Rav Adam has been speaking about Passover foods as edible metaphors. Today, I’d like to look at Pesah itself as a metaphor for our relationship with God and for the type of Jew that we want to be.

At the end of Seder, some people have the custom of reading the Song of Songs. Others read Shir Hashirim on the Shabbat of Passover. In the entire Bible, the Song of Songs stands out for its use of metaphors and comparisons: 

Let him kiss me with his lips, for his kiss is sweet like wine.
As a lily among thorns, so is my lover among the daughters.
As an apricot tree among the trees of the forest, so is my lover among the sons.
My lover is like a gazelle, or a young deer.
Your eyes are like doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of freshly shorn ewes, just coming up from washing….
Your lips are like a scarlet thread. Your cheeks like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil.
Your neck is like the tower of David.
Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, which feed among the lilies.
Your love is more precious than wine. The scent of your oil is more fragrant than many spices.
Your lips drip honey…and the fragrance of your clothing is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
My sister is like a closed garden.
Your shoots are like an orchard of pomegranates, full of choice fruits and spices.
You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water, streams flowing from Lebanon.
My beloved is all radiant and ruddy … his head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a
raven. His eyes like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set. His cheeks like beds
of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh.

More than any other book of the Bible, the Shir uses metaphors, similes, and comparisons to convey to the listeners and readers the passion, beauty and devotion of the two lovers. Since the Shir is associated with Passover, we might say that Shir Hashirim is all about love, hope and possibility. In contrast, Qohelet, Eccesiastes, the scroll we read on Sukkot, suggests weariness as we head into winter, disillusionment at the repetitive patterns of nature.

Our Sages imagined that Solomon composed both megillot, but that the Shir was a product of his youth and Qohelet was written when he was older and had seen it all. This suggests that one way to look at Pesah is to see it as a harbinger of hope, an occasion of optimism, an expression of exuberance. Shir Hashirim Jews are connected to nature, love and joy.

The Rabbis use metaphors and comparisons to highlight elements of Jewish life that they view as important. In the midrashic collection, Pesikta Rabati (piska 15: 8-9), they draw upon the Shir’s comparison of the lover to a gazelle, skipping over mountains to reach his beloved.

You come like a gazelle. Rabbi Yitzhak observed: As a gazelle leaps and skips from tree to tree, from thicket to thicket, from grove to grove, so the blessed Holy One leaped from Egypt to the Red Sea and from the Red Sea to Sinai.  They saw God in Egypt, as it is said For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night (Exod.12:12).  They saw God at the Sea of Reeds: And Israel saw the great work (Exod. 14:31).  They saw God at Sinai: Moses . . . said, The Eternal came to Sinai. (Deut.33:2).

Another comment: My Beloved is like a gazelle.  Rabbi Isaac said: As a gazelle leaps and skips from tree to tree, from thicket to thicket, and from grove to grove, so the blessed Holy One leaps from synagogue to synagogue, from school to school.  Why?  In order to bless Israel.

Or a young hart (Song 2:9). Rabbi Yossi bar Hanina: Just like the young of the gazelle.  Behold, he standeth behind our wall – behind the walls of houses of prayer and houses of study.  He looks through the windows, from between the shoulders of kohanim.  He appears  through the lattice – from between the fingers of the kohanim.  My beloved spoke, and said unto me (Song 2:10) [these words]: “May the Eternal bless you, and protect you” (Num.6:24).

Here, the Song is exemplary of the great love between God and the people of Israel. Passover becomes the celebration of the covenant, the anniversary of affection.

Another comparison is developed in the rabbinic midrash on Exodus, the Mekhilta, in the section that comments on the Song of the Sea (Shirata 3, 11:32-39). Discussing the phrase “This is my God whom I will glorify” (Exod.15:2), “…. They recited a mashal. What is this like?  It is like a king of flesh-and-blood who entered a province surrounded by a circle of guards: his heroes stand to his right and to his left; his soldiers are before and behind him.  And everyone asks, saying: Which one is the king?  [Why?]  Because he is a man of flesh-and-blood just like the others. But when the blessed Holy One revealed Himself at the sea, no one had to ask: Which one is the king?  As soon as they saw God, they recognized Him, and all of them opened their mouths and said: “This is my God whom I will glorify.”

In this midrash, God is contrasted with human sovereigns who are similar in appearance to their subjects. The crossing of the Sea, on the seventh day, becomes a time to highlight the prophetic vision
shared by all the people. Passover becomes a time of religious insight.

In this midrash, God is contrasted with human sovereigns who are similar in appearance to their subjects. The crossing of the Sea, on the seventh day, becomes a time to highlight the prophetic vision shared by all the people. Passover becomes a time of religious insight.

I want to set up some other comparisons and contrasts as a way of highlighting some significant themes for our understanding of Passover and Jewish life.

Rabbi David Hartman z”l used to point to the contrast between Exodus and Sinai, with the first being about one-off miracles and the second pointing to the important of regularity. For him, Exodus represented the reaction to the Six Day War, the sense that God could break through into history. But it also had the down side of the Yom Kippur War, where people felt abandoned. David Hartman saw the regularity of the Sinai covenant and the commitment to a life of mitzvah as a more stable way for Jews to live.

In our Israel engagement seminar on peoplehood, Donniel Hartman contrasted Genesis and Exodus. Genesis, with its narrative about Avraham and his descendents, sees Judaism primarily as an expression of the individual and the family.  In contrast, Exodus represents the birth of a nation, a public covenant that includes a group which goes beyond the personal to encompass an entire community. While recognizing the value of family and ethnicity to Jewish life, Donniel sought to elicit from us the recognition of the important of a people committed to shared ideals, values and behavior.

More recently, Yossi Klein Halevi of the Hartman Institute developed the metaphor of Purim Jews and Pesah Jews. Purim Jews are anxious and fearful, aware of their vulnerability, always anticipating the possibility of an attack. In distinction, Pesah Jews have confidence and strength. They are conscious of having been slaves and bring that empathy to future decisions that we face. Purim Jews circle the wagons for defense. Pesah Jews seek inclusion and welcome criticism. 

The metaphor you choose reflects your view of Jewish life. The cyclical cynicism of Qohelet or the love and passion of Shir Hashirim. The miracles of the Exodus or the regularity of Sinai. The personal and family-focus of Genesis or the national orientation of the Book of Shemot. The anxiety and insecurity of Purim or the compassion and empathy of Passover. Of course these paradigms need not be exclusive, affirming one need not deny the other. We are always balancing between the binary alternatives.

But we do have to consider the images and metaphors, the comparisons and contrasts, that we use. Pesah is not only one representation. Passover is not given to us as if it means just “this icon”. Instead, we would be wise to recognize that Passover is a polyvalent metaphor and we have to make our choices based on the freedom that Pesah represents.

Shabbat shalom and Mo’adim lesimhah.