Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach! This Shabbat’s Torah portion breaks from the chronological parashat hashavua to revisit a section of Exodus where Moses and God have a pretty intimate one-on-one about the leadership of this newly freed nation of slaves. Moses asks God to continue to lead the people in a very visible way, not just through himself, so that the whole world may know that the Israelites shall be distinguished from the other peoples of the Earth. Much of Torah law, in fact, is about distinguishing between what We^TM and They^TM do. 

In general, I would say that is not really how Jewish law looks at its own practices anymore, or really for at least the last 2000 years. It comes up, to be sure, “Oh We^TM don’t do that,” but on the whole, building systems of halakha has been about practical adaptations to the world around us. So while the basis of a lot of the original laws may be about our ancestors distinguishing themselves from the pagan Canaanites and other ancient Near Eastern cultures, that has not been the driving force of current rituals and values of the continually evolving Jewish people. 

However, these continually evolving rituals are still considered closed cultural practices. Judaism has a barrier to entry. As progressive Jews, we try not to make it insurmountable, but we do consider Judaism to still be a peoplehood in addition to a faith, and one must be a part of a Jewish community, show their commitment to our peoplehood, and be accepted by the established community, in order to be considered Jewish, and in order to practice Jewish rituals. Anything else is considered insulting to our way of life, which we have fought so dearly to protect and maintain these 2500 years since the first exile, and/or modern day cultural appropriation. 

The Passover Seder is just one example of such a concern. The seder was created by the early rabbis around 100 CE as a way to establish a new central ritual for the holiday of Passover, now that the Temple was destroyed. As we read in our Haggadah, the original central ritual of the holiday was the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, and the original Hillel sandwich included the portion of the sacrifice that the people get to share in (as opposed to the meat that is intended for God or the priests). This means that Jesus did not celebrate a seder, and neither have any Christians historically. Although the Church as a political entity was not established until the 300s by Emporer Constantine, Christianity was certainly a separate religion by the time the seder was well-established, and had already begun to be primarily gentiles, rather than the original Jewish spin off group of Jesus’s closest followers. The Church Fathers of the second century began a tradition of anti-Jewish polemics in their theological teachings, paving the way for the Blood Libel of the Middle Ages, when European Christians murdered Jews for the belief that our Passover Matzah was made with the blood of Christian children. 

Overlapping with Easter, and the false charge of deicide, Passover has often been a time of violence and fear for Jewish communities, even as we are trying to celebrate our joy of freedom. Freedom should include freedom of religion, freedom from fear of persecution, and freedom from having our closed practices appropriated by the descendants of those who murdered our ancestors for practicing these same rituals. 

Of course, I do not hold any current Christians personally responsible for this history. You know that I stand for interfaith engagement, that I am always willing to participate in educational opportunities at other houses of worship and to have visitors from those other houses of worship come learn here. Any non-Jewish person is more than welcome to celebrate Passover, or any Jewish holiday, with us. I love when people come to learn about current Jewish practices, our histories, how much we still have in common, and where we diverge. But the fact is, that we do diverge. And we have for 2000 years. As modern progressive Jews, we may reject the language of chosenness, and prefer to focus on building bridges rather than insisting on our inherent differences, yet we also cling to our traditions that have set us apart these 2000-3500 years (from the time of the Exodus and the creation of our nationhood, to the time of the establishment of rabbinic Judaism). There is great value in embracing difference even as we learn of our similarities to one another. We may borrow tunes through which to express our shared texts, we may work together for a stronger secular community, we may pray and learn together in each other’s houses of worship. But we are still separate traditions, with our own histories and practices, and that should also be respected and celebrated. 

This Passover, as we declare that none are free until all are free, and pledge ourselves to a new year of justice and breaking the chains of oppression throughout the world, let us not forget to also honor our own people. May we find peace and joy in our rituals, strength and fortitude in our history, and may we celebrate all that we are, all that our ancestors did for us, and all that our descendants may yet become.