Passover Links

I have some good links for Passover, from a variety of perspectives.

1.  Laura Baum is a Reform rabbi, who was a classmate of mine at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.  She has an excellent article at the Huffington Post about the role of Elijah in Judaism.  She discusses different eschatological views about Elijah, how they do not resonate with many religious Jews (who believe that people should make the world better themselves rather than hoping for a Messiah to do so), and how Elijah can still play an important role in liberal Jewish seders.

2.  Bob MacDonald shared with me a post yesterday by the Velveteen Rabbi.  I appreciated the following passage:

“This festival comes to tell us that we can experience liberation in our own lives! Liberation from sorrow, liberation from despair, liberation from our constrained and broken spirits, liberation from whatever constrictions have been part of our story. What a glorious promise.  And yet. There will be people who feel — there will be times when each of us will feel — that mitzrayim is ongoing, that we cannot break free. That God doesn’t lift people out of anywhere with a mighty hand or an outstretched arm anymore.  To those caught in a constriction which will not let go, I offer this prayer: that this Pesach may offer you an expansive breath through that tiny open space which turns hametz into matzah. A glimpse of freedom, a foretaste of the world to come. May it give you the space you need in order to cry out, as tradition tells us the Israelites cried out in our agony. May you find meaning in the story, the prayers and the songs, the familiar tastes, even though your liberation is not yet complete. And may those of us who do not (currently) feel bound remember you at our seder tables, and offer you every kindness we can.”

3.  Derek Leman is a Messianic Jewish rabbi, and he has a post entitled Passover: For Jews and Non-Jews.  The opening of the post especially stood out to me: “The old way of thinking: Judaism and Christianity are separate faiths based on contradictory premises. The historically correct way of thinking: Second Temple Judaism left two heirs, sister faiths, and one of them morphed into rabbinic Judaism while the other morphed into Christianity.”

4.  I’d like to share a post I wrote a couple of years ago: Is the Seder about Christ?  I critique different sides in that post, as well as wrestle with scholarship about the seder.