Pesach another meaningless Jewish ritual or a time to reignite our sense of social conscience

I love Pesach it’s my favourite Festival, I enjoy everything about it I think it just oozes

coolness. I mean you get to spend time with friends and family in an intimate setting around

the Seder table, I know in my house we often invite people we don’t see to often so its really

a special time. Look I think the whole preparation for the festival isn’t always that great i.e.

all the cleaning out and change over stuff but it all adds to the sanctity of the festival I guess.

Rabbi’s have an absolute field day at this time of the year. Pesach is filled with symbolisms.

Take for instance the dry and unleavened bread we eat i.e. matzah. I’m sure we all know the

teaching which says that Chometz (normal risen bread and bread based products) is a symbol

of arrogance because it’s risen and filled out like the Yetzer Harah (Or Evil Inclination)

which is bloated through its arrogance of joy when people do wrong. On the other hand

Matzah is lowly bread which symbolizes piety and simpleness. This lowly bread symbolizes

the Jewish people when they left Egypt according to our Sages, and is called a bread of our

affliction. The broader understanding of this period is a time of national introspection and

remembrance. We go into depth about our suffering and the miraculous redemption from

bondage in Egypt. However as Jews we do not just kvetch about our suffering and pain, we

also give praise for our redemption and also look forward to a final future redemption.

This being said I think that a fundamental part of this festival and especially the Seder part

have become drowned in petty worrying about measurements and sizes of this thing or that.

Many Haggadah’s have pages on the fluid ounce requirements for the cups of wines, the

amount of inches of matzah and maror that one requires. I am in no way saying these should

be ignored or dismissed but I feel that the emphasis is being misplaced with ritual over

meaning.

The Seder has the potential to be the most spiritually and emotionally up lifting experience

not only for the little kids who get to sing the Manishitana section of the Seder but for the

adults as well. I know in certain sects they dress up and put on plays to live up the Seder

experience. This is fantastic but again it’s all symbolic for me the essence of Pesach is the

concept of justice and dignity. The Hebrew people’s who originally fled to Egypt due to

the drought in Canaan and the difficult living conditions, were refugees seeking a better life

for themselves and their families. They were in later generations oppressed and turned into

slaves. Their dignity was undermined in many ways as the Haggadah says.

The essential message which I think we should gain from Pesach – besides the pounds from

some of those measurements especially those of the Chazon Ish – is the central importance

of human dignity and the fact that the Jewish people should be ultra-sensitive to the plight of

others especially those who have become refugees due to circumstances in their own country.

South African Jews have an obligation to highlight the suffering of the oppressed people of

Zimbabwe, Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the like who have fled

despotic tyrannical regimes in some cases and others who have just fled to find a better life

for themselves and their families.

It is no co-incidence that soon after Pesach we will be Commemorating Yom HaShoah –

Holocaust Memorial Day – we see that in the not too distant past the Jewish people suffered

the most egregious systematic mass murdering in recorded history. We rightly ask where

the world was. We are rightly given no definitive answer. We however need to ask where

our voices today when thousands of African Refugees are fleeing Darfur, Zimbabwe, Libya,

Ivory Coast , Libya, and so on. It is not our task alone to raise these issues but I feel that

South African Jews should be highlighting the plight of fellow Africans in any way we can.

I feel that Moroccan Jews although small should be highlighting the plight of the people of

the Occupied Western Sahara which is illegally and brutally Occupied by the Moroccans

for more than 30 years, Jews in Europe should be arguing strenuously for the rights of

refugees that have fled to Europe especially those fleeing the crisis now that has engulfed

large swathes of North Africa. We the children of the freed slaves of ancient Egypt and the

children of those survived years of discrimination, anti-Semitism, pogroms and the Holocaust

of Nazi Europe should be aware and vocal on ensuring the rights and dignities of others.

This for me is the real message which we should take out of Pesach and one which too often

is overlooked or totally misunderstood by us and more so by many of our Rabbi’s!

I wish you all Chag Kasher VeSameich and meaningful Sedorim.

By Ilan Solomons

SAUJS National African Affairs Liaison Officer