Chag Sameach.
It was a year ago, on the 7th day of Pesach, I gave a drasha which argued, strongly and persuasively that we are not obligated to celebrate Yom Tov Sheni and, hence the 8th day of the Chag – which, I am compelled to remind each of you, is nowhere to be found in the Torah. While, judging from the crowd (or lack thereof), some people heeded my voice, it appears that the idea didn’t take, and I am sorely tempted to give that d’var Torah again. In fact, I am tempted to give that d’var Torah quite a bit. However, I decided to try to do something different, and shorter. In any case, it’s on the Minyan website, and I commend it to you Motzei Chag.
The Torah portion today is, at least at first glance, something of a conundrum. It includes, as its most lengthy component, a recapitulation of the laws of the celebration of Pesach. This seems a bit late, in the nature of asking George Bush for an ambassadorship on January 19, 2009.
Moreover, the last day of Pesach is a day when we are, traditionally, allowed a bit of slack in our observance. We can, finally, soak our matzah in water, and borrow dishes, and eat in other people’s houses. These are, of course, things that we in our community have stringently avoided for the past week.
So what is the point, on the last day of Pesach, to review the laws of Pesach. Isn’t this a meaningless exercise? And after all, what are we going to do – do it all over again?
However, the portion, as a whole, has a bit more to it. I am reminded of what I tell my associates – you really need to read the entire statute to understand its meaning, and in this case, we need to read the entire portion, which 5 separate elements:
First, it reviews the consecration of the first-born livestock and the obligation to eat it annually “in the place that God will choose.”
Then, as I mentioned before, the Torah reviews the laws of Pesach, and clearly the Pesach after Y’tziyat Mitzrayim. As in the sacrifice of the firstlings, we cannot slaughter the Passover sacrifice in the settlements, but only where God establishes his name – although we can celebrate the remainder of the Chag at our homes.
The third section reminds us about Shavuot, including the counting of the omer, and the obligation to celebrate at, again, the place God has chosen.
The fourth section obligates us to celebrate Sukkot in the place God has chosen.
The last two verses remind us, as if we had not just reviewed the holidays, that all men are obligated to appear before God at the place he chooses three times of years, on Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, and to bring gifts.
The commonality to each of these sections is, of course, that we are obligated to come before God at the place God identifies – we are obligated to perform a national service in a single place together with and among all our people. This concept is, because of its repetition, paramount. The Torah, here, says very little about the holidays, although it does detail Pesach to some extent, and changes each holiday to make the pilgrimage the key element. We are reminded that each of these holidays is related, because each is intended to buttress not only our individual religious observance, but also our national identity. As an historical matter, it bears repeating that this portion is from D’varim, and that book is, of course, identified with the establishment, or reestablishment, of the Temple and the elimination of competing places of worship.
With specific reference to Pesach, Robert Alter, in his commentary, says that the emphasis on the sacrifice at the Temple is because, unlike other holidays, Pesach is a primarily a home ritual, even in the original, Egyptian celebration, where the blood of the lamb was smeared on the doorposts.
This is very much worth considering. Part of the purpose of our holidays is to serve as a unifying force for our community. But so much of Pesach is celebrated in private that it does not easily serve the purpose. It is often easy to forget that this is a holiday which we intentionally share our history and remind ourselves of our commonality, rather than our differences. We talk among ourselves of the individual Seders we conducted or attended, but these are individual, not community experiences. There are certainly those who may go to Ramah or to another communal setting, but even so, we celebrate on less than a community level. I have fond memories – well, memories, anyway – of being in Israel, at a resort in the Golan, with many contemporaneous seders, each individually held drowning each other out, as well as the sounds in Jerusalem of Sedarim emerging from various households. To say that we were celebrating Pesach together would not be correct.
I would suggest that this is not limited to Pesach, and that we have, by design or accident, limited the public nature of our holidays and focused on our individual celebrations. We differentiate each other by our level of kashrut or shomer Shabbat. We celebrate Purim and Simchat Torah together, but Sukkot in our Sukkot, Hannukah in our homes. And I’m not sure we even celebrate Shavuot anymore. We tend to look at observance as a personal matter, as to how it affects us individually or perhaps as a family unit. When we speak of prayer, we consider how it reaches us individually. We approached the selection of our new senior rabbi by asking whether this candidate would reach us personally. And on a larger scale, we have, for at least the last 20 years, been educated in the “invisible hand” and the suggestion that pursuing our own self-interest will result in the greater good.
Yet this is an ultimately destructive trend. Our strength is not individual, but in our communities. There are times when we should reach into ourselves and into our families – I don’t suggest not keeping kosher or lighting Shabbat candles -- whether nuclear or extended, but the community is essential to our growth, and more so, to our survival.
This Torah portion reminds us, as we finish what is a very private holiday, that we need to expand our view, to ask what our actions mean , to ask whether what we do adds or detracts from the community.