The Passover Feast

This week’s Parsha of Bo deals at length with the Mitzvah of the Passover sacrifice and Meal. (Today of course that meal is referred to as the Seder.) The Sefer HaChinuch asks the question as to why so many mitzvot are connected to the preparation of the Passover sacrifice and meal. He explains that because this ritual is so essential to Jewish life  we reinforce its significance by many mitzvah activities.

What message might we take away from the Passover sacrifice? The Torah tells us that this Passover meal had to take place in a group setting. In effect, the Passover meal was the first mandated family meal. Years ago, the Jewish sociologist Marshall Sklare analyzed why the Passover Seder today is the most widely-practiced Jewish ritual. He conjectures that part of the reason is that the meal is festive, it it is fun, and it takes place in a family circle. It is instructive that so basic a holiday ritual is celebrated in the family setting. The Torah seems to be telling us of the importance of the family structure in Jewish tradition.

Years ago I heard a lecture by Rabbi Zalman Posner of Nashville, TN. Rabbi Posner asked the question as to what part of Jewish life was absolutely essential for Jewish  continuity. He suggested that Jewish life needed neither synagogue life nor Temple nor rabbinic leadership to survive. What it did need was an active and engaged family structure.

Home, according to the poet, is the place where “when you go there, they have to take you in.” This week’s Parsha reminds us that the family is the center of our tradition’s vitality. May we never forget this truism.