Passover thoughts

ed note–as we council often, those with a keen interest in extending their stay here on planet earth need to pay attention whenever someone operating at such a level as does the ‘good rabbi’ who authored this essay burp out rather incautiously what the real aims of the Jewish state are, or, as Jesus once said in underscoring the inherent evil residing within the very constitutional nature of His enemies, ‘Out of the overflow of an evil heart the mouth speaks’. 

Please note the following–

1. That–in the words of the ‘good rebbe’–indeed Zionism and Judaism are as intimately intertwined and married to each other as are the two legs which a person uses in propelling himself forward as enunciated in this piece to wit–

‘I will bring you into the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’

These are not the words of the ‘secular’ Jew Theodore Herzl, whom certain disingenuous players operating within certain anti-Zionist circles have condemned as a ‘heretic’ for having proposed the creation of a ‘Jewish state’. These are the words that appear in the Torah, specifically the book of Exodus and which are a mirror copy of those appearing in Genesis, the very first book making up what Jews refer to as ‘the 5 Books of Moses’.

Next, please pay close attention to what the ‘good rebbe’ has to say near the end of his piece and the far-reaching implications that this has for every Gentile living on God’s green earth–

‘The second and final re-unification of the Jewish people will be when Hashem uses the army of Israel, Tzahal, to pour out His wrath on the evil nations of the world.’

Now, some may conjecture that this is just harmless noise coming from some not-of-perfectly-sound-mind rabbi speaking in tongues and ranting a lot of nonsense.

Well, the fact that it may be a lot of nonsense is immaterial to the point that these are the men who behind the scenes maneuver others who do exist and operate at elevated political/financial/media levels, who have their hands on the levers of power and who as ‘front men’ bring into reality the ‘nonsense’ that is envisioned by insane individuals such as the ‘good rebbe’.

Israel National News

In parashat Bo, Hashem discloses the four stages to redemption that He will provide for the Jewish nation (Shemot 6,6-7):

6 Therefore, say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

7 I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Analogous to the four stages of redemption (bring you, free you, redeem you, take you) our rabbis established the requirement of drinking four cups of wine on the seder night.

Question: There is a fifth stage in the exodus saga (6,8):

And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”

Why didn’t the rabbis require drinking a fifth cup of wine?

What is Eliyahu’s Role?

Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah the Prophet) appears twice in the Pesach Seder; once when we fill up the cup with wine in his honor and again when we open the door for him with our request that HaShem pour out His wrath on the evil nations of the world.

Question: what is Eliyahu’s involvement with the Egyptian exodus that induced his inclusion in the seder? And why in these two capacities?

I submit that on this night two Torah mitzvot are in effect – to eat matza and relate to our children the slavery episode and the miraculous exodus.

The hagada describes a dysfunctional family where generational and ideological gaps exist between parents and children. Father is perplexed by his obligation to transmit the heritage to children who are either uninterested in the glorious past of our nation, or incapable of understanding its implications.

Enter Eliyahu HaNavi. How?

The Prophet Malachi states (3,23):

Now. I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents…

The future mission of Eliyahu is to restore the family functions and relationships to their intended status, where children are inculcated with parental wisdom and seek to follow in their footsteps.

Eliyahu will heal the divisions in our nation caused by 2000 years of galut in two ways, which are expressed in the two times he is mentioned in the hagada.

The fifth cup of wine represents the fifth stage of redemption “I will bring you to the land” as quoted above, whereby the Jewish people will escape the wretched galut and begin closing our religious and ideological gaps.

The second and final re-unification will be when Hashem will use the army of Israel, Tzahal, to pour out His wrath on the evil nations of the world.

This will be the task of Eliyahu HaNavi who is the forerunner of the Moshiach, to re-unite the various factions of Judaism into one united people under the Torah.