by Chaplain Joel Grossman
Passover (“Pesach” in Hebrew) is a ritual meal and service, a “seder” (which means “order,” the order of the service), that focuses on the renewal of life‚ spring time, the birth of a people/nation, and on the personal level, renewal of the spirit. The central part of the seder is the telling of the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt, about the movement from slavery to freedom.
In my daily prayers, when reciting the pinnacle of the daily service, the “Amidah” (which Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, may he rest in peace, says was created as a long “mantra” meditation), I reflect on the story that is told on Passover: Jacob and his extended family went to Egypt at a time of starvation in their land in hope that they might fare better in Egypt. At first the family prospered and multiplied, but when a new Pharaoh come into power, he felt threatened by “those” people (sound familiar to our present day issues around immigration?), and enslaved the Jews. Eventually, Moses was instructed by G!d* to free the Jewish people, which he eventually does. They wander through the desert, and, at Mount Sinai, receive the Ten Commandments. The Bible says the mountain shook and the people heard the voice of G!d.*
A “midrash” (an interpretive story) says that each Jew, then and now, was there at Mt. Sinai, and was/is given a unique vision and message. Each day, as I reflect on this, I am stirred, that I, as a person of spirit, receive Divine assistance/inspiration—regularly.
So the re-telling of the story of the Exodus at Passover, is a ritualized remembering of this movement from darkness to light, from degradation to enlightenment, and that we all have ongoing spiritual renewal.
*The Jewish tradition is not to write the word for G!d fully, as the form it is in (paper, email, text, etc.) will, eventually, be trashed. The usual way this is done is G-d, but I like G!d. It’s more impassioned.
R
ev. Joel Grossman is one of the founders of the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME), and was the Director of ChIME’s Massachusetts campus. He has been a hospice chaplain for over fifteen years. Joel has been a president of his local synagogue, Ahavas Achim, in Newburyport, MA, and has led Kabbalah and Jewish meditation sessions there. He is the leader of the “Spiritual Breakfast Club.”Photograph of crops by birthegodt
