Today I have a short derash that focuses on the name of this holiday, and how it might connect to our lives.
It is not quite right to call this holiday “Passover.” Pasah [in the Hebrew Kal form] has two different meanings, and none of them means “to pass over or to skip over.” One meaning is “to straddle,” as in putting one foot on one side and one foot on the other, or to waver between two sides. This meaning was used when Elijah (in I Kings 18:21) asks the people about their dual allegiance to Baal and Ha-Shem, saying, “How long will you keep on straddling (poshim) the two branches?” The second meaning for pasah is “protecting.” This appears in Isaiah’s prophecy (in Isaiah 31:5), “Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting (poseah) and rescuing.”
Therefore, when we read Exodus 12:13 God’s reassurance to Moses, Ve-raiti et ha-dam, u-fasahti aleichem ve-lo yihiyeh vachem negef lemash-hit bihakoti be-eretz mitzrayim – it makes sense to translate it here using protect: “I will see the blood and I will protect you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
Pasah as straddling makes the most sense in Exodus 23 when Moses tells the Israelites: ve-avar Ha-Shem lingof et mitzrayim ve-raah et ha-dam al ha-mashkof ve-al shtei ha-mezuzot, u-fasah Ha-Shem al ha-petah ve-lo yitein ha-mash-hit lavo el bateichem lingof – translated as “For when the Lord goes through to strike the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and He will stand in the middle of the doorway, and not let the Destroyer come in and destroy your home.” This makes more sense than “pass over.” It’s hard to imagine how God passing over the house prevented the Destroyer from getting inside. When we translate pasah as “straddling,” it becomes quite clear: the Destroyer cannot get into the house, because God is blocking the doorway.
These two alternate meanings for pasah (straddle or protect) clarify some important aspects of this holiday. I will address this by referring first to today’s haftara from Joshua 5. It includes a description of the first offering of the pesah in the Land of Israel, and it is a prime example of straddling. Moses had died and Joshua had taken over, but Joshua had not yet conquered the Land of Israel. The nation is betwixt and between – straddling two phases of their history. As the Israelites entered the land with the intent to conquer it, Joshua performs an important preliminary ritual: all the men are circumcised, for the ones born in the wilderness had not undergone circumcision. They were circumcised in a place called Gilgal – meaning “rolling,” for God says, “Today I have rolled away from you the stigma of Egypt.” Then the Israelite men immediately offer the pesah sacrifice, for it is the 14th day of the spring month.
The requirement of circumcision for a man who wants to participate in the pesah offering is there from the beginning, already mentioned in Egypt (in Exodus 12:43-49). Scholars have also noticed a narrative connection between circumcision and the pesah sacrifice: when Zipporah circumcises her son (in Exodus 4:25), she then touches the blood on his [either her son’s or Moses’] leg, and this is the same language as touching the blood of the lamb on the doorpost. Both are protective gestures that hold back death.
The connection between circumcision and pesah is also there because both are signs of rebirth. Circumcising the male child is like rebirthing him. The community greets him, he gets a name, he becomes a full part of the community. For the Israelites under Joshua, a new phase begins after the men undergo circumcision. It is new for them and for the entire nation. Here is what it says in 5:11-12:
On the day after the pesah, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the country, unleavened bread and parched grain. On the day after, when they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna; that year they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.
No more manna! Here we are told that the Israelites enter their land, pick the produce of the land, and there is no more manna. Is it good or bad that the manna ceased to drop from heaven? We know that it is a good thing, signifying their achievement of arriving in the Promised Land, yet I imagine they, like me, had mixed feelings. How I have wished that I could feed myself and my family by simply going outside and picking up free, ready-made food off my front lawn! Manna was always there, sustaining and nutritious. I imagine it like an idealized mother’s milk – pardon the expression: God’s breast milk. When God sent us manna, God was protecting us. Ha-Shem pasah aleinu – God protected us by sending us the manna. “Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield us, protecting (poseah) and rescuing” us with that manna. We have all heard about the protective powers of breast milk. Fed on breast milk alone, the baby thrives, resists disease, avoids allergies. And then the baby eventually tires of mother’s milk and wants more variety, wants more independence – or, the mother is ready to move on, she wants or needs more independence, or her milk is no longer enough to satisfy the child. So the baby is weaned. I wonder what it would have been like if our forefathers and foremothers took seriously the response to Sarah’s weaning of Isaac, when in Genesis 21 Abraham throws a party to celebrate the event. We could have instituted another birth ritual, one that connects more directly to women’s bodies.
If it’s any consolation, the first pesah under Joshua was like a weaning party. The Israelites feasted on the fruit of the land. But with that feast, the manna stopped.
Anyone who has witnessed the weaning of a child knows that, in most cases, it occurs gradually. Unlike a circumcision, which takes just a few seconds, the infant and the mother go through a process that goes on for days, weeks, even months. So, too, for the changes we undergo when we move from childhood to adulthood.
This holiday expresses that process of maturation, that straddling of life phases: no longer infants, but not yet adults. No longer enslaved, but not yet free. No longer in Egypt, but still marked by the ill effects of Egypt. The Exodus from Egypt was a sweet liberation, but it was not finalized when the Israelites marched out of Egypt. It took three months to reach Sinai and get the rules by which they would live independently. And then it took another 40 years before they were ready to enter their land and do without the manna. This holiday teaches us that God protects us when we are struggling with hardship. It teaches us that God wants to become independent and take control of our lives, to be free.