Newspaper Page Text
the meaning
of
Passover
By BEN NATHAN
(A seven Arts Feature)
Passover denotes the theme of liberation, perennial liberation. It
denotes liberation from bondage, from error, from misunderstanding and.
ultimately, liberation from that portion of ourselves that is still in dark
ness, that portion that may be called “the interior Egypt."
With us it is always, in every man. From it man must continually
go. not once but always. Not once, but continually. Not once, but again
and again. From it no man can say he has once and for all successfully de
parted, once and for all successfully escaped. From the hold of that dark
ness. from its grip, no man can say he has permanently cleansed himself or,
mat having freed himself from it once, he is free of it permanently. There
,s no moment in this life, whether we are asleep or awake, active or still,
to which its presence does not cling.
Some of our Sages infer that so persistent is that presence, so sticky,
.so permanently adhered to all we think and do, that not even the act and
experience of death itself can completely liberate us from the tenacity of
,ts grip. Its tentacles, they say, threaten to tangle our feet no less criticallv
in the afterworld than they do here. So innate, they say, is that “interior
Egypt" to our being, so substantial to the soul of man, that not until the
prophecy that "death itself shall be taken away" is fulfilled will our escape
from that bondage be truly secured. In short, they say, the liberation from
our own darkness is so recurrent and continual a trial, so perpetual a test,
that the soul of man gains no freedom from it neither in this world nor in
any of those to come.
Consequently, our Sages advise, we can anticipate the celebration of
Passover eternally.
The need to depart from Egypt, our Sages tell us, is mandatory at
every point in creation, and remains as such in all domains, above and
below, earthly and celestial. Though a soul make exodus from Egypt ten
thousand times, it is not, they tell us, relieved of making that exodus ten
thousand times more. For as there is no day without night, so there is no
Zion without Egypt. The ritual of purification is without end. Daily we
are in Egypt’s bondage, and every man must flee from it. And in the de
gree that we daily neglect or foresake Zion, in like degree do we enhance
and strengthen Egypt.
What the Sages say, then, is that our wandering in that desert is ever
in perpetuation, and though, from generation to generation, we dream we
have already crossed it, its sands are ever under our feet. There is no
angel, not one, whose feet in fact are free of at least a grain of it.
So hold yourself as one ever in wandering, as one ever in the act of
exodus. But hold that holding in joy, not in sorrow, knowing that He
who with a strong arm has carried you thus far, will carry you thus far
again. Know, too, we are told, that the Chariots of Egypt are behind you
always and that those who crossed the Red Sea once are not yet done with
that crossing.
t
Southern Israelite
59