Passover fundamentally represents freedom. We call it zeman cheiruteinu, “the time of our liberation.” We retell the story of slavery and exodus, eat symbolic foods, and celebrate the journey from oppression to liberty. But while this understanding is essential, it captures only part of the festival’s profound significance.
Rabbi Yehuda Henkin powerfully reminds us that Passover presents us with an opportunity to discover a deeper dimension. If we focus only on freedom, we might be missing out on part of the festival’s profound meaning.
“Pesach is the holiday of belief in God,” Rabbi Henkin states, cutting through our cultural focus on freedom to reveal the holiday’s deeper spiritual architecture. The Exodus wasn’t merely a political liberation; it was a divine revelation.
The evidence for this perspective appears throughout the Torah itself. When Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he asks what he should tell the Israelites when they ask which god has sent him. The answer isn’t philosophical or abstractāit’s rooted in action: “I will be what I will be” (Exodus 3:14). God reveals Himself through intervention in history.
Perhaps most tellingly, God explicitly states the purpose of the ten plagues:
The demonstrations of divine power were not merely to secure freedom, but to establish belief.
Later, after the dramatic crossing of the Red Sea, we read:
Again, the experience of divine intervention generated belief.
Even the Ten Commandments begin not with abstract theology but with historical identification:
As Rabbi Henkin points out, nowhere does the Torah say, “I am the Lord your God, who gave you the Torah on Mount Sinai.” The giving of the Torah at Sinai follows from, and depends upon, the revelation of God through the Exodus.
This understanding transforms our approach to the Passover seder. The Haggadah, the text that is read at the seder, tells us that “even if we’re all learned, all wise, all elders and all knowledgeable in the Torah, it is incumbent on us to recount the Exodus, and the more one recounts the Exodus the more praiseworthy it is.” If the purpose were merely historical education, such repetition would be unnecessary for the knowledgeable. But if the purpose is to strengthen faith through recounting divine intervention, then repetition becomes essential spiritual practice.
The Haggadah further extends this principle beyond ancient Egypt when it declares “Vehi she’amdah”ā”This [promise] has stood by our ancestors and ourselves.” The text continues: “Not merely one adversary has loomed over us to destroy us. Rather, in every generation they loom over us to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.” The Exodus becomes a template for understanding all of history as an arena for divine action.
The prophet Jeremiah took this idea even further, envisioning a time when contemporary experience of God would supersede historical memory:
The Hebrew phrase Chai Hashemā”The Lord lives”āpoints to the fundamental recognition that God exists and acts in human affairs.
This perspective invites us to see our own storiesāpersonal and communalāas a continuation of the Exodus narrative. The Jewish people’s survival through centuries of persecution, exile, and attempted annihilation stands as powerful contemporary testimony to divine providence. For many survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants, the establishment of the modern State of Israel represents a “Red Sea moment”āa tangible experience of divine intervention in history.
As we approach this Passover in the shadow of October 7th and its aftermathāa day when terrorists crossed into Israel, killing over 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostagesāthe words of the Haggadah “in every generation they rise up against us” ring with painful immediacy. The subsequent surge in antisemitism worldwide echoes too many chapters of Jewish history. These dark moments test our faith and challenge us to find meaning in suffering.
Yet Passover has always been celebrated in times of both tranquility and turmoil. During the Holocaust, Jews observed seders in ghettos and concentration camps. Through centuries of persecution, the story of redemption sustained hope when reality offered none. Today’s challenges, while profound, join a long historical arc that has repeatedly bent toward redemption despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
When we raise our cups at the end of the Passover seder and declare “Next year in Jerusalem,” we express more than geographic aspiration. We affirm our belief in ultimate redemptionāthe return of hostages to their families, healing for those traumatized by violence, and the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
As we gather around Passover seder tables this year, whether in Jerusalem or diaspora, in security or anxiety, our retelling of the Exodus becomes not merely an act of remembrance but an act of faith. We draw strength from the fundamental message Rabbi Henkin identified: Passover affirms not just our freedom, but our faith in the God who brings deliveranceāin ancient days and, we pray, in our own time.
The World Zionist Congress determines how nearly $1 billion is allocated annually to support Israel and global Jewish communities. In our post-October 7th world, Israel365 Action stands against a Palestinian state in Judea & Samaria and affirms the Jewish peopleās right to their Biblical homeland. Help shape Israelās future!
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