When I lived in Jerusalem, and on shorter visits, I always smiled, even chuckled inside as I passed the Great Synagogue. I think they should have changed the name to a great synagogue, because after all, Bnai Tzedek, and so many others, are great synagogues, too!
It happens that, similarly to the large Jerusalem synagogue, our tradition calls the Shabbat right before Pesach Shabbat Ha’Gadol -- for many reasons. We will hear the word ha’yom ha’gadol, the great day, in tomorrow’s Haftarah, looking toward the hoped-for day in the future when Elijah, Eliyahu Hanavi will announce the coming of the Messiah, a day of redemption and renewal that parallels our liberation from Egypt.
And this Shabbat is a transition into Passover. We officially searched for chametz and so technically we do not eat bread now but we also cannot eat the matzah for Passover yet.
This type of moment is called a liminal period, a time of change, a time of ambiguity. It’s like the times when we used to be in the airport, waiting for our flight. We’re not at home, but we’re not at our destination yet.
So many of us this Shabbat are eating Egg Matzah, known in Hebrew as matzah ashirah, enriched matzah. Similar to the liminal time, it’s not one thing or another, egg matzah is not chametz but it’s also not official Passover matzah. It’s somewhere in between.
As scholar Jacob Milgrom teaches, the same is true of the kohanim, the priests, we will read about in tomorrow’s Torah reading, the priests who will be officially consecrated as priests. They have to wait, in the limbo of the liminal time, secluded in the court of the Tent of Meeting, in silence, separated from everyone, only accompanied by their fear of breaking any of these taboos that might disqualify them from serving.
While liminal time is fraught with anxiety, uncertainty, and vulnerability, it is also a time for reflection, for stepping off the treadmill of life and checking in with ourselves, and with people we care about. The collective discomfort gives us permission to check-in on the teshuvah we started seven months ago at Rosh Hashanah, see how we’re doing on the promises and plans we made on empty bellies at Yom Kippur, as we welcome in the spring Jewish New Year on a full stomach.
While we may feel anxious or vulnerable in this transitional moment, God asks us to step forward with courage and confidence when we journey out into the new life beyond it. When our ancestors reach the edge of the Sea of Reeds, and see the waves crashing, they are scared, and God, noticing Moses’ is speaking at length to the people, says, Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to move forward.
I pray for us that when we move on from Passover this year, we will hear God’s voice and step forward with confidence, with bitahon, with trust that no matter what we face, God travels with us, and though still constrained as we are by the pandemic we are free in so many other ways, how will we celebrate this physical and spiritual freedom this year?
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