Seeing as adventures all ordeals
enables even people who’d been harmed
to interpret as triumphal deals
disasters, by which they are charmed,
unbroken as must by the bones of all
Passover sacrifices, which recall
its goal, Jews’ freedom. It’s a wall
which must forever stand, and never fall.
The ban on breaking any bones
of the Passover sacrifice
warns us that violence for freedom
is a vice.
Exod. 12:46 states:
בְּבַ֤יִת אֶחָד֙ יֵאָכֵ֔ל לֹא־תוֹצִ֧יא מִן־הַבַּ֛יִת מִן־הַבָּשָׂ֖ר ח֑וּצָה וְעֶ֖צֶם לֹ֥א תִשְׁבְּרוּ־בֽוֹ׃
It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house; nor shall you break a bone of it.
Meir Soloveichik pointed out that the Passover sacrifice is the only one in which it is forbidden to break a bone. Soloveichik suggests that the rationale of this prohibition is that Passover is a festival of herut, freedom, and the prohibition implies that it is forbidden to break bones in order to achieve freedom. This prohibition was ignored in the French and Russian revolutions, but not the British and American ones, when the principle “under God” prevailed.
Exod. 12:51 supports this poem’s concluding couplet:
וַיְהִ֕י בְּעֶ֖צֶם הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה הוֹצִ֨יא יְהֹוָ֜ה אֶת־בְּנֵ֧י יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם עַל־צִבְאֹתָֽם׃ {פ}
And it was b’etsem hayom, on the very same, day, YHWH freed the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop by troop.
The words b’etsem hayom, can be translated not just as “on the very same day,” but as “on this day of the bone.”
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
