Is Passover a time for peacemaking and reconciliation? - - Jewish festival of liberation & salvation?
Hello Jewish friends and people of faith!
Do you have some words to explain how central your Passover affirmations are to a Gentile who is curious about your faith and creed! Have a blessed Passover with family and fellow worshippers!
10 points for best answer - - to be awarded during this month (March)
Tagged with: affirmations • creed • faith • fellow worshippers • gentile • jewish friends • passover
Filed under: jewish holidays
We celebrate God’s delivering us from the slavery in Egypt. We discuss the plagues along these lines, too.
It is NOT about peace and reconciliation, that’s what Yom Kippur is for.
Passover is essentualy the holiday when we celbrate freedom and redemption.
It’s the holiday when we reboost our trust in God that he will redeem us yet again from the exile we are in today and unite us in Israel with the coming of the king Moshiach (Messiah).
We believe that if God hadn’t taken us out we would still be slaves today (not so much as phisically being slaves, but we would have the slave complex etc as seen by other cultures today). Passover is when God not only took us out of Egypt, but he took the notion of Jews being slavea away.
The origin of the Passover
God chose Moses and used him to bring about the emancipation of the Israelites, who had groaned under their Egyptian slavery for 430 years.
When Moses was eighty years old, God commanded him to ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go; however, Pharaoh refused and he became even more rebellious against God, afflicting the Israelites more severely. God was enraged and brought plagues upon the whole land of Egypt: the plagues of blood, of frogs, of flies…of darkness. The heart of Pharaoh became more hardened and he stubbornly refused to let the Israelites go. God allowed Pharaoh’s heart to become hardened so that He could judge Egypt.
Through the tenth plague, God decided to kill every firstborn of Egypt-both men and animals-and appointed the fourteenth day of the first month, by sacred year. God didn’t want the firstborn of the Israelites to die along with the firstborn of the Egyptians, so He ordered the Israelites to put the blood of a year-old lamb on their doorframes and housetops.
Ex. 12:1-14 『…"The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect …Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight…This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover…The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD-a lasting ordinance."』
The blood of the lamb became the sign of God’s people, and the destroying angels passed over the Israelites’ houses, where the blood had been painted. This day was called the Passover, meaning that the disaster would "pass over."
On that day, the Israelites put the lamb’s blood on their doorframes, ate its roasted meat, and prepared to go on a journey. That night, as the Israelites waited, loud wailing could be heard. All of the firstborn of Egypt-including the firstborn of Pharaoh-were killed.
During the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and told them to leave Egypt. The Egyptians, who had suffered all kinds of plagues, wanted the Israelites to leave quickly and gave them articles of silver and gold, even clothing.
The Passover was the day when God freed the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt. This was a shadow of the things to come. In the New Testament times, the Passover is the only feast through which God’s people can receive the forgiveness of their sins and can be saved from all disasters.
Our Passover affirmations? Kets see
1) We rejected slavery and accepted G-d as our sole G-d
2) G-d redeemed us from slavery in Egypt so we would be able to go out and receive the Torah
Where do we see point 1? The Korban Pesach (Passaover sacrifice) was of a lamb. Why specifically a lamb? And why the very public display of slaughtering it and then spreading its blood on the doorposts? The whole purpose of this was for the Jews to demonstrate that they rejected idoltary and accepted the protection of G-d. The lamb was sacred to the Egyptians, worshiped by them. The Jews slaughtered this symbol of idoltary and then publicised the fact- putting its blood on their doorposts. One would expect that the Egyptians, on seeing this public desecration of something they would consider divine, would attack and attempt some kind of vengeance. The Jews by this act demonstrated that they rejected the concept of divinity and the idols of the Egyptians- and the fact that the Egyptians would not be able to hurt them since they had G-d’s protection
Number 2 is th whole purpose of the redemption from Egypt. G-d took us out of slavery so we would be free to dedicate ourselves in his service. The seder, conducted in order, ensuring all the observances of the day are adhered to, is symbolic of this.
Your Friendly… said it best…short and sweet, easy to understand and accurate.