Passover is more than just a celebration of the exodus from Egypt; it is the beginning of the harvest season.
By Isaac Shalev
The three Jewish pilgrimage holidays (Heb. shalosh regalim) of Pesach, Sukkot, and Shavuot are the most ancient Jewish holidays, but in modern Jewish life two of them, Sukkot and Shavuot, are largely forgotten. Only Pesach maintains pride of place with the High Holidays and Hanukkah.
It's no surprise, really. The shalosh regalim are agricultural holidays, tied to the seasons and rhythms of the farmer and the shepherd, not the banker and the blogger. In the US, only one in three hundred people are farmers, and that proportion is even smaller among Jews. Holidays celebrating national liberation, personal atonement and redemption resonate for us far more than holidays about reaping, sowing, harvesting, and gathering.
To paraphrase then, why is Pesach so different from the other harvest holidays? Of the three, Pesach is the only holiday that does not celebrate abundance, but rather commemorates scarcity – usually an unpopular experience to celebrate. Yet maybe that is part of the reason for its popularity.
In historical terms, Pesach celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It pays tribute both to the escape from bondage for a group of slaves, as well as to the birth of a new people with a shared identity and shared responsibility towards one another. In agricultural terms, Pesach marks the time of the ripening of the barley crop. In ancient times, the barley crop, the first of the grains to ripen, was the main source of feed for animals. However, due to its low protein content, barley bread is crumbly and doesn't have the pleasing texture of gluten-rich wheat breads. The wheat harvest, seven weeks later, was the real measure of a farm's yield, and would determine whether people would eat richly or poorly until the following harvest.
In this light, Pesach is the holiday of potential. In many ways, it's actually not a celebration as much as a sigh of relief. Pesach is that moment when immediate danger has passed, but enormous challenges and uncertainty still lie ahead. Pesach is having the criminal complaint dismissed, but still facing the civil suit. Pesach is the moment you learn that you won't be downsized as part of the corporate restructuring, at least not yet. Pesach is leaving the Superdome to face what the flood has wrought. At the root of every redemption is the darkness of the bondage that came before it, just as every spring comes with the ghosts of winters past.
Yet the winter is past, the storm clouds have broken, and the world is filled with possibility. Barley is a humble grain, a poor bread, but a bread nonetheless. And it is not just a bread, but the new bread, the new harvest, the very first taste we get of abundance that comes after lack, of freedom that comes after slavery. It is then that the paradox of Pesach is most readily apparent: there's no difference, really, between the bread of affliction that we ate as slaves, and the poor barley bread we eat as free men, but there's an infinite qualitative difference between living on sufferance and living on self-sufficiency.
Today, we live in an interdependent world. We depend on farmers, truckers, food chemists, corporations, and governments for our food. We are bound to a system that is troubled and troubling, that dehumanizes and enslaves, and that promotes unhealthy eating and unsustainable farming. Pesach reminds us to look after those who are trapped by inhumane systems, and it teaches us that dignity can be found in choice, self-sufficiency and simplicity. Pesach reminds us that we can walk away from submission to a cruel master and take up our own destiny once again. That's a message worth remembering.
