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Lambs blood on the lintel--a sign to God's avenging angels to pass over the homes of Jews as the first born sons of Egypt are slain.
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Last night at sundown Passover or Pesach began when Jews around the world gathered around ritual
tables to remember and give
thanks for the events that lead to
the ultimate freedom of the Hebrew people and a Promise Land of their own. That came at a terrible price for their oppressors—a
pain that they thank God for inflicting. It
is an uplifting night, a hopeful night, but also a terrible one.
The
story of Passover and the Exodus from Egypt is a saga of freedom that not only gave comfort and hope to Jews through
centuries of persecution but inspired others who were enslaved and oppressed. Blacks held in bondage in America in
particular used images from the tale in their coded worship and song in which the Promise Land was freedom itself. In his the speech on the eve of his
assassination Martin Luther King evoked Moses when he declared:
I’ve been to the
mountaintop…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its
place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And
He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen
the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
The traditions of the Passover feast
are outlined in the Hebrew scripture
making them among the most ancient of continually
observed religious celebrations in the world. On the first night families gather for a Seder meal, the ingredients of which are prescribed and highly symbolic in
re-telling the story. A service is read from the Haggadah and is in the form
of questions asked by the eldest son of the father.
The form
of the Seder meal shared today, however, dates to the early years of the Diaspora after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, not in the early
years of the First Century BCE when
Jewish religious life still centered on the Temple and the priests attending it. But
some sort of family meal before or after Temple rites was shared.
Christians believe that the Last Super was a Seder meal, linking the two observances. In recent years some Christians have taken to
celebrating Seder meals to connect to the Jewish roots of their faith. This
is a development that is embraced as a
bridge to cultural understanding by some, and as an abomination by traditional Jews.
Many Reform and Conservative congregations in the U.S. invite non-Jews to attend special
Seder meals. I once got to open the door for Elijah.
This year
the first night of Passover falls between Good
Friday, when Christians mark the death of Jesus on the Cross and Easter celebrating the Resurrection.
Back in
2012 the Passover and Easter coincided. It was also a Blue Moon, the second full
moon of the month, symbolic of
how relatively rare that coincidence is.
On that
same night I hosted a benefit evening
of song and poetry with bluesman Andy Cohen at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry (now Tree of Life UU
Congregation, Naturally, I committed
poetry for the occasion. I have edited
the poem and replaced a verse from the original. Tonight
at sundown Passover or Pesach began when Jews around the world gather around ritual
tables to remember and give
thanks for the events that lead to
the ultimate freedom of the Hebrew people and a Promise Land of their own. That came at a terrible price for their oppressors—a
pain that they thank God for inflicting. It
is an uplifting night, a hopeful night, but also a terrible one
The
story of Passover and the Exodus from Egypt is a saga of freedom that not only gave comfort and hope to Jews through
centuries of persecution but inspired others who were enslaved and oppressed. Blacks held in bondage in America in
particular used images from the tale in their coded worship and song in which the Promise Land was freedom itself. In his the speech on the eve of his
assassination Martin Luther King evoked Moses when he declared:
I’ve been to the
mountaintop…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its
place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And
He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen
the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
The traditions of the Passover feast
are outlined in the Hebrew scripture
making them among the most ancient of continually
observed religious celebrations in the world. On the first night families gather for a Seder meal, the ingredients of which are prescribed and highly symbolic in
re-telling the story. A service is read from the Haggadah and is in the form
of questions asked by the eldest son of the father.
The form
of the Seder meal shared today, however, dates to the early years of the Diaspora after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, not in the early
years of the First Century BCE when
Jewish religious life still centered on the Temple and the priests attending it. But
some sort of family meal before or after Temple rites was shared.
 |
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Lamb of
God, literally like the sheep whose blood marked the Jewish doorways, a
sacrifice to save the people.
|
Christians believe that the Last Super was a Seder meal, linking the two observances. In recent years some Christians have taken to
celebrating Seder meals to connect to the Jewish roots of their faith. This
is a development that is embraced as a
bridge to cultural understanding by some, and as an abomination by traditional Jews.
Many Reform and Conservative congregations in the U.S. invite non-Jews to attend special
Seder meals. I once got to open the door for Elijah.
This year
the first night of Passover falls between Good
Friday, when Christians mark the death of Jesus on the Cross and Easter celebrating the Resurrection.
Back in
2012 the Passover and Easter coincided. It was also a Blue Moon, the second full
moon of the month, symbolic of
how relatively rare that coincidence is.
On that
same night I hosted a benefit evening
of song and poetry with bluesman Andy Cohen at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry (now Tree of Life UU
Congregation, Naturally, I committed
poetry for the occasion. I have edited
the poem and replaced a verse from the original.
 |
Passover Seder by Adelle John.
|
Brief Haggadah
for Passover/Good Friday
For Social Gospel in
Words and Music
April 6, 2012
The child always asks…
What makes this night different
from
all other nights?
You have to think hard.
Somewhere children are always
being massacred for some
accident of birth
or for mere
convenience sake.
Somewhere slaves are plotting their escape
and
Pharaohs hitch their war chariots
to pursue
them.
Somewhere the fearful faithful
kneel at
the feet of a dying master,
a maybe
Messiah
who
frightened an Empire.
What makes this night different?
Nothing,
son, except that
you asked
the right question.
Now, what
are we going
to do about
it?
—Patrick Murfin
Three years ago the first night of
Passover fell on Earth Day. At a time when
the realities and projections for global ecological catastrophe have never been greater moved me to wonder—What if?
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The Plague of Locusts was just one of the punishing catastrophes
visited on the Egyptians in Exodus. The disasters we face
are even more chilling.
|
Passover/Earth Day
April 23, 2016
What if there were no Passover?
What if no
sacrificial blood
smeared on
the lintel
offered any
protection?
What if there were no Us and Them?
What if the
Pharaoh’s son
and our
sons fell alike
from the
same dark curse?
What if the Dark Angels were not Yahweh’s?
What if
they were our creation,
evoked by
our carelessness
and fed by
our greed?
What if there were nowhere to flee?
What if no
haven or Promise Land
lay waiting
even after wandering
because we
have laid waste to it too?
What if there were no Milk and Honey?
What if our
goats all starved,
we killed
the bees
and parched
the earth bare?
What if there were no Seder tables to lay?
What if
there were no progeny
to ask what
makes this night different,
no
generations ever again?
What if this is no mere nightmare?
—Patrick Murfin
But Passover has always had a dark side, almost forgotten, glossed
over, or muttered under the breath—the fate of all of those Egyptian children. It is easy
to do, especially if you envision only the
sons of Pharaoh and his court—a just punishment for a king who had ordered the slaughter of Jewish babes when he got wind of a rumor that a liberator would be born among them.
But death was visited not just on the elite, but upon all Egypt and
families of every class and caste. And that sounds, to modern ears, a bit harsh.
At Seder meals Jews acknowledge this
in singing Dayenu:
Verse 3:
If He had
destroyed their idols,
and had not
smitten their first-born
— Dayenu,
it would have sufficed!
Verse 4:
If He had
smitten their first-born,
and had not given us their wealth
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!
All of this got me wondering…do the lives
of one set of innocents have to be
the price for the freedom and safety of another people? Are the babes and children of Dresden, Hiroshima, or some dusty village on the Afghan frontier God’s just collateral damage for our noble
freedom? Do Palestinian dead buy a just safety for a people nearly exterminated by others?
Uncomfortable
questions, and undoubtedly ones some would wish un-asked.
Five years ago Passover coincided not with a Blue Moon, but with a Blood Moon, a rare total eclipse under just the right atmospheric conditions that make
the Moon darkened by the Earth’s umbra
seem to turn red.
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The death of the Egyptian first born.
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Blood Moon/Egyptian Passover
April 15, 2014
Was there a Blood Moon
that terrible night
long, long ago?
Khonsu, Disk of the Moon
was eaten,
turning the
color
of old
blood.
The wails of the women
leapt from
house to house,
hovel to
tent,
it is said
even to
the palaces
themselves.
The curses of the men
bearing the
limp bodies
of their
sons
into the
dark air
damning the
Moon,
the
Jews,
Pharaoh
himself.
What quarrel between
bondsmen,
the
mighty and their Priests
belongs
to them, not us.
We are the farmers,
fishers
of the River
and
the seas,
the
shepherds, the weavers,
the
folk who cast pots,
the
brewers of beer,
the
molders of simple brick
from
mud and dung,
the
house slaves
and
wet nurses,
the
prostitutes…
What care we for those palaces,
those
temples,
those
monuments,
those
damnable tombs,
or
the slaves who build them!
No Jews dug our wells,
laid
course of simple brick
for
our homes,
piled
a single stone on stone
on
our graves
to
save our dead
from
the jackals.
Yet they called down on us
the
frogs,
spoiled
our grain
with
locust,
stoned
our kids and lambs
to
death by hail,
our
flesh erupted
in
festering boils.
And now our very sons!
What harm
did they do you,
you
Jews?
If your damn God
is
so powerful
why
did you not call him
to
just wipe out Pharaoh,
the
Priests,
the
Generals in their chariots,
and
all their minions
who
have had their sandals
on
our necks
since
time began?
Such a God would be
worth
worshiping!
Your freedom—and ours—
would be
one!
—Patrick Murfin
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