[2025 re-post] The Poetry of Passover

The most important stories are better than true.

A re-post from last year…with a few minor edits and additions.

---

It’s Passover: my favorite Jewish holiday and one that feels like the most “American” of the holidays because of its themes of liberation and freedom. Aside from the great food and fond family memories, it has a compelling story to tell that can resonate across cultures and eons, if we let it speak to us.

What can keep it from being meaningful? For me, it’s literalism.

I get irritated by the historical literalists who insist that the Exodus must have happened exactly as written for it to have any meaning, and also by the ritual literalists who insist on leading the Seder as though every page of the Haggadah must be read out loud, in order (preferably in Hebrew) for the evening to have any meaning (even if the people at the table—like my father, growing up—can’t understand any of the text).

I reject both points of view.

I’m not fond of atheist literalists either, who insist that since the story of the Exodus is merely religious, and can’t be proven to be historically accurate, it can’t have any meaning or use.

To me, the story might actually have more meaning if it's not historically true.

Think about it. Either the ancient book is history—this thing happened on this day, because we have witnesses and evidence saying so—or it’s myth. And if it’s myth…why pick that one? Why would our ancestors have chosen to make this story of enslavement and redemption their founding myth if it never actually happened? Who does that? Every other ancient culture saw itself as descended from gods or heroes. The Jews saw themselves as descended from slaves. What does that say about us as a people?

To me, the power of a religious text is its poetry, not its alleged journalism. I don’t care if the thing being discussed happened on a Tuesday, or if it happened at all. I care about what the words can teach me.

As a writer, a former English major, and a former English teacher, I know that something being poetry does not mean it isn't true. There is truth in poetry—sometimes greater truth than we find in history.

What might the poetry of Exodus have to teach us? Let’s unpack a few moments.

Does it matter whether the Red Sea was really parted and crossed? Not to me. What matters to me is the image of something wide and dangerous being traversed by the Israelites and then being closed behind them. What does that tell me? It tells me that true freedom—lasting freedom—requires a boundary-crossing that does not allow for backsliding and return. We see the Israelites bicker and complain constantly that they are terrified of the wide, empty road ahead of them. With every challenge, they beg to return to Egypt. It's important, both poetically and psychologically, that the door behind them has closed, and that the only way forward for them is forward. If all of the oppressed peoples in history had been able to close the door on their past so definitively, they might have been able to move more confidently forward into freedom.

How about the 40 years in the desert? What does it mean that the slave generation has to live in the wilderness and die there, and that only their children, the ones born in the open spaces of freedom, are the ones able to understand the commandments given to them and use them to build a new nation for themselves? Literalists will look at maps and scoff, saying, “it’s ridiculous to think they couldn’t find their way from Egypt to Canaan in less than 40 years. Get real.”

But as far as I can recall, the Torah doesn’t say that the people couldn’t find their way to the right place, It’s that they couldn’t find their way to the right state of mind.

Not everyone is denied entry into the “Promised Land.” The two men who face the challenge ahead with confidence—Joshua and Caleb—they’re already ready. They live long enough to see a new life. Why? Because Physical bondage is only part of the problem. If you’re still carrying slave-mentality around in your head and your heart, the open desert has to burn it away.

How many peoples throughout history have had the benefit of "40 years in the desert" to learn how to be free? How many have had the luxury of not having a new tyrant breathing down their necks and waiting for them to fail? We, in America, had that luxury because most of the rest of the world was separated from us by two oceans that took a long time to cross. Who else has been so lucky?

What about the building of the calf and the giving of the law? Someone once told me what he thought was a nasty joke, saying, "Only the Jews would come up with the idea that a bunch of laws equals freedom." But I didn't find it nasty or funny. I said, "Yes. Laws do equal freedom.” Without law, all you have is a world of competing appetites and the domination of the strong. You have chaos, and chaos leads straight to tyranny. If you don't have laws or principles that allow you to self-govern, it won't take long for you to turn to some strong man and say, “if you feed us and keep us safe, we’ll let you rule us.”

In our tradition, the Torah is not a book that you’re simply supposed to swallow without reflection. You’re not asked to just…believe it. You’re asked to study it—to grapple with it. That’s why we read it every year and start it again as soon as we finish it. My heritage and culture teach me to wrestle with the story, to argue with it, and to learn from it constantly. And the only way to do that is to let the words and images resonate with me—to let them bounce around and reflect off things and work on me in different ways.

Like a poem.

So, here we are again. Another Passover. Is the story ancient and dusty? Or does it speak to us? Do we have strongmen in our midst who want power without consequence and loyalty without question? Do we have people living in places where their rights are being whittled away, but it’s scary and difficult to pick up and leave?

Kind of.

It's hard to stand up to Pharaoh and demand your freedom. He has all the power, and he’s convinced you that you have none. Standing up will get you punished. Standing up will get you banished from the in-crowd, and you don’t want that, do you? You’ve been told you only matter if you’re in with with the in-crowd. How could you possibly survive the harsh winds of exile if you were driven from their midst?

It's hard to remember that you are valuable and important, all by yourself. It’s hard to remember that standing alone doesn’t rob you of power, but gives you power. The world of Pharaohs wants you to forget that. But we tell the story every year, because it can be done, and it must be done.

It's hard to cross that sea and leave the past behind, knowing that when the waters close behind you, you can never go back. It's hard to embrace real freedom, when all your life you've been dependent on authority figures telling you what to do and what to believe. It's hard to take full ownership of your life, your beliefs, and your decisions, and know that, whatever comes, it's all on you. But we tell the story every year, because it can be done, and it must be done.

May we all be brave enough in the coming year to tell off our personal Pharaohs, get out of whatever situations or mindsets we have become enslaved to, and wander through whatever wilderness is required to get us to our promised lands.

Pass through it, pass under it, or pass over it. Just keep moving.