [the Red Sea
when Israel left Egypt] is suggestive of the breaking of the waters that occurs
just before birth. The exodus becomes
the passage through the birth canal."
In essence, the Israelites in Egypt
were just as helpless as a baby in a mother's womb, totally dependent on the
womb, placenta, and mother's sustenance.
Says Ziff,
"The journey through these straits
cannot be accomplished without outside
intervention. The Israelites cannot mobilize to fight their
oppressors: they
can
only cry out in their suffering. They
are reluctant even to support Moses
as
he begins his struggle. The God of the
exodus is all-knowing, an omniscient
God
who hears the cries of the Israelites ascending to heaven and descends to
earth
to see their plight. The God of the
exodus is all-powerful, an omnipotent
God
who calls Moses from the burning bush, brings ten plagues upon the
Egyptians,
and leads the people out of Egypt with an outstretched arm" (p.65).
As we see our lives from this vantage point, and in this
mirror image, we can validate our own personal struggle to cope with
situations, life's pains and sufferings, and crises that rock our own
existence. Like Israel, we can
acknowledge our own powerlessness and helplessness, and cry out to the Most
High God for help, escape, and relief from oppression.
In the midst of crisis, we can cry
out to God, and He who changes not will reach down and rescue us from trouble
and suffering, affliction and pain, just as He did for Israel 3,500 years
ago. The theme of Passover is an
eternal, on-going, everlasting theme -- the theme of deliverance, redemption,
and salvation.
Egypt
-- the Smelting Furnace
The Word of God tells us, "But the LORD hath taken
you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be
unto him a people of inheritance" (Deut.4:20). Egypt is compared here to an "iron
furnace." Furnaces that smelt iron
ore create very intense heat, in order to melt the ore into a liquid form. Raw metal is exposed to extreme heat. As the ore melts, impurities are separated
from the pure liquefied metal, and the metal can now be mixed with other metals
to create a new, stronger substance.
Even so, in the heat and fire of
oppression, spiritual impurities can be smelted out and removed from the
people, transforming their character. As
Joel Ziff explains, "In the heat of the fire of crisis, the old Ego melts,
the impurities within ourselves can similarly be removed, and the Essence can
be reshaped, allowing for creation of a new material, a new Ego that is suited
to the new conditions we face" (p.67).
Says Ziff:
"Each of these images -- the birth,
the seed, and the smelting furnace -- not only
suggest
an external change, they also provide an image of internal transformation:
a
baby is born, the seed germinates, and a new substance is created" (ibid.).
Thus for the change and transformation to take place, the
heat and fire of crisis -- oppression -- spiritual Egypt -- is necessary! It is the conditioning agent that accelerates
the process of change, and new spiritual growth and development!
Egypt, then, is a symbol for
slavery, confinement, oppression. In The
Secrets of the Haggadah: A Commentary on
the Passover Hagaddah, by M. Glazerson, we read:
"What was Pharaoh's underlying reason
for oppressing the Jews? He wanted to
break
down the barriers which separated Jew from Egyptian; he wanted the Jews
[or,
Israelites] to assimilate and to mingle with his people. What factor protected
the
Jews from the dangers and consequences of assimilation? Their having preserved
their
unique language. It guaranteed their
separation, their distinctiveness, and their
sanctity"
(p.11).
Satan the devil has always sought to break down the
barriers which separate God's people from the world -- society at large. The friendship of the world, the apostle John
warns us, is a great danger. He said,
"Love not the world [Egypt], neither the
things
that are in the world. If any man love
the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15). "Assimilation" is one of Satan's
chief tactics to destroy God's people.
Liberation from Slavery
The first key to redemption, the first step, actually, is
to recognize our problem, and our hopelessness without outside help, and then
to cry out for that help.
Many people, in various kinds of
"slavery," are in denial of their problem, and so long as they deny
they have a problem -- whether it is alcohol or drug addiction, or smoking, or
some other noxious habit -- they cannot overcome it or be freed from it. First they must acknowledge the true
situation -- the true plight -- their "problem." They must face it.
Writes Joel Ziff on this problem:
"Although the Israelites were unable
to mobilize to free themselves, their ability
to
know they were enslaved and their willingness to cry out literally moved the
heavens,
bringing God to earth. Their cries were
so powerful that God initiated
the
redemption . . .
"As
we experience the suffering of our condition and our inability to make changes
in
it, we begin to cry out for help. . . When we feel buffeted by circumstances
beyond
our
control and find ourselves unable to act effectively, we can identify with the
powerlessness
of the Israelites in their slavery and find our own pain reflected in
the
mirror of the story. The expression of
our pain is not a negative quality: it
marks
the
end of denial and illusion, it acknowledges the reality of our powerlessness,
and
it
implies hope that help is possible.
"When
we cry out for help, we are beginning to reconnect with the Essence of life . .
."
(Mirrors
in Time, p.72).
The freeing of the Israelite slaves required many
steps. Ten plagues were poured out on
the Egyptians, before they were ready to allow the slaves to depart. The slaves themselves had to see their
condition, and cry out to heaven in agony and desperation, for help. Says Joel Ziff:
"The liberation from slavery involved
two seemingly contradictory qualities:
(1) acknowledging powerlessness as a basis for
hope and (2) a commitment to act in spite
of powerlessness. Both
qualities are needed in this phase of self-development. We need
to
trust we will receive help even though we are powerless; we also need
encouragement
to
be self-reliant and take initiative to change our situation" (p.74).
Hope impels action.
Urgency and crisis drive us to seize the initiative to do something
about the problem before us. Says Ziff,
"Paradoxically, the more we acknowledge our powerlessness, the more our
hope is reinforced. The acknowledgment
of powerlessness serves as a foundation for building hope. The oppression of slavery inevitably gives
way to liberation" (p.76).
"The liberation from slavery requires
active intervention from God, but human
initiative
and action are also required in the process.
Only when the Israelites
cry
out does God respond with miracles of the plagues. At the time of the last
plague,
the Israelites are asked to slaughter a lamb . . . and to mark their door-
ways
with its blood. When Pharaoh finally
allows them to leave, the Israelites
immediately
act to escape from their slavery: they
leave in the middle of the night,
not
even waiting for their bread to rise. At
the sea, when the Israelites are unable
to
cross, Moses turns to God. God promises
to respond, but the Israelites must
take
the first step. Nachshon, one of the
Israelites, acting on faith, enters the
water. When the water reaches his nostrils, the sea
splits" (p.77).
The
Paradigm of Slavery to Freedom
Irving Greenberg in The Jewish
Way, also points out that there is much more to the festival of the
Passover than just an ancient historical event.
He writes:
"On another level, however, the
entire experience is highly paradigmatic.
Slavery
is
merely an exaggerated version of the reality endured by most human beings.
Oppression
and deprivation are not that dissimilar.
The most devastating effect
of
slavery, ultimately, is that the slave internalizes the master's values and
accepts
the
condition of slavery as his proper status.
People who live in chronic conditions
of
poverty, hunger, and sickness tend to show similar patterns of acceptance and
passivity.
. . .
"The
freeing of the slaves testified that human beings are meant to be free. History
will
not be finished until all are free. The
Exodus shows that God is independent
of
human control. Once this is understood
by tyrants and their victims then all
human
power is made relative. Freedom is the
inexorable outcome, for only God's
absolute
power can be morally legitimate.
"The
Exodus further proves that God is concerned.
God heard the cries of the
Israelites,
saw their suffering, and redeemed them.
But the God of Israel who acted
in
the Exodus is the God of the whole world; God's love encompasses all of human-
kind.
. . . In Jewish history, Exodus morality, from which Jewish ethics and Jewish
rituals
are derived, was made universal and applied to ever-widening circles of human-
kind. So the Messiah and the concept of a messianic
realm are really implicit in the
Exodus
model itself. Messianic redemption is
the Exodus writ large" (p.35).
Every year, therefore, on the anniversary of its
occurrence, the Exodus saga is re-enacted at the Passover table. Every Jewish family recreates the Exodus from
slavery to freedom at the Passover seder, or dinner, in song, story, food, and
dress. This observance creates a
marvelous sense of family unity, cohesiveness, and togetherness -- a bond that
cannot be broken. The proper celebration
of the Passover creates a fusion of a transcendental reality, establishing a
reality and foundation so powerful that it can never be shaken or
destroyed.
The goal of celebrating the Passover
is not just merry-making and frivolity.
The goal is to go back thousands of years, "and to experience,
first, the crushing bitterness and despair of slavery and, next, the wild,
exhilarating release of freedom. The
reenactment stretches for seven days . . . On the first nights at the festive
meal or seder, through use of the haggadah, the family re-stages the night of
the actual exit from Egypt." This
reenactment becomes a very personal, and even private, experience, as we relate
the story of the Passover deliverance to our own personal lives, with our own
problems, afflictions, trials, and difficulties.
Greenberg goes on:
"Properly staged, the seder is the
climax of liberation. On this night
oblivion yields
up
its prey. Pharaoh's tyranny and genocide
stalk the land again. But the
[Israelitish]
people
rise up and set out for the Promised Land -- slave again, free again, born
again"
(The
Jewish Way: Living the Holidays, Rabbi Irving Greenberg, p.40).
The Celebration
of Passover
in Ancient Times . . .
After the time of Joshua and the elders who outlived him,
the Israelites pursued an on-again-off-again relationship with God, and the
book of Judges records many apostasies and revivals of true worship, until the
time of Samuel, who restored true worship.
Apostasy set in again in the latter part of Solomon's reign. The next mention of Passover being restored
is in the reign of king Hezekiah, and then it was ignored again until the reign
of Josiah, shortly before the destruction of the First Temple in 587-86
B.C. The book of Chronicles states,
"Since the time of the prophet Samuel, no passover like that one had ever
been kept in Israel" (II Chron.35:18).
The Jews who were exiled to Babylon
after the destruction of the Temple, continued to celebrate the Passover as a
model for their own hoped-for deliverance.
Even those who remained in foreign lands and did not return to Judea
after the Persian king Cyrus made it possible, still observed Passover, long
after others returned to the Promised Land, when the Temple was rebuilt in 516
B.C. Of course, those who remained in
foreign countries, observed the Passover without the sacrifice of the lamb,
which could only be done at the Temple.
Passover observance was restored in
Judea under Ezra and Nehemiah, and continued until the apostasy of the
Macabbean period, when the evil king Antiochus Epiphanes subdued the nation,
and slaughtered those Jews who remained faithful to God. Many of the faithful rebelled, however,
leading to the Macabbean revolt in 167-164 B.C.
From that time on, Passover continued to be widely celebrated among the
Jews.
.
. . And During the Time of Christ
Describing the Passover scene in and
around Jerusalem, during the time leading up to and including the time of
Christ, Lesli Koppelman Ross vividly writes:
"The residents of Jerusalem welcomed
the population-doubling pilgrims into
their
homes, providing free accommodations (the city was considered the common
property
of all the people); the travelers customarily left the skins of the paschal
lambs
for their hosts in appreciation.
Overflow crowds stayed in surrounding
villages
or camped in the fields. A carnival
atmosphere pervaded, the days and
nights
filled with festive meals, music, Torah study, and Temple pageantry, which
began
on the morning of erev Pesakh (Nisan 14).
"Through
a series of signals from the Temple, and the Mount of Olives opposite,
the people were informed when to
stop eating leavened foods, and when to destroy
any
leavened food left in their possession.
Starting at noon on Nisan 14, in three
groups
successively crowding the Temple courtyard, the Israelites brought their
paschal
offerings, and unlike the other sacrifices, slaughtered the animals themselves
with
the assistance of the priests and to the accompaniment of the Levite orchestra.
"As
prescribed by Torah, each family unit roasted its own lamb on a portable clay
stove set up in the home
courtyards. Dressed in white, groups
embracing different
status
and economic strata joined together.
With biblical references, they told the
story
of the night of the Exodus, based on Torah's commandment to pass it on to
one's
children (Exodus 12:26-27, 13:8, 13:14; Deuteronomy 6:20)" (Celebrate!
The
Complete
Jewish Holidays Handbook, p.8).
During the last century prior to the destruction of the
Second Temple, the Pharisees dominated the religious life of the Jewish people. Says Lesli Koppelman Ross,
"During the Roman occupation,
Passover's theme of redemption fanned the hopes
of a messianic deliverance. Having long believed that God would again
provide
miracles
such as those experienced at the Exodus, the Jews anticipated a new Moses
who
would lead them to freedom on the eve of Passover. With this expectation the
Jews
continued to celebrate Pesakh as a commemoration of the first deliverance and
the
imminent occurrence of the second" (ibid., page 8).
In the time of Jesus Christ, the Jews were observing the
Passover with a distinctive Messianic hope and expectancy. Little did they know that their Messiah had
come, right on schedule, but that He had come as the "suffering Passover
lamb," and not as the conquering King, as they expected. He came to fulfill the Old Testament
prophecies of the suffering servant who would give His life for His people
(Isaiah 53), as the Passover Lamb, to be sacrificed for the sins of the entire
world.
During that time, the
Passover was celebrated throughout Judea and the Diaspora, even by those who
were unable to go up to Jerusalem. Says
Lesli Koppelman Ross:
"Outside Jerusalem, where the
sacrifice could not be made (some people symbolically
ate
roast lamb), Passover was observed with services at the local synagogue and at
home
with the same family service performed at the capital. It consisted of a kiddush
(sanctification
over wine); eating herbs -- or some spring vegetable -- dipped in vinegar
or
red wine; three questions asked by a child about the out-of-the-ordinary
rituals being
performed
at the table; the household head's answers to the questions personalized
according
to the child's level of comprehension; explanations of the significance of the
night
of Nisan 14; a meal of the paschal lamb, matzah, bitter herbs (maror),
and a pasty
mixture
of fruit, nuts and wine called kharoset; a cup of wine following the
post-meal
grace;
and for those who had eaten the actual paschal lamb (in Jerusalem only),
chanting
of Hallel (Psalms of Praise, 113-118)" (p.8).
Thus the observance of the Passover during the time of
Christ was remarkably similar to the customary Jewish observance as it is done,
today, around the world. Note, however,
that no lambs were sacrificed outside of Jerusalem, where the Temple
stood. In all out-lying regions, the
Passover was celebrated without the Passover lamb itself, because it was
forbidden by God Himself for any sacrifices to be made outside of the Temple
precincts. For God had commanded
explicitly in the book of Deuteronomy:
"Thou mayest NOT sacrifice the
passover within any of thy gates, which
the
LORD thy God giveth thee: But at the
place the LORD thy God shall
choose
to PLACE HIS NAME IN, THERE thou shalt sacrifice the passover
at
even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out
of
Egypt. And thou shalt roast and eat it in
the place which the LORD thy
God
SHALL CHOOSE: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go
unto thy
tents"
(Deut.16:5-7).
The Jewish people observed this Festival with great joy and
rejoicing, during the time of Christ. As
a youth, Jesus Himself observed it "as the custom was" with His own
family, and
relatives. We read in the book of Luke, "Now his
parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went
up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast" (Luke 2:41-42).
In so doing, of course, He set an
example for us, His followers -- Jews and non-Jews alike -- to do as He
did (see John 2::13, 23; 5:1; 11:55-56; I Pet.2:21; I John 2:6).
The Passover Lamb -- the First Step
Toward
Liberation
Greenberg goes on to tell us, "Jewish tradition
understood the sacrifice of the lamb to be the first step of
liberation. Even when God is the
deliverer, freedom cannot simply be bestowed.
People must participate in their own emancipation." The death of the lambs, then, in effect, was only
the beginning of the story of redemption and salvation. There was much that the people had to do, in
participating in their own redemption and salvation. They had to apply the blood of the
lamb to their door-posts. They had to
get ready to leave Egypt. They had to
eat the Passover, and then they had to work -- hike -- out of Egypt, beginning
early the next morning!