Passover's Message of Social Justice and Fellowship

Ancient sociological wisdom from the Torah we desperately need to heed today

Tomorrow night is the first Seder (the first of two in the U.S. and the rest of the diaspora; there’s just one Seder in Israel).

For me, the Seder will be a welcome respite from the insanity in the world right now, one where many well-intentioned justice-seeking people are often doing more harm than good, and one in which fellowship between people who would otherwise have much to share with one another is in great jeopardy. This will unfortunately be very much on our minds. As will the fact that so many fellow Jews are still in bondage after having been kidnapped on the very last major holiday we Jews celebrate. We also will hopefully have room in our hearts for all innocents who are suffering, including in Gaza.

This short post is just meant to share a pair of essays I wrote about the tenth plague in 2019 and 2020 and which argue that while the biblical account of the tenth plague is quite troubling on the surface (in particular, it seems to describe how the Israelites ‘borrowed’ Egyptian valuables on false pretenses as Israel was being ushered out of Egypt while Egyptian first-borns were dying), it actually embeds within it (once one deploys modern literary techniques and a bit of sociological imagination) a very deep sociological message that remains invaluable today. The links to the essay are below. Here’s the heart of the argument:

May you have a hag kasher v’sameach, and may may our prayers for peace, justice, and delivery from captivity that will surely permeate all of our sedarim be answered.

Ezra

Link to Part A: : “Where is the Justice in the Tenth Plague?”

Part B: “ Fellowship from Plague: Lessons from Passover”

P.S. If you’re looking for something to read on the origins of the Seder, I highly recommend Baruch Bokser’s (z’l) wonderful book.