Pesach in Israel

From my program director:

The Jewish Calendar-Passover in Israel

by Elana Glickman


This year you have the incredible opportunity to spend Pesach in Israel. You may have already noticed the holiday spirit taking over the country, as businesses conduct their major marketing campaigns and urge you to change your furniture/clothes/car in honor of the holiday, and supermarkets are packed with people loading up on supplies. People are talking about which cabinets they have cleaned for Passover. Everybody is wishing each other a חג שמח (happy holiday). Most Israelis celebrate a seder and prepare somewhat for the Chag. In Israel, work bonuses are given not in December but before Pesach and the High Holidays. You may have already heard talk at your workplaces of “we’ll deal with it after Pesach”. And Passover itself is especially beautiful in Israel. Many offices close for the week and the country is filled with families traveling, vacationing and taking tiyulim. In ancient times, the main mitzvah and event of Passover was the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb in Jerusalem, and all the Jews would travel from all over Israel to spend Pesach in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. In commemoration of this עלייה לרגל (the name given to the Jews’ pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year- Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot), Jews today come from all over Israel and the Diaspora to Jerusalem on Pesach. The Old City has many special events to honor this (such as a communal Priestly blessing at the Kotel) and usually a big sign welcoming the “olim leregel”(pilgrims). For those of you leaving the country for Pesach, you are truly missing out on a once in a lifetime experience!


This is all part of living in a country where the Jewish Holidays are the main calendar rhythm of the year, as opposed to living as the minority, which is the case in our Diaspora countries of origin. And of course, you are not just living in a Jewish State but in a country that is inextricably tied to ancient Jewish life, laws, custom and history and that encompasses eternal Jewish hopes and yearning.


Passover itself contains many important and significant Jewish concepts. Redemption, personal Divine intervention in Jewish history, freedom, Divine reward and punishment, the creation of the Jewish people as a nation holy unto G-d- are just but a few of the grand concepts learned from Passover. The laws and customs surrounding Passover are many, and justice cannot be done to the concepts or the laws in a brief forum such as this. Just because one can’t cover it all doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn anything, so with that in mind, below are two brief thoughts about Passover.


Matzah- As you bite into the hard, crunchy, difficult to digest and not so filling substance and think to yourself, why on earth do we do this year after year? Remember the following: leaven (which rises) represents haughtiness, and the evil inclination. Matzah, the bread of “poverty” represents humility and is called the “bread of faith” as fulfilling the mitzvah and eating the matzah that represents the exodus from Egypt instills and increases one’s faith. This is why we work so hard to rid our homes of any leaven, as we try to weed out arrogance from our lives.


Like all Jewish concepts the exodus from Egypt represents something eternal that we can tap into even today. Thousands of year ago we left מצרים (the physical land of Egypt), and every year on this day we have the potential and injunction to leave our own personal מצרים. The Hagaddah states חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים בכל דר ודר , in every generation one must see himself as if he had personally been redeemed from Egypt. How is this possible? מצרים in Hebrew is the same word as מיצרים – narrow straits(it is spelled exactly the same way, just with different vowels) Egypt, the land of our slavery, represents constriction and narrowness (מיצרים from the root צר- narrow). (The Hebrew language, a.k.a. Holy Tongue is incredible- nothing is coincidental- Egypt is called מצרים because narrowness and constriction is the essence of what Egypt represents conceptually. Note we are not talking about the modern day country but the paradigm of the nation of Egypt in Jewish mystical thought). Just as we were redeemed from physical slavery in Egypt on Passover night, each year we can be redeemed from personal and spiritual slavery on Pesach night. This year, let us not only commemorate leaving ancient Egypt, but let us each try to leave our own personal narrowness as we rise above our limitations, go beyond our usual selves, break free from whatever is always holding us back from reaching our personal greatness and potential, and experience the greatest gift of all- true freedom.


חג כשר ושמח- a happy and Kosher Passover to all!

I'm very excited about spending Passover in Israel! Like we say every year "Next year in Jerusalem", this year I am in Jerusalem! It's extremely special.