Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Passover Yizkor by Harold M. Schulweis

I have Kosovo on my mind.

It intruded on my Passover Sedarim. Kosovo was a shock of recognition. Box cars, sealed trains, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of old men, women, children, frightened, wet, cold, hungry, sick, bewildered. And the reporter's consistent questions at the borders of Macedonia and Albania, "Where are the men between the ages of 17 and 45?" Where did we hear that before? And there rose a new pharaoh, a new king, and he said to his people "Hineh am b'nai Israel rav v'atzum mimenu" -- the children of Israel are far too many. Let us deal with them wisely lest they multiply and it come to pass that when there befalls us any war, they also will join against us. Separate the male children and let the Egyptian midwives drown them in the Nile. Let the Nile river flow with innocent blood. Separate the able bodied men. Put them in separate camps. Kill them. Those pitiful refugees uprooted, deracinated, where do they go? Into a wilderness of poisonous serpents and dried up water holes, led by a pillar of fire from the air, and an explosive cloud of dust in the day of their confusion.

I have Kosovo on my mind around the Passover table. The Passover story is for all humankind. It happened to the Jews, but its message is universal. The consciousness of God first came to the Jewish people, not from metaphysicians who argued logic. People discovered God out of chains and manacles, whips and starvation. And they understood the major predicate of God. God loves freedom and hates slavery. Passover is our unique story, but it bears universal application.

The Catholic philosophers of "liberation theology" in Latin America derive the passion of their argument from the Exodus story.  The writers of the "theology of hope," such as Ernst Bloch, are inspired by our story, the Exodus.  The Exodus inspired twenty-two brilliant sermons before the fall and execution of the radical monk Savonarola.

In 1776, Benjamin Franklin proposed the great seal of the United States, a portrait of Moses lifting his rod and the Egyptians pursuing the chariots as they were drowning in the sea. The seal's motto was, "Rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God.”  Thomas Jefferson proposed his own seal. A column of Israelites marching through the wilderness led by God's pillar of fire and of clouds.

The Jewish exodus provided the inspiration of the South African revolution against apartheid.  The Jewish exodus is part of the preaching, teaching, and songs of African Americans in America: "Go down Moses, way down in Egypt land, tell old Pharaoh, to let My people go.”  Passover became the root story for western civilization, the narrative for western theology, western ethics, and liturgy. We can relate that story to the trembling, frightened people of Yugoslavia. It is a story of suffering and redemption.

The rabbis declared that Passover is not only a story about the past. They transformed it from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem into the home, from antiquity into escatology, from the past into the future.

The Passover is about the future. Passover past is only prologue. All of the Passover rituals at the Seder are only preparations for the last ritual of the meal, the last symbol, for the end gesture, the last taste in the mouth after which nothing is to be eaten. It all leads up to the Afikomen, the concluding ritual to be observed individually and collectively. The ritual is called "tzafun," which means hidden, concealed. The Afikomen is a piece of bread unleavened, hidden out of sight. Even when retrieved from the hiddenness, the Afikomen will not be eaten with a blessing, but without a comment, without a bracha, without a song, without a single verse, without a benediction. Why no benediction? How could there be a benediction over that which has not yet been? How can you have a benediction over davar shelo ba l'olam, something that hasn't even occurred? The afikomen is a mystery about which it is best to keep quiet. It is a subversive symbol of what is not yet, of what may be, should be, must be, could be, but is not yet. It is a symbol of a messianic era. That is why on the last day of Passover what was chosen to be chanted in the Haftorah is not about past victories or past events or past plagues or past revelations. The Haftorah is about the Messianic future.

It is a broken matzah that will finally be revealed at the end of the meal, discovered to be distributed and shared. Why a broken matzah? There is nothing so whole as that which is broken. There is nothing so whole in a human being as a broken heart. This broken matzah includes a jagged history of expulsion, exile, bondage, betrayal, slavery. It is half a matzah because it points to the promise yet to be. It is a larger part of something that is not yet realized. Its brokenness signifies an important insight in Jewish theology. The world is incomplete. The world is not finished. And our search continues. Passover begins with a search on the evening before Passover with a feather and candle, peering into the crevices and dark corners, and the Seder ends with the search for the afikomen. We send the children to search and hopefully to bring the hope back. The search must go on, ours and our children's. If we give up the search, the Seder is passé, talk about the past.

Of course it's important to remember the past. We are free, dayenu. We have left Egypt, dayenu. We have transcended the split sea, dayenu. We have heard the thunder and the lightning at Sinai, dayenu. But all that is in the past. The soul of Passover is in the future. Passover of the past is a foretaste of the society that is yet to be. You may simulate tears with salt water, and bitterness with acrid herbs. But today, no simulation is required.

Today is real. Today there are too many refugees, too many hungry, too many homeless, too many slaves, too many beaten, too many frightened, too many chained, too many dungeons. Today we have to do something about it. Because, as the rabbis never failed to emphasize, "Everything in this world requires repair." The wheat needs to be ground, the lupine needs to be soaked, and human nature needs to be repaired. Hakol tzirickin tikun.   Let others shout "Hosanna, it's all over. The Messiah has come." Not us. Look out the window of the television media. Look out of your window and you will see that the Passover is not yet.

We cannot say, "Just believe and you will be saved.”  The world is torn into shreds, the fabric is torn, the messianic era has not come. Say, the Sages, if you hold a sapling in your hand and a voice cries out "The Messiah has come," first kneel down and plant the sapling in the earth. For if the Messiah comes, it will be through working the soil and planting the seeds of the messianic era.

The world will not be redeemed except through the energy and efforts of all human beings. We will not wait for an alien space ship at heaven's gate. That's not how salvation takes place. We do not wait for the great rapture that promises to lift us into the heavens. We begin here and now, freeing the slaves, feeding the hungry, clothing the shivering, raising the voice for the voiceless. The afikomen is the manna for tomorrow.

We are not yet redeemed. So we hold the cup of Elijah, because the cup of Elijah you don't drink from says, "not yet.”  The Passover is for the future. For that reason, the whole Seder is divided into two parts. The Hallel Psalms is divided into two parts, before and after the meal. We sing Hallel, referring to the Passover of Egypt, the Passover of the Past, and use the word "shirah", the song that refers to the past. But after the meal the Psalms change. We no longer sing the feminine form of "shirah" but "shir", the masculine form of "shirah.”  Something has to be done. Passover is not for recollection. Passover is for action. From the very beginning of the Seder we sing knowing our incompleteness, knowing that we are not redeemed. "This year we are slaves. Next year we'll be free.”  Remember the past. Do not allow it to eclipse the future.

Memory is for the sake of transformation. If we focus only and exclusively on the past, we will become pallbearers of dead corpses. Respect the future. The Sages say that one of the first questions we will be asked in the world to come is, "Did you anticipate salvation? Did you expect redemption?" Live with hope for the future. The future is the missing tense.

Even Yizkor is for the future, not simply a remembrance of those who are deceased. Yizkor is a remembrance of their values so that they can live today and tomorrow through us. What else is immortality but the power of their memory in us? The Yizkor is a past that carries them into the future. Do not look back toward them. Look forward toward them.

The bones of Joseph were not left behind in Egypt. They were carried by Moses into the land of promise. We carry the bones of their memory into tomorrow's land. The future sanctifies the past. It's in the marrow of our bones. Is this not the feast I have given you? Is this not the matzah and the maror and the haroses; to loose the band of tyranny, to relieve the burden of the poor, to free the oppressed, to share your bread with the hungry, to hide not yourself from your own flesh. The afikomen is the taste of the future. So let us remember the future. If you're going to hear this talk, if you're going to be sad with me before the reports, before the television accounts.  You will simply be part of the dead past. I am going to write a check, my wife is going to write a check, my family will write a check for the future. I urge you to write a check to the VBS Kosovo Refugee Relief and send it to me. I will see to it that those agencies that are concerned with relieving excruciating excremental assault upon human beings is used to raise people up. Write to me. I am not concerned with how much you put in.

We are delighted to hear that Israel, not exactly the safest country in the world, sent Israeli arms, food and supplies to Kosovo. Israelis really understand this situation.

We understand more of the past through the present and the future.  When in high places they said, "We will not bomb the railway tracks of Auschwitz,  we cannot detract attention from the war or put our pilots in harm's way, we left the death camps intact." I am proud that this country and the nineteen countries of NATO have learned a lesson. The smell of holocaust is in our nostrils. And it is largely because of memory that men and women of the United States and NATO are risking their lives. May God bless and protect them. Silence and folded hands would have been the deepest disgrace and shame upon America, upon NATO and upon western civilization.

On Pesach we direct attention to the future from subordination to redemption, from sadness to joy, from darkness to light. Remember the future.

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