One of the enduring memories of my childhood is waking up the morning after Pesach was over. I would rush into the kitchen, and sure enough, everything was gone. The Pesach dishes and counter covers, the contact paper lining the sink, all vestiges of the seders — all gone. You could almost imagine that it had never happened at all. (Of course, my parents who had been up until the wee hours switching the kitchen back would not share this flight of imagination.) In the eyes of a child, it was a wondrous thing. But through my current eyes — the eyes of a parent and teacher — it presents an important challenge. What is left of Pesach after all the matzah is gone? Where do we go from here? What are we supposed to do now?
One answer to these questions requires us to look at a shocking prediction that the prophet Jeremiah once made. In attempting to assure us that God would one day redeem us from the coming (Babylonian) exile, the prophet boldly declared, "Behold, days are coming, when people will no longer speak of God who took the children of Israel out of Egypt, but of God who brought the seed of Israel back from the northern lands and from all the lands to which He had formerly exiled them." So great would be the magnitude of God’s second redemption that the first redemption — the exodus from Egypt — would be forgotten from the lips! The sage Ben Zoma (of haggadah fame) concluded, based upon this verse, that in the age of the Messiah we will no longer be commanded to remember the exodus at all. (And even the sages who disagree with Ben Zoma concede that the original redemption will pale in comparison to the later one.)
In what way will the ultimate redemption so outstrip the original one? Jeremiah’s prediction did have an initial concrete, historical fulfillment that we can analyze for clues. This was when Cyrus, king of Persia, permitted the Jews who had been exiled by the now-defeated Babylonians to return to Jerusalem. When we contrast the behavior of Pharaoh and Cyrus in the two redemption stories, the critical difference between the redemptions becomes clear, and our charge as we emerge from the Pesach holiday starts to come into focus as well.
Pharaoh, as is stated repeatedly, did not release us from Egypt; he expelled us from Egypt. He expelled us out of fear of death. He did not act out of a moral recognition that people deserved to be free or out of a religious understanding that all people, including himself, were the subjects of the one, universal God. He threw us out when he could no longer bear God’s direct application of deadly force. The exodus from Egypt represented a very crude form of redemption — one that did not leave behind a moral or religious footprint. And we should consider this as we fold up the matzah cover and put it away for next year.
By contrast, Cyrus was at least partially motivated by the belief that exiled peoples should have the right to return to their land, rebuild their national lives, and worship their god. The nobility of Cyrus’ motives is affirmed through Isaiah’s repeated reference to Cyrus as the anointed one (mashiach) of God. This second redemption was, then, far more exalted than the first. The ultimate redemption — the one that embraces both Israel and all the nations of the world — will be animated by the most exalted spirit of all. The land will become filled with the knowledge of God, says the prophet, as the sea is filled with water. People will accord each other respect and dignity and recognize one another’s human rights not because they are compelled to do so by some outside force but because we will all understand that all are the children of the God of the creation.
No wonder the story of the Exodus will fade from memory.
The message then, that we take from Pesach is that the process of redemption also needs redemption and that it is we who are called upon to push it forward. Our retelling of the original story is a reminder to us that what we seek to bring to this world is the finer, more God-conscious model of redemption. This is a challenging task in a world that grows more competitive even as it allegedly shrinks, and at a time when our immediate neighbors in our national homeland have returned to the most primitive model in attempting to achieve their redemption. But we are a people of unflagging creativity and undying faith.
Pesach ends, and the matzah is gone. And these are the signals that the next chapters are calling to us anew.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.