Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Passover Yizkor 2004 by Harold M. Schulweis

Our sages spoke of two Passovers:  One is called Pesach Lishovar, the Passover of the past, and the other is called Pesach Latid, the Passover of the future. One is historic and informs us as to what has already happened. The other is futuristic; it tells you what can yet happen. The Haftorah for the eighth day of Passover comes from Isaiah. The rabbis chose this section from the Prophet Isaiah because it deals with the future, and in particular, with the Messiah (Chapter 11).

This is the Jewish dream of the Messiah. The Christian concept of Messiah is rooted in Jewish prophetic tradition, but is markedly different. The name “Christ” is the Greek translation of Moshiach, “one who is anointed.” In the Bible, “Messiah” refers to anyone, any person, charged with a divine office, whether it be king, priest or prophet. In Isaiah, Chapter 45, the name of Messiah is conferred upon the Gentile king, Cyrus of Persia, who conquered Babylonia and who released the Jews from the country of their expulsion and allowed them to return to Israel.

The Jewish story of Messiah is significantly different from the Christian story of Christ. While both ideas express the religious imagination of redemption, the Jewish Messiah is not supernatural, not immortal, not infallible. The Jewish Messiah does not come to save or redeem the damned souls of individuals. The Jewish Messiah is natural, mortal, fallible. The Messianic icon comes to save lives ­ not souls, to free people from the bondage of oppression. Jewish Messianic redemption will not come from a supernatural being descending from the heavens.

The Jewish Messiah is not God or the son of God. As we see in Verse 2, he is gifted with wisdom, insight, counsel and compassion for the pariah, the outcast, the forgotten. The Jewish Messianic dream is not to escape from the world, not to leap to another universe, but to transform this earthly universe and to sanctify it in the world he created. As the Kaddish prayer reminds us, Godliness is to be magnified in this world, in the lives and in the hearts of people.

A celebrated rabbi was asked, “What is the difference between the next world, of the Gentiles, and that of ours?” He answered, “They believe that there are two worlds, and so do we. But we believe that both worlds are one.” The Messianic dream is not to transcend this world, but to transform this world. In our Haftorah there is no mention of Heaven and Hell.

Consider the way in which the rabbis, the sages, structured our Seder. The Passover is more than history. Its major focus is upon the future. We begin and end the Passover with searching, bedikah. On the evening of Passover we search for the hametz, and at the end of the Seder we search for the matzah, for the afikomen. That search is called “tzafun,” that which is “hidden.” Something hidden must be retrieved, something that is hidden in us. The search for the afikomen is not a game to keep the children awake. It is to remind us that the world is not yet redeemed. In the Christian view, holy history is vertical and horizontal, intersects the Cross. “Heilsgeschicte,” holy history, is over. The Messiah has already come and our task is to believe, “sola fide” ­ “only faith,” that he came, that he is the Son of God, and will save humanity from its inherited sin.

There is a Jewish folk story which tells of the rabbi who is told by his disciples that the Messiah has arrived: “Come, Rabbi, and greet him!” The rabbi draws the curtain of his window open. He looks out and tells the disciples: “No, dear children, the Messiah has not come.” What did the rabbi see through the window? He saw homelessness and poverty, fighting and jealousy and hatred. He knew that the Messiah had not arrived.

The rabbi drew his wisdom from the celebrated Talmudic insight, “If you hold in your hand a seedling and someone says, ‘Come and greet the Messiah,’ first bend down and plant the seedling in the earth, and then go to greet the Messiah.” Manna will not come from heaven. Manna will grow out of our earthly efforts of raising food for the hungry. Manna grows from the earth. The “Motzi” is a result of God’s gift of sun, soil and water — and our transformation of the given.

Two rituals at the Seder point to the future. One is the “Yachatz,” in which the middle matzah is broken. The larger part is hidden because tomorrow will be greater that yesterday. The other ritual is the eating of the afikomen. Significantly, both of these rituals are practiced without a blessing and in silence. But ours is a tradition that is surrounded by one hundred blessings a day for rainbows, for lightning, for bread and wine. Why no blessing for these two ritual enactments? You do not make a blessing over that which has not yet come into existence. The Messianic dream is a potentiality that has not yet been actualized. So both the Yachatz and the afikomen rites are performed in the silence of expectation. The gestures are revolutionary. The world as it is, and the powers that reign ­ whether in Rome or in Constantinople, are not gods to be bowed down to as divine. We eat the afikomen in silence and without benediction, because we reject the status quo as the final world. That was and is a revolutionary act. We testify that the kingdom of God has not arrived. We send our children to open the door for the hidden Elijah. We urge our children to look to tomorrow, to a time better than yesterday or today. Tomorrow must be kinder. The children who earlier question must be prepared to discover answers.

The hero of our Seder is not Moses, but Elijah. The fifth cup is not called “Moses’ cup of wine,” but “Elijah’s,” because Elijah is the forerunner of the Messiah, and so we sing of Elijah at the conclusion of every Sabbath and every festival, the verses from our Haftorah. (Isaiah 12:3). We sing “Elijah the Prophet” after the Sabbath. The Messiah will not come on Sabbath. He will not come on Sabbath because on the Sabbath we celebrate the taste, one sixtieth of the Messianic Era. We need to be there for the Messiah to come. The Messiah — where can he be found? Some believe that the Messiah was born on Tisha b’Av on the very day that the Temple was destroyed. He will emerge out of the ashes of the crematoria.

In a celebrated passage in the Talmud Sanhedrin, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked, “When will the Messiah come?” 
“Go and ask him himself,” was the reply. 
“Where is he sitting?” 
“At the entrance to the city of Rome.” 
“And by what sign may I recognize him?” 
“He is sitting among the poor lepers and he is binding and rebinding their bandages.” 
When he heard that, Rabbi Joshua went and greeted him, saying, “Peace upon thee, master and teacher. When will you come?” 
And the Messiah answered, “Today.” 
On the next day, Rabbi Joshua complained: “He spoke falsely to me, stating that he would come today, but he has not.” 
And Elijah answered him, “That is what he said to me: ‘Today, if you will hear his voice.’”

The Messiah will not come without our beginning to change the world. It is we, the sons and daughters of the Messiah, who are mandated to bind the wounds of the lepers, bind and rebind the sufferers of AIDS, loosen the fetters of the enslaved in the Sudan, seek peace in a trembling world and hasten the Messianic era.

Like Passover, we recite the Yizkor not only to remember the past, but to remember the future. Those we remember loved us, and we return their love by living out their noblest dreams. Their immortality is grounded in our morality.
 

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