The Core Meaning of Passover

The brilliant 19^th century Scottish/English, Baptist minister, Alexander Maclaren, once expressed in a sermon a very interesting insight into the mood of the celebrants of the first Passover.

I’ve always thought of the Passover meal principally as a rather joyous celebration of the experience of Jews who were then preparing to leave Egypt. Since their past had been one of pain and drudgery that was manifested in the form of enslavement, the spirit of those fleeing was fundamentally one of hope and readiness. Maclaren sees it somewhat differently.

We considered his thoughts during a recent family Seder. Let’s do the same here.  

Maclaren:                                                                                                                      

“It was to be eaten with the accompaniments of bitter herbs, usually explained as memorials of the bondage, which had made the lives bitter, and the remembrance of which would sweeten their deliverance, even as the pungent condiments brought out the savor of the food. 

The further accompaniment of unleavened bread seems to have the same signification as the appointment that they were to eat with their garments gathered round their loins, their feet shod, and staves in hand. 

All these were partly necessities in their urgent hurry, and partly a dramatic representation for later days of the very scene of the first Passover. A strange feast indeed, held while the beat of the pinions of the destroying angel could almost be heard, devoured in hot haste by anxious men standing ready for a perilous journey, the end whereof none knew.

The gladness would be strangely dashed with terror and foreboding. Truly, though they feasted on a sacrifice, they had bitter herbs with it, and, standing, swallowed their portions, expecting every moment to be summoned to the march.”

What do you think?

The mood seems sober. There’s a sense of “terror and foreboding.” People were in an “urgent hurry.”

They were having their meal and had on their mind all that it signified. But they also had “their garments gathered around their loins, their feet shod, and staves in hand.” The unleavened bread was also very much suited to this rushed condition.

Leaving aside the meal and its ritual elements, we’re also driven to think about the reality of the destroying angel who was traveling around them and in their midst that night. And the call that “summoned” them “to the march” that was coming at “every moment.”

I can absolutely sense the feelings of “the anxious men standing ready for a perilous journey.” I can sense that because that’s exactly what was in front of them. It was to be a journey in the wilderness, headed to who-knows-where, and that had an “end whereof none knew.”

Some sages say that the numbers of Israelites who didn’t leave Egypt was quite large, indeed perhaps a majority. One can certainly see why and how that might have been so, however ignoble it would have been.

So, what’s Passover all about?

I think, we see first, that living, enslaved to an idolatrous, materialistic regime where we can’t worship and follow God, is not real living. It’s certainly not a form of life we can choose.

Second, as a result, we must choose to take the path of departure that God makes available to us, however little we understand of it, however little comfort there might be in it.

Third, it wasn’t so much about freedom, that is, the way of being we tend to associate with absolute free choice. We were leaving to follow God, wherever that led us. We weren’t so much out to be free; we were out to serve God.

Fastening my mind on that truth, I can see how I could’ve left Egypt, indeed would’ve left Egypt, with some fear, yes, but with faith that it was my path, my only path.

I hope this essay, along with Pastor Maclaren’s words, make it clear why this story is one of universal value, one that helps all people understand why we’re all called by God, away from the bonds of the material, and toward the difficult, but necessary path that entails service to the Divine One.