Passover: Peoplehood Meets Ideahood

You may have noticed that in recent years, the term “Jewish peoplehood” has grown in prominence. Google the term and you’ll see a slew of scholarly articles, conferences and even organizations connected to the idea. In Jewish communal circles, at a time when more and more people are moving away from religion, peoplehood is the latest attempt to keep Jews connected Jewishly.

This is not hard to explain. Peoplehood, which is a more sophisticated way of expressing the colloquial “MOT” (member of the tribe), is an easy, undemanding connector. It requires little action. It says “you belong to a people.” With identity politics all the rage, and attention spans shrinking, Jewish peoplehood provides the easy identity of belonging.

The Passover seder is the Super Bowl of Jewish peoplehood. It’s quite astonishing to imagine that on one night, virtually every Jew on the planet will sit down and commemorate the story of their ancestors. 

The Passover seder is the Super Bowl of Jewish peoplehood. It’s quite astonishing to imagine that on one night, virtually every Jew on the planet will sit down and commemorate the story of their ancestors. Think of your own great-great-great-great-great grandparents. Is there any doubt that they too sat down for their own seders, if only by candlelight? 

“Pesach is the Independence Day of the Jewish people,” Rabbi Donniel Hartman writes. “It is when God’s promise to Abraham to turn his descendants into a great nation comes to fruition.”

This identity, Hartman adds, precedes our religious faith: “In a Jewish world where all too often one’s particular denomination or religious practice serves as a wall between oneself and fellow Jews, where the central question is often in whose house one does not eat, or in which synagogue one does not pray, the ethos of Pesach calls out and reminds one that Jewish peoplehood comes first.”

But if peoplehood comes first, another indispensable pillar of Jewish identity is not far behind, what one might call “ideahood.”

Jewish ideahood is the software that has guided the hardware of peoplehood. It’s hard to conceive that peoplehood could have lasted so long without the great ideas that have nourished and sustained it. If peoplehood asks, “Who are we?” ideahood asks, “Why are we?”

Jewish ideahood is the software that has guided the hardware of peoplehood. It’s hard to conceive that peoplehood could have lasted so long without the great ideas that have nourished and sustained it. If peoplehood asks, “Who are we?” ideahood asks, “Why are we?”

Ironically, perhaps the ultimate Jewish idea has been the very continuation of our people since that fateful day 3,300 years ago when we received the Torah at Sinai. Just thinking of those 3,300 years—the long periods of persecution and the countless close calls with extinction—can be exhausting. It’s clear we could not have survived without the ideas that emanated from the Torah and became our daily wisdom. 

If peoplehood is the first, less demanding step, ideahood is the more demanding one. We must look for the ideas that engage our membership. It’s not enough to belong, we must also do. If peoplehood is the noun, ideahood becomes the verb.

The Passover seder marries both pillars of Jewish identity — the hardware of peoplehood and the software of ideahood.

The very body language of the seder speaks to peoplehood. Regardless of which Haggadah we use—from funny to solemn— we’re infused with a sense of belonging to this ancient people whose story we retell from one generation to the next.

Ideahood is more about questioning: What ideas best extract meaning from the Passover story? How do these ideas differ for each person at the seder table? How do we teach them to our children? What role do our ancestors play?

Indeed I think often of my ancestors, so allow me to finish with a personal story.

I’ve always known that my grandmother (on my mother’s side) was born in Casablanca premature and fragile. We called her a “miracle baby” because she ended up having eleven children and a few hundred descendants (most of whom are in Israel). But we also knew something else: my grandmother’s mother died at delivery, which sadly was not uncommon in those days.

This mother who died at delivery never had a name — until last week. On a whim I asked my mother if she remembered her name.

“Shaba,” she replied.

Just like that, simply by hearing her name, my great-grandmother weirdly came to life, like a bright candle that suddenly appears in a dark room.

So, we’ve decided to dedicate our family seder this year to Shaba, the great-grandmother whose name I never knew, the young woman who surely must have suffered as she delivered a tiny baby for her final act, a baby that has brought so much life into this world.

I don’t know if Shaba ever considered things like peoplehood or ideahood, but I do know that, just like our ancestors who never missed a seder table, she embodied both.

Happy Passover.