Passover Then and Now- part one💙

While I am not a religious person in the narrow version of the word, I am, till the end of my story, absolutely grateful for have been attending a religious school, K-12th!

While this education limited freedoms I had to fight for, like study the Talmud- the primary Jewish Source of the Jewish Law, and the study of the process in which it was formed; the arguments, the different sides, and eventually, the “rulings”, which later became the Jewish Book of Laws of what is right and wrong in matters of marriage, property, business etc. This study, at the time, was only available for boys, while the girls were left to the study of Mishnah, the detailed orientation to the Oral Tradition of the house, the marriage, the Kosher Laws etc….the outcome, VS the process, if you may and I, wanted to know all about the process!!

While I’m all about tradition, I felt like I was getting enough hands on training at home in that respect , while the study of the Talmud, was like being part of an exclusive debate team I was not going to miss out of, just for being a girl ( long fight which I eventually won )!

And as such, all the hidden messages , the Kabalistic approach and my love for a beautiful art of forming an argument, signs, the messages in numbers and the mystics, were all enhanced in that setting; the Talmud and the Bible, with all the extra analysis of each word and verse, were only available in a religious school and the beauty and relevance are with me, no matter how far away from home I am.

With Passover approaching, I would like to share some of the hidden beauties not really available, just from watching the movie “Ten Commandments”, and those I was eager to learn about, while at school.

Furthermore, to make it relevant to the situation in the world today, I will break it to at least two parts as we get closer to Passover.

Today, focusing on the concept of the Righteous Amongst Nation”, a term and an acknowledgment to all who have said something, did something, gave something, risked something, to help, hide, feed and save, at least one Jewish soul, during the holocaust . Below you’d see, the Hall of The Righteous, in the Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem- Israel’s Holocaust museum.

The story of Passover, and essentially the unique story of Moses, begins with two righteous women- Shifra and Puah, who no one was ever clear about who they were beside being midwives, but also how they got to be present at Moses’s birth and how they knew, that this baby, will have to be hidden and saved from Pharaoh’s quest to kill every Jewish male baby, worried that they will one day grow in strength and numbers and will then conspire to override him.

Shifra and Puah knew all too well what would be their faith, had anyone discovered their plot to save this Jewish baby. And they did it anyway!

The next righteous was Pharos daughter, who saw Moses, hidden in a basket, in the Nile river, arriving with the current.

She saw him as her personal gift and soul saviour, as she was just mourning her stillborn child. “Lifted from the river”, which is the meaning behind Moses’s name, she gave him a Jewish name as if she knew, that is who he was, and that is what she is doing- saving the future savior.

Then we have Moses himself as a righteous amongst nation as he, still in the body of an Egyptian prince, stops the biting of a Jewish “slave” by an Egyptian soldier. He asks him to stop, he stops for a second, and once Moses turns around, he continues. This makes Moses do something that will then set him on a path for self discovery. He kills the Egyptian, saves a Jewish soul and run to the desert for his life!

In the desert, he is greeted by Tzipora and her sisters, a people of the desert “ The Midyanaites”, and after they find him unthreatening, they give him water and invite them to their home ( well, tent).

Jethro is our next righteous, who could SEE through Moses; that he was running from something, someone….that there was something about him…his humble presence was contagious and Jethro then invites him to stay, and later offered his daughter Tzipora to be his wife, who by then, fell deeply in love with Moses and his humility.

In current time, in our beautiful Sangha, since the horrible day of October 7th, and the followed hate and vile rhetoric everywhere in the world against Jews, I found so many of you, to be righteous amongst nations!!

Many of you called, texted, asked how you could help, donated, came to the hostage prayer and what not, and all IN THE NAME OF WHAT IS RIGHT!!!!

Like my friends and I talked about the other day, how is it, that in this era, we still need to defend our Jewish identity??? That many are still silent about the rampant rise in antisemitic acts?????
How is it that antisemitism has any relevance in any way???? It’s like trying to make slavery make sense again?????

But my point is GRATITUDE!!!! Gratitude to those who will never turn a blind eye and get lost in a moral confusion as we see happening all over the world.

My gratitude is for friends who understand how acute that pain for our people is today, how worried and scared we are and how we CANNOT sit still!!!

My gratitude is for those who are still making the world a place which will eventually, makes sense again- I cherish you!!!