Prophetess, Leader, Musician
Apr 29, 2016 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pesah
Joy is the theme of the hour as God鈥檚 praises are sung during the completion of Hallel. The image that bursts forth in our mind鈥檚 eye is that of Miriam the Prophetess and the women celebrating their newly found freedom on the banks of the Reed Sea. While the moment is solemn, it is also one of intense elation.
Shevi鈥檌 Shel Pesah: Living at the Frontier
Apr 29, 2016 By Lauren Henderson | Commentary | Pesah
On the seventh day of Passover (Shevi鈥檌 shel Pesah), we reached the frontier of our existence: Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds. We had known slavery intimately, becoming deeply comfortable in Egypt even as we clamored to leave. And after all the plagues and darkness and death, we arrived, trembling, at the water鈥檚 edge, about to surface and breathe the unfamiliar air of freedom for the first time.
A Noble Freedom
Apr 22, 2016 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Pesah
Many Virginians of middle and upper ranks aspired to behave like gentlemen. In the early seventeenth century an English gentleman was defined as one who could 鈥渓ive idly and without manual labor.鈥� The words 鈥済entleman鈥� and 鈥渋ndependent鈥� were used synonymously, and 鈥渋ndependence鈥� in this context meant freedom from the necessity of labor.
Read More鈥擠avid Hackett Fischer, Albion鈥檚 Seed: Four British Folkways in America, 366
Remembering Pesah 1946
Apr 22, 2016 By Avinoam Patt | Commentary | Pesah
Every Passover as we read the Haggadah, we recite:
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as though he actually left Egypt. As it says: 鈥淵ou shall tell your son on that day, 鈥業t is because of this that God took me out of Egypt.鈥欌�� (Exodus 13:8)
Seventy years ago, in April 1946, the first Passover in postwar Germany followed the liberation of the concentration camps. The survivors who gathered to form the She鈥檈rit Hapletah, the surviving remnant, felt this transition from slavery in a more immediate sense than any generation of the children of Israel in the 2,000 years that preceded them.
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