T orah P ortion
Find Meaning in Passover’s Final Days
BY RABBI SHAWN ZEVIT
Pesach T H E PE S AC H S E DE R
remains the most observed
Jewish festival home gathering
to this day.

Whether you observe one
or two sedarim, the begin-
ning of Pesach comes in with
its millennia of observed and
ever-evolving rituals, retelling
of our story, reflection on what
is means to be ever-leaving and
arriving, to be enslaved and at
the same time grateful for and
vigilant about our freedoms, to
be strangers and simultaneously
at home.

The end of Pesach often
gets overlooked or becomes a
countdown to the “finishing
the matzah collections on
the shelf.”
Howe ve r, t h e r e a r e
meaningful spiritual practices
that can help bring the values
and experiences of the seder
into the week and weeks that
follow. The seventh night of Passover
in some Jewish mystical and
Chasidic circles, using the
math of the ancient rabbis,
became a time to re-enact the
Crossing the Sea. This led to
an early Chasidic custom of
holding a “mirror seder” on
the last day of Pesach. There
was an early Chasidic custom
of the rebbe giving over Pesach
wisdom, of gathering around
the table or in a circle and
everyone rotating one chair to
share their Passover wisdom
from the “rebbe’s chair.”
I experienced this through
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-
Shalomi’s updated egalitarian
practice of this ritual, and then
later thanks to Philadelphia’s
own Simcha Raphael and
Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael,
who developed a narrative and
song-filled “Seventh Night
Seder.” As Raphael writes in the
introduction to the Seventh
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Night Seder Haggadah: “In
looking at Torah and Midrash,
through the lens of mythic
understanding, it is possible to
discover in the ancient stories
a model, a paradigm, for seeing
the deeper patterns of spiri-
tual evolution unfold in our
own lives. The idea of mythic
re-enactment of an ancient tale
is fully consonant with what
we learn at the Passover seder:
hayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu
who yatzah mi-Mitzraim — “it
is incumbent upon each person
to see one’s self as if they
themselves had left Egypt.”
This notion suggests that each
time we retell the story of
the Exodus, and (hence) the
subsequent Crossing of the
Red Sea, we are invited to find
personal, contemporary spiri-
tual connection and meaning
for our own lives.”
Today, either during or
around Pesach, holding an
additional seder for inter-
faith and social justice causes
has emerged with their own
haggadot, such as the HIAS
Immigration Seder and R.

Arthur Waskow and Rabbi
Phyllis Berman’s
newly released “Liberating Your
Seder” compendium, which
includes an article I wrote on
the seventh-night seder we
held when the pandemic first
relegated us to our own narrow
places and across a digital sea
of reeds.

Over the years, we have
seen the emergence of feminist
seders, LGBTQI seders, Jewish
Labor Council seder, multifaith
justice seders and many more.

After the seder(s), we move
into the remainder of Pesach
and the weeks beyond and
the opportunity to integrate
and embody in our lives, the
experience, meaning and
values of this festival period
and the exodus itself.

According to the Torah, we
are directed to count the days
from Passover to Shavuot. This
period of 49 days is known
as the Counting of the Omer.

An omer is a unit of measure
for grain.

On the second day of
Passover, in the days of the
Temple, an omer of barley was
cut down and brought to the
Temple as an offering. This
grain offering was referred to
as the omer. Every night, from
the second night of Passover
to the night before Shavuot,
we recite a blessing and state
the count of the omer in both
weeks and days.

The counting is intended to
remind us of the link between
Passover, which commemo-
rates the Exodus, and Shavuot,
which came to commemorate
the giving of the Torah. It
reminds us that the redemp-
tion from slavery was not
complete until we received the
Torah (a later interpretation of
the meaning of Shavuot).

Over these seven weeks,
daily reflection, work on one’s
middot (characteristics) and
potential inner and relational
growth from this work on
self was one way to pray for
and invite the possibility of
affecting one’s life and poten-
tial — nurturing and growing
the fruit of our souls. These
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traits are not just designed to
be “out there” in the esoteric
world, but to be integrated
and expressed in our everyday
actions and relationships.

The ongoing nature of
the global pandemic, the
continuum of difficulty or ease
in getting vaccinations, and the
challenges and possibilities of
our gradual and safe reopening
and regathering in person in
Jewish settings is shedding a
light on the lessons we have
learned and how we have or
have not grown as human
beings and as a great commu-
nity in the difficult year we
have been through.

The reality is we are all
slaves to something — to work,
or a relationship, to fear, or
food, to a lack of discipline,
or too much discipline, to
resources and even the privi-
leges many of us have benefited
from in American society at
others’ exclusion and expense.

The word Mitzrayim (“Egypt”
in Hebrew) means limitations
and boundaries and represents
all forms of constraints that
inhibit our true free expression.

Our people’s redemption
from Egypt teaches us how to
achieve inner freedom in our
7:08 p.m.

7:15 p.m.

lives. Enslavement is a habit
that needs to be broken and
transformed over an extended
period. I pray for all of us that as we
conclude the week of Pesach
and move toward the first fruits
and revelations of Shavuot, we
find the faith and courage to
walk into the unknown ahead
of us and work not to return
to the way things were, rather
forge together the “olam hesed
yibaneh”— the compassionate,
just and equitable world to
come. l
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit is the
rabbi at Mishkan Shalom in
Philadelphia, co-founder/director
of the Davennen Leader’s Training
Institute, associate director of the
ALEPH Hashpa’ah program and co-
chair of the clergy caucus of POWER
Interfaith PA. The Board of Rabbis
of Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

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