The Passover Sacrifice in a Modern Context

 I recently took a shabbat stroll in the Israeli town of Givat Avni, a hamlet in the North bordering Tiberias.  I walked by a wall which was covered with bumper stickers of Israeli soldiers- sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, friends – killed in the onslaught of October 7 and in the line of battle in its aftermath.  Tears filled my eyes as I fixated on one bumper sticker in which there was a quote, which stated that one needs to be ready to even sacrifice their life, and the bumper sticker celebrated the young man of twenty-one who was at the ready and paid the highest price. (Writing these words, I now wish I remembered his name.)  I was reminded of the daily Shema, in which we are told we must love God ‘with all your soul,’ and the rabbis teach ‘you must love God even with your soul.’ That is to say, there are times you will need to give your very souls to God.

One soul upon another soul upon another soul. One father upon another father upon another father.  One husband upon another husband upon another husband.  One wife upon another wife upon another wife.  One family upon another family upon another family.   “How many sacrifices are required? How many families and communities broken?”  I turned to my wife and muttered, “This is just too much.”  We as a people are carrying too much these days.  This year when we sit down to our seder, we do not need to imagine Egypt, because if we open our hearts enough, Egypt will flood our system and drown us in the crying. We can dip the karpas in our own tears.

Today many contemporary Jews bristle at the very notion of animal sacrifice, and yet, the Passover offering constituted the centerpiece of the Seder night experience. It is therefore incumbent to unpack the symbolism, to reveal the message hidden under these symbolic acts.  Our Haggadah texts cites a Mishna, in which Rabban Gamliel states that in order to fulfill the mitzvot of the night, one must explicitly talk about this Paschal sacrifice.  Surprisingly and in shocking ways, the themes of this Passover sacrifice are more relevant today than ever.  I hope my words will give new meaning to the sacrifice, and ultimately what it means to be a Jew. (For more technical details, see the footnotes.)^[1]

Upon close examination of the Passover sacrifice, it becomes evident that the offering is not directly related to what we today call Chag Hamatzot, the feast of unleavened bread.  For one, the offering itself is not even offered on the fifteenth of Nissan- the holiday itself- but rather on the fourteenth and is only eaten the night of the fifteenth.^[2]  In fact, the Passover offering was offered historically to mark the ongoing covenantal relationship between Israel and God; it was a periodic rite of renewal.  When Joshua entered the land, (Joshua 4:19), Hezekiah renewed the covenant (2 Chronicles 29:10), and Josiah read the ‘sefer ha-brit’, presumably Deuteronomy (2 Chronicles 34:31), the covenant was formalized with the offering of the Paschal sacrifice.^[3] The only two positive Biblical commandments which incur the karet (spiritual excision) penalty for their failure to be performed are the Passover sacrifice and Brit Milah/circumcision.   The reason is evident- both are in fact entry covenants, existential acts of commitment.^[4]  In both, blood – representing our very life force- plays a central role.  In the first case with circumcision, a tiny bit of blood is drawn, and in the latter the blood of the Paschal offering is dashed upon the base of the altar. ^[5]  One covenant is made on the individual and the other is with the collective; and to neglect these commandments is a way to say one does not really want to identify Jewishly, excluding oneself from Israel.^[6]

What is the connection between this covenantal offering and the Exodus from Egypt per se?  To answer this question, one must look at the details as to how the first Paschal offering was offered (Exodus 12), for the Paschal offering in every subsequent year ritually references this fundamental narrative.

In examining the first Paschal offering, the laws are similar to subsequent years, but with one significant difference- the absence of an altar.  In fact, the house itself becomes the altar^[7]. The blood application on the door parallels the spilling of blood on the altar, the central ritual of any sacrificial act. What we are given is an immensely powerful symbol.  The covenant is created through the act of sacrifice, and the Jewish home is transformed into the locus for this existential commitment which will last for eternity.  The covenant is renewed not because an animal is sacrificed, but because Israel placed their lot with God.  They make the ultimate commitment; the daily sacrifices were merely a reminder of their own commitments.^[8]  Indeed, we are reminded of the words of Shimon bar Yochai, martyred by Hadrian in the second century.  “If you become My witness, then I am your Lord, God of the world; but if you do not witness to Me, I cease to be the Lord, God of all the world.”  To stand as at times in our history have required  sacrifices of the highest order.

Unlike the daily public sacrifices which were purchased from the Temple fund and individual sacrifices brought by an individual person, the Passover offering needed to be brought by a group.  The size of the group would be dependent upon the size of the animal (Ex. 12:4).  However, to participate in this group sacrifice requires a person to be ‘enlisted’ into the group; if there are twenty people enlisted, those twenty people collectively bring the sacrifice.  You cannot simply show up and partake of the Passover offering; you must be actively participating by financially reserving a spot in advance.  One cannot renew their existential commitment ceremony through outsourcing it to others.  Each person must personally invest in the collective sacrifice.

The upshot for us today is clear:   With the Passover meal God became the God of Israel, but Israel simultaneously transformed each home into an altar, messaging to God they understood that to be a Jew entailed commitments, sometimes even difficult sacrifice.  Furthermore, they understood that to be a Jew one cannot outsource this commitment to others, but every person must actively be involved in the community; they must ‘enlist,’ sharing in the sacrifices of others.  Whether serving on a front line, advocating for Israel, or raising funds, everyone must respond- for this is what it means to share in the Passover Sacrifice, the entry ceremony into the Jewish people.

In truth, we have been inspired and even surprised by the depth of our commitment to our people and our God following October 7.  However, we simultaneously shudder, praying for a release from the dread we sometimes feel.  We want our children and our people to live, to celebrate and love!  How many sacrifices must be made?!

This terrifying truth was intuited by our ancestor Abraham during the covenant of the pieces.  Abraham demanded assurances that God’s promises will be fulfilled for  his progeny.  God told him to take various animals and birds and to split them in two, a typical method of covenant making in the Ancient Near East.  However, in the midst of these pieces, Abraham descended into a deep sleep and ‘a great, dark, dread descended upon him.’  He was told that his progeny will suffer, indeed be enslaved!   Hardly reassuring.  However, God is telling Abraham the truth we know from our history. The road to the Promised Land will be difficult and prolonged.

Upon waking up, the pieces had been consumed by fire, sacrificed. The juxtaposition of the cultic covenantal ceremony and the prophetic vision is striking: the covenant will not be formalized through the sacrifice of animals, but through the very lives of the people themselves.  It is as if Abraham himself, the father of all future generations, is placed upon the altar.

In the modern world we live, Jews are confronted with a myriad of choices as to how to live.  To identify as a Jew is not a given, but an active commitment which must be renewed again and again, and those commitments require sacrifice every day.  To send children to Jewish and Hebrew schools, to create Jewish homes, to support those in need, to ensure we go to and support Israel, to make oneself literate- all of these are the daily sacrifices required if we want to remain a people with a compelling mission.  However, there have been times when a higher level of sacrifice has been required. We watch it daily.

With the return to Israel after two millennia, there was the hope that we would become ‘normalized.’  Recent events have shown us that some patterns do not change.  To be a Jew means to stand as the perpetual outsider, to make an existential commitment to testify to malkhut shamaim –to God’s kingdom of righteousness and compassion.  At the beginning of the last century, there were Jews who expected that “Israel, the hunted dove, which found no resting place… will then appear with an olive branch of peace for all humanity, to open the hearts of men that all may enter the covenant with the universal Father.”^[9]  Sadly, our world remains unredeemed; whether in Israel or the rest of the world, we feel the brokness.

Indeed, living Jewishly was never a given, but was always a sacrifice.  But as the Talmud states, lefum tzaara agra, according to the toil is the reward.  Even if we have not been redeemed, with the commitments we make we know that indeed, “Next Year in Jerusalem.”  We know redemption will come, and we will commit ourselves to bring that day.

May you have a Passover of redemption.

-With prayers that the hostages return now

Rabbi Frederick L Klein

[1] To be clear, I am not entering into the debate throughout the ages as to whether sacrifices will be reconstituted at a future date.  I am interested in the question of the meaning of the sacrifice.

[2] The notion of Pesach Sheni (the second Paschal offering-Numbers 9:1-14) also reiterates this same point; this is the only holiday where if one did not bring the sacrifice on time, it could be made up.  The operative rule concerning sacrifices is ‘over zmano batel karbano’, if the sacrifice is not given at the proper time, it is not valid.  The only way to ‘make up’ the sacrifice is if it is not directly linked to a specific day.

[3] See the fascinating insights of Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, Pirke Ha-Moadot (Jerusalem: Horev Press, 1986): esp. pp. 104-109

[5] The Haggadah cites Ezekiel 16:6, in which God poetically finds the Jewish people as a beautiful yet naked child wallowing in pool of blood.  God declares that through this blood you will live, and the rabbinic tradition associates the verse with the blood of circumcision and the blood of the Passover offering.

[6] For this reason, the Torah is emphatic that the people partaking of the Paschal offering must themselves been circumcised.  In fact, Sifre on Numbers 9:14 suggests the possibility that a convert should offer the Paschal offering immediately upon conversion and not wait to the 14^th of Nissan. The assumption is rejected on technical, not fundamental grounds.  We do, however, have an explicit commandment when the Paschal offering should be brought on a date unrelated to the 14^th of Nissan.  Pesach Sheni is given on the 14^th of Iyar by those who could not partake of the Paschal offering at its appropriate time, due to ritual impurity or being abroad.  Here the offering is given, but there is no prohibition of eating chametz for seven days, no seven-day festival, and no Seder associated with the eating of the sacrifice.  The strange mitzvah is more understandable if one accepts the contention that on an annual basis, each Jew must recommit and renew the covenant.  While as a nation it is logical to do this on the holiday when we remember becoming a nation, if one is precluded from recounting the Exodus, they still must recommit to the covenant.

[7] Mekhilta Bo 6 makes the point explicitly, stating that “Israel had three altars in Egypt, the two side posts and the lintel.”  Incidentally, the other ‘covenant of blood’, brit milah, is also compared in midrashim to sacrifices.

[8] See Mekhilta Bo 7.  God is said to pass over the houses upon ‘seeing the blood’.  The Mekhilta remarks, that ‘the’ blood was the blood from the binding of Isaac’.

[9] ^[9] Kaufman Kohler, Jewish Theology: Systematically and Historically Considered (Cincinnati: HUC, 1943): pp 377.  While the work was written many years earlier, it is interesting to note the year this work was reprinted.