Passover

Passover, like Hanukkah, is a festival of national liberation. It is also a festival of liberation from slavery and oppression. The story of Passover  therefore became a symbol of the longing of African slaves in the United States for freedom and was incorporated into spirituals. Passover also became a special holiday of the Labor Zionist movement for that reason.

In Israel, and especially in Jerusalem, some modify the final pledge to say "Next year in  rebuilt Jerusalem."

The Passover ritual is the product of a long evolution. It underwent several key changes. The Seder ritual itself was first codified in the time of the Mishna, about 70-200 CE. It is reflects the need to provide a mobile form of worship and of celebrating the holiday following the destruction of the temple and the exile. It is probable that at this time competition from Easter, celebrated by Christians at the same time, may have stimulated interest in strengthening and elaborating the holiday observance.

Kosher for Passover

The original commandments state only that one may not eat leavened bread on Passover or have any such bread in one's possession. This injunction has been widened and reinterpreted in many ways. All earthenware, china or plastic vessels that may have absorbed food that has leavening in it must not be used during the holiday. All foods and anything that touches the mouth, from Coca Cola to lipstick and lip balm, must be produced specially for Passover under rabbinical supervision to ensure that they do not accidentally contain unleavened bread (Chametz) or yeast. All different kinds of grains such as barley and rye and oats, as well as wheat, that were not especially harvested and prepared are forbidden. Additionally, Ashkenazi Jews do not eat any foods that contain beans or rice. This last prohibition was evidently instituted within the last few hundred years, on the supposition that wheat grains and or yeast may have accidentally gotten into rice or beans.

An extreme orthodox Ashkenazi  prohibition forbids the eating of wet Matzot, since dampness may cause germination of yeast. This includes Matzot that have been broken into soup or that became wet with wine. It is called "gebrochts." You can make up your own mind as to which of these customs suits your temperament and understanding.

Blood Libel and Passover

In the Middle Ages, Christians developed the notion that Matzot were backed from the blood of Christian children. This idea may have originated because of the Christian idea that the Passover sacrifice was somehow related to the sacrifice of Jesus which would absolve the world of its sins. This led to periodic outbreaks of the blood libel.  

Historical Evidence for the Passover story

The historicity of the Passover story has been questioned in recent years. Some of this questioning is due to legitimate scientific inquiry and academic debate. Some however, is tendentious, and is intended to delegitimize the claim of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. The biblical account cannot be directly related to any any specific event recorded in the admittedly very incomplete records of Egyptian history, nor can it be refuted. The bible does not give the name of the Pharaoh in whose reign the Hebrews had entered Egypt nor the reigning Pharaoh when they left Egypt. He is simply "Pharoah."

The name Moses and some others are Egyptian in sound and probably in derivation, but those details could have been devised to lend authenticity to the tale. There are ten commandments and ten plagues - the Egyptians counted by tens and had a ten-based number system, while the Hebrews and Canaanites and Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations had a 12-based system. This is suggestive but not conclusive. There are proto-Semitic inscriptions in Sinai that could have been left by Hebrews wandering in the desert, but they could as well have been left by other Semitic tribes. The song of Miriam recorded in Exodus 15 is certainly archaic and indicative of a very old oral tradition. There is no evidence of the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews at a specific date, though archeologists once believed there was. 

Attempts to prove the historicity of the Exodus narrative give widely different dates for it, ranging from 2200 BCE to circa 1500 to about 1200 - 1300 BCE. The last date is the one accepted by most biblical scholars.

Some of the conflicting evidence is discussed in these references:

AMENHOTEP II AND THE HISTORICITY OF THE EXODUS-PHARAOH

Has the Exodus Really Been Disproven?

Is there evidence of the Exodus from Egypt?

The Hebrew Exodus

While the authors offer seemingly convincing proof for the Exodus, the fact that they cannot agree on a date for its occurrence is troublesome, and it seems that they too are trying to prove a point about religious belief rather than simply examining historical evidence. Much of the evidence they present has been discredited by others.

We have to accept that the story of the Exodus is at present unverified. The historical narrative of the bible was oral history that had been handed down for an indeterminate period, spun into various legends and then recorded and codified. If there is no basis at all for the Hebrew Exodus, then it is remarkable that a people would record as a point of pride that they had once been slaves. When the Romans and others invented genealogies for themselves they portrayed themselves as the sons of gods and mythical war heroes. So if the Hebrew Exodus is entirely a fable, it is still a tradition that attests to remarkable features of Jewish culture and outlook. It is also a very old tradition, probably older than the Illiad of Homer.

The remarkable thing about oral traditions like the Illiad is that eventually they seem to gather backing from archeological results, despite skepticism. However, even if it could somehow be proven that the entire history of the Hebrews before 700 BCE was a fabrication, and that they had sprung upon the world from nowhere about that time, it is unclear what would be gained by anti-Zionists who champion views in order to discredit Zionism, No rational person can seriously suggest that while the story of the Hebrews is a fable, the tale of Muhammad journeying through the air on his horse al Buraq to Jerusalem, to heaven and to hell nearly two millennia after the Jews arrived in Israel, and tying his horse up at the wailing wall, is an established fact that gives Muslims title to the land of Israel. Moreover, as Muhammad and traditional Islam accepted the Hebrew story of the Exodus and the existence of Moses as well as Abraham, these views would be as disrespectful of Islam as they are of Jewish traditions.  

Ami Isseroff

October 19, 2008