The Promises of Passover

Hebrew version of this post. גרסה עברית של הפוסט הזה https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nBjiIm9qQMLOFxgVXJU5eB3Yo1KPA-8L/view?usp=sharing

The Passover story is a long complex saga with many hidden realities, meanings and revelations. These enriching dimensions of the story answer questions far beyond the four asked at the Seder meal and explain much about the miracles that led to freedom for a nation after approximately 130 years of brutal enslavement.

It's an epic story, a timeless story. Its themes apply to events throughout human history. These include paganism, slavery, population control, death inducing forced labor, infanticide, mentally ill leadership with a delusional god complex bent on total domination, the emergence of a hero and supernatural events that fulfill prophecy and inspire the human heart.

From biblical sources, it is calculated that Jacob's family comprised seventy-five people when they settled together in Egypt. For 240 plus years, they enjoyed prosperity and high fertility rates, resulting in a possible population of over 6 million, when population control was imposed on them through merciless forced labor. When this failed to effectively decrease the number of Hebrews, Jewish midwives were ordered to murder all Jewish male babies. When the Jewish midwives refused, an edict followed that every Egyptian citizen was to personally search out and kill all Jewish male babies, leaving the Jewish female babies alive for sex enslavement. 

Exodus 1: 22. And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the Nile, and every daughter you shall allow to live."

The whole of Egyptian society participated in this long term pogrom that lasted over 100 years. Infanticide numbers are estimated at between two and three million Jewish male babies in those years. This accounts for the radical decision made by Amram, the Hebrew leader and future father of Moses, to call for his people to divorce and stop producing children. He reversed this decision only after his daughter, Miriam, convinced him that survival depended upon taking positive action in faith rather than giving power to the forces of evil.

It also explains the reason for the tenth plague and God's mercy as He exacted only the life of every first born Egyptian male rather than the life of every Egyptian male.

Moses was born 3 months premature in the midst of this baby slaughter, miraculously surviving until his Mother couldn't hide him any longer. She placed him in a waterproof basket into the Nile river to arrive at the palace and be rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. Moses went on to lead his people out of bondage eighty years later.

The Passover story recounts the devastating damage done to Egyptian society by the first nine plagues and the ultimate slaying of the first born followed by a swift departure of a mixed multitude of people numbering 2.5 million plus livestock. Their miraculous rescue from capture at the Red Sea provided a unique opportunity for freedom and spiritual fulfillment, initially appreciated and embraced, but soon squandered.

Such is the history of humanity. Many millions of innocent human beings have perished over the centuries due to maniacal quests for control and domination of global resources and power. Paganism, slavery, population control, death inducing forced labor, infanticide, mentally ill leadership with a delusional god complex bent on total domination - these destructive forces remain intact in many places around the globe today, enabled and enhanced by technologies beyond anything imaginable in Pharaoh's Egypt. Let us keep in mind an industrial system of abortion homicide that has destroyed over 1.7 billion humans world wide since 1973. Huge profits gained from medical/pharmaceutical research, development and implementation now destroy many more pre-born and born humans than was possible just a few decades ago. 

The story of Passover also includes the emergence of a hero and supernatural events that fulfill prophecy and inspire the human heart. These perennial themes persist among people of faith despite current temporal realities. One need only bow our head in prayer for the guidance we need to take positive action and then raise our eyes to Heaven for the reassurance that heroes among us will emerge and through their agency God will offer us another opportunity for freedom and spiritual fulfillment.

God willing, this time we will take it and keep it!

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.