Passover 2009

I think the Passover tradition is unreclaimable.

Passover is portrayed as being a celebration of liberation from slavery. I used to kid myself about that too. Here is how I have come to understand the lessons of the Passover story:

1. The oppressed (Hebrew slaves in Egypt) are utterly powerless without external intervention (Yahweh).

2. The Israelites are strangers in a strange land. They don't really belong where they are - hence, their liberation entails flight, rather than fight.

3. They must have blind faith in their external liberator - to the extent that when they momentarily hesitate, yearn for their old homes, and worship an alien god, they are mercilessly condemned to wander and die in the desert. Only one single Israelite (Yehoshuah Bin Nun, aka Joshua) survived the trek. Even Moses died while watching the end of his journey just beyond his grasp.

4. Their ultimate "liberation" is possible only through the expulsion / extermination of the indigenous residents of Canaan (the "promised" land).

It's an allegory for modern imperialism, for antisemitism (the wandering and alien Diaspora Jew, existing everywhere and belonging nowhere), and the Zionist colonial enterprise.

The story may have inspired some in the past, but that time is gone. People today must rely on themselves for salvation, and they must not achieve it by enslaving others. Like the angel of death in the story, we are well advised to pass over this holiday.

ETA: (4 years later) - Re-reading this thread, I just realized I was wrong in #3 above. In fact, two Israelites survived the God-slaughter and were allowed to enter the Promised Land. The other was Caleb ben Yephuneh. I would estimate that doubles the historical validity of the Jews' claim to Palestine.

A chag Pesach sameach to all.

L'shana haba b'Yerushalayim.

I also want to wish a Chag Sameach to all.

However, I am very concerned by the growing number of Jews who have fallen victim to the Palestinian propoganda.

The poor Palestinian people and especially those living under horrible conditions in Gaza need all the help and understanding that we can give them.

Unfortunately, most people tend to look to Israel when they ask why these people are in such a teribble state. The real truth is that that these poor people have been totally betrayed by their own leadership. In 1948 they were told to leave their homes so that the invading Arab armies could "throw the Jews into the sea". Then they could come back and reclaim not only their homes but the vacated Jewish lands as well.

Why didn't they accept the UN resolution which partitioned the land into Israel and Palestine. They could have had their own country then, but they prefered to kill the Jews rather than live side by side in peace.

After loosing the war, those same leaders that told them to leave their homes kept them in refugee camps. They were marginalized from society.

Then came the great Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement. Again totally focused on killing Jews. He and his organization were a horribly corrupt dictatorship that deprived the people of freedom and hundreds of millions of dollars of aid that they pocketed. Every time Arafat had a choice between peace and war he chose war. The Palestinians could have had a country, but he cheated them out of it.

And now the great "democratically elected" Hamas leadership. It astounds me why everyone refers to Hamas as the democratically elected government of the people. They were elected and immediately stage a violent military coup, killing their parliamentary oppontents, cynically eliminating the parliament to which they were elected and becoming a new military dictatorship. They were elected to help create a democratic government that would focus on improving life for their people, not to stage a military coup and become dictators. Why not focus on looking after your people? Because it is more important for them to kill Jews.

Don't blame Israel for the blockade. Eygpt has also maintained a closed border policy. If Hamas were interested in economic reasons to cross the border, and not in smuggling in rockets and other weapons there would be no blockade.

Israel left Gaza. Why continue to shoot rockets? Why not focus on improving conditions? Because again the leadership is much more concerned with killing  Jews than giving their people a better life.

When Hamas refers to the occupation, they aren't just refering to the west bank, they mean, Tel Aviv, Haifa etc. They are not interested in living side by side in peace. They still just want to throw the Jews into the sea. 

The people of Palestine and of Gaza deserve what all people deserve; to live in freedom, with diginity and peace. They will never have it until they find leaders who focus on giving them that. Unfortunately their leaders are far more focused on killing Jews.

At some point in time the people of Gaza, need tio take responsibility for the situation that they find themsleves in, and need to look to their own leadership and ask why.

Until they get honest leadership they will not be able to improve their situation. Blaming Israel foe everything is simpler than taking responsibility for their own leadership's activity. It is time for them to grow up. For their sake.

LMAOROTF, Unionist. Thanks for today's chuckle.

By the way, "shanah" is feminine, so it's "l'shanah haba'ah". And you need the extra syllable to fit the usual tune.

Anyway, the Palestinians have more right to this expression than anyone else, so I will wish it on their behalf:

في العام القادم في القدس

I thought your wife was Persian. I wrote in Arabic.

Here, I'll give you the Hebrew version:

לשנה הבאה בירושלים

these considerations also have implications for other threads, as people often, erroneously, seek to choose ethnic-specific schools for their children.  when i was a kid i went to public school, as my folks believed in that, and we got our cultural education at another program on saturday mornings.  but that's really around the other thread.

for here, i'm wondering what the scenario might have looked like, eg. if Jewish people in Egypt had acted differently-  what is the secular Jewish narrative in this area?  just curious.

The Hebrew is: "Next year in Jerusalem!" In the traditional Jewish liturgy, it never meant physically going there - it was a wish for the coming of the Messiah. But the Zionists appropriated it for a very different purpose. That's why I questioned SSC's use of it, and suggested that if anyone had the right of return to "Zion", it was the Palestinian people.

Any questions in particular?

Cultures don't need to be "integrated". People living as part of the same country or nation may share features of a common culture, while also maintaining other features unique to their own origin or tradition. Likewise with Jews.

Passover is part of my tradition, associated with religious, legendary, and family themes. Many people suggest that Passover is about freeing of the slaves, and I long bought into that view. Like Maysie, I long participated in seders that altered the liturgy and emphasized themes of peace, liberation of the Palestinian people, feminism, and anti-racism.

But I often wondered how people who support apartheid, occupation, and aggression can mouthe the words of the Passover story without any feeling of hypocrisy. I re-examined the story, and came to the conclusion that it's not about liberation at all. Hence the points I made in post #2 above.

Travelling to Gaza?

thanks for the clarifications in #16.  i hear you saying that because of the behaviour of some who practice the traditions, ie) those who practice the traditions and oppress others, you looked at the narrative again and found it was a story designed at one level to promote oppression. i can understand that, there are similar dynamics in other religions.  it makes for challenges - challenges for dialogue.

i'm still curious about the q. i asked in #14. any thoughts on that?

The Hagaddah provides the model.

It's my understanding (by which I mean, I may have it wrong, I am amenable and ultimately thankfull for correction)  that this part of the Exodus story, while it may have been in oral tradition,  was not written down until the time of the Babylonian Captivity.  If so, it's easy to interpret this story as one being told to the Babylonians, hopefully to scare them into allowing the Hebrews there to return to the Promised Land.

As a story, I find elements disturbing.  We all know Pharoah was an absolute dictator.  Yet all the punishments seemed to have fallen against Egyptians that had no say about whether to let the Hebrews go, or keep them in, as Chuck Heston juicily kept saying, bondage.

I bring up the Cecil B. Demille version because, face it, that's the story most are familiar with.   There's a very subtle, but rather telling departure from the old testament account.  If we remember Cecil's narrator telling us that Pharoah's wife "hardened Pharoah's heart"   every time Yul Brenner wavered on Hebrew emancipation, and compare that to the old testament, we find it wasn't Pharoah's wife--- but god himself.

Just what sadistic game is being played here, by god? 

And what of the innocent first born of Egypt?

You know,  in spite of the fact that it would seem this avowed athiest is yet again trying to rain on the religious parade,  I'm not.  I hold the old testament in high regard.  In fact, the stories there fill me with what Sagan called "the numenous"-- a sense of wonder not different from what religious people feel.

I know the religious use these stories to shed light on the mind of god, or look for direction on this behavior or that.  But to me they are as invaluable as any academic work on telling us who we were, and who we are.  I get the same spine tingling sensation of knowing I am not alone when I read "The Epic of Gilgamesh",  the poems of Catulus, or Asser's accounts of Alfred the Great.  

Once you understand them as stories, stories that illuminate the minds of the people who wrote them, you get a linkage more powerfull, I think, than the suggestion of the supernatural could ever inculcate.

Depends on what you mean by "spirit",  I guess.

Thought I'd bump this with Passover approaching and see if there are any fresh thoughts on the matter. I have none beyond what I said in post #2 last year.