What do cloven-hoofed cud-chewers have to do with ritual purity, much less holiness? In what way do fins and scales on a fish acknowledge God as the One who redeemed us from slavery? The \”explanation\” for kashrut demands further explanation.
It is the Torah\’s most exciting, most cinematic story. The Israelites, newly freed from slavery, were camped at the shores of the sea when suddenly the sounds Pharaoh\’s approaching chariots filled the air. Realizing they were trapped, the ex-slaves cried bitterly to Moses, \”Were there too few graves in Egypt, that you brought us to die here?\” (Exodus 14:11) Moses prayed for deliverance, and was commanded: \”Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you lift up the rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it.\” (Exodus 14:15-16)
At every Passover seder, in each generation, Jews are reminded to see themselves as though they came out of Egypt in person.
At noon on Sunday the Passover Posse will tromp through the lobby of the Skirball Cultural Center.
Hundreds of people turned out for the Simon Weisenthal Center Museum of Tolerance\’s one-day symposium, \”A Call to Freedom.\” The conference, held last month, highlighted the plight of black slaves in Sudan and Mauritania, where today, \”tens of thousands of blacks are sold into slavery, raised like slaves and have the deadened expressions of men and women who know no other life but the life of a slave,\” said Sam Cotton, author of \”Silent Terror,\” a book describing his secret trip to Mauritania where he interviewed slaves.
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