April 26, 2024 / 18 Nisan 5784
The Poetic Arc of Passover
The liturgy for Pesah is chock full of poetry – many sections of the Haggadah, liturgical poems associated with Passover worship, the Song of Songs, the Song at the Sea, and more. The narrative arc of all of Pesah’s voluminous verse tells a pretty interesting (and moving) story.
On Pesah’s first day, we chanted a prayer for dew. Passover marks the end of the rainy season in the land of Israel; hence a prayer for continued nourishment in the form of dew. The middle verses of poet El’azar ben Kalir’s prayer read as follows:
Let dew drift over this blessed earth
and satisfy us with the sweetness of heaven’s blessing.
Let light break through the darkness,
that these stalks grow toward You with heavenly dew.
May dew flow down mountainsides like honeyed juice,
flavoring the choice fruits of Your land.
May You break the chains of those who plead with You,
as our voices rise to sing songs of praise with heavenly dew.
We pray that light break through, that those in chains become free; dew stands for the victory of light over darkness and of freedom over slavery and imprisonment.
On the Sabbath in the middle of Passover we take on the Bible’s great love poem(s), the Song of Songs – Shir haShirim. Continuing the nature imagery of the Prayer for Dew, the Song offers these words of praise:
For now the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come;
The song of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The green figs form on the fig tree, the vines in blossom give off fragrance.
The Midrash historicizes the Song’s springtime images:
The time of the nightingale has arrived…the time for Israel to be redeemed has arrived…the time for Egypt to be cut off has arrived…the time for idol worship to be uprooted has arrived…the time for the sea to have its water split has arrived…the time for song has arrived…
And on the seventh day of Passover (Biblically and in the land of Israel, the final day of the festival) the Sea does split and the ‘time for song’ indeed arrives:
עָזִּ֤י וְזִמְרָת֙ יָ֔הּ וַֽיְהִי־לִ֖י לִֽישׁוּעָ֑ה – ‘ozi v’zimrat yah, va’y’hi li l’yishuah
My fierce-might and song is YAH, God has become deliverance for me!
Here the Midrash invites some deep thinking on the tension between the particular and the universal:
My fierce-might — You are the helper and sustainer of all the inhabitants of the world, but mine above all.
My song is YAH — You are the theme for song for all the inhabitants of the world, but mine above all.
My deliverance — You are the deliverance of all the inhabitants of the world, but mine above all.
I admit that the Midrash’s ‘but mine above all’ troubles me. I’d like to focus on God as sustainer, inspirer, deliverer of kol ba’ei ‘olam – ‘all the inhabitants of the world.’ But sometimes, and perhaps right now is such a time, I really do need to focus on my people’s needs first. First yes, but never only. Never!
The Midrash’s concluding lines help a bit:
God has become deliverance for me! — That God was and God will be – that God was in times past; and that God will be in the Age to Come.
And not just for me/us, but for all people everywhere, always.
Shabbat Shalom & Hag Sameah
Rabbi David
