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Getting Passed Over: Is Pesach a Misnomer or Have we Missed the Point?
The name Passover has always bothered me.
God passed over the Israelite houses as He wrathfully slaughtered the firstborn of Egypt. Sure, the Egyptians deserved it and it’s a moment of true justice… but Passover is about a lot of things! There’s our redemption. The spiritual opportunity of freedom. Eating matzah. Maccos bechoros (plague of the firstborn) wasn’t even the most transcendent miracle compared to the splitting of the sea! Why is the focus of the name not on us, but that we were spared from something that didn’t even apply to us? If someone comes to attack you, but they get arrested and sentenced, you don’t say to the judge, “Thank you for not sending me to prison.”
I thought the Hebrew name, Pesach, might be better, but it just means to skip or jump over. The name of the holiday from our prayers is Chag HaMatzos, zman chiruseinu, the festival of Matzahs, the time of our freedom. Better, but I doubt “Happy Festival of Unleavened Bread” is going to catch on anytime soon. I would leave well enough alone, except for the fact that the name of the Passover sacrifice, the most essential mitzvah of the holiday, is called the Pesach.
It’s so difficult to relate to this idea of being spared by God when the holiday is clearly about so many other things that are far more active. Finding freedom from what enslaves us, telling over the story of our heritage, asking big questions! Why aren’t any of those ideas the namesake? What are we supposed to understand about our relationship with Hashem by being passed over?
As with most questions, a great place to look is the Rashi. In defining pesach, Rashi references Onkelos’s Arameic translation which translates the word pesach as chamalti, took pity. From this perspective, God didn’t necessarily skip over the Israelites so we could gleefully watch the destruction of our enemies, but it was an act of compassion, or in Hebrew rachamim. For 9 of the 10 plagues, the Jews didn’t experience any of the harm. But for the 10th plague, the Jews had to perform the Passover Seder to be spared. This was because while the 9 plagues were about displaying God’s power and sovereignty, the 10th plague was specifically judgement. The Jews were not exempt from that judgement by default. In fact, it seems the Jews were quite culpable.
The Zohar says that the Jews in Egypt were on the 49th level of impurity. Had God waited any longer to free them, they would have sunk to the final irredeemable level. Despite the hardships, the oppression, and then the witnessing of miracles, the Jewish people in Egypt still didn’t deserve their freedom. In fact, rachamim specifically refers to withholding of punishment when someone deserves it. So if our ancestors didn’t deserve redemption and freedom, why did God take pity on them and nobody else? Here is where Passover starts to make sense.
The belief that if we don’t deserve something, we shouldn’t bother asking for it, is probably the most prevalent reason people don’t pray with a full heart. The concept that because we aren’t good enough, God doesn’t want a relationship with us, couldn’t be farther from the truth. My problem with the holiday’s title is the insinuation that if we don’t try hard enough, don’t pray hard enough, don’t care about all the little details enough, God might pass us over and leave us behind. But that has missed the entire point. The Jews in Egypt didn’t deserve salvation, but because they showed up, decided to do what was asked, and put some skin in the game (the blood on the door frame may have also been the blood of bris milah) God showed them rachamim. God doesn’t answer prayers because you deserve them. God answers prayers based on what you need.
On another level, the skipping over may not only refer to God, but our soul, transcending the confinement of whatever holds us back. The Baal Shem Tov taught that Passover is a time when divine energy “skips over” the barriers of the physical and the divine. From this spiritual leap, a special expanded consciousness (mochin d’gadlut) is made possible. It’s available to any Jew at this time of year, not just during the biblical era.
This holiday is not about righteous people doing Herculean feats. It is about a tired, broken, beaten people who needed a break. We were down, but not out. And that’s what’s key. According to USA Today, Passover is the most celebrated Jewish holiday with more than 70% of Jewish Americans attending a seder. It’s for anyone with a desire to show up. And as Woody Allen said, “90% of success in life is just showing up.” So come to your seder early, come hungry, and come with all the questions you can think of. As long as you show up, you won’t get passed over.
This d'var is from my weekly Torah Blog.
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