[This article originally ran March 14, 2004, as part of Winds 2004 Passover coverage]
Thursday night was Passover's Second Seder, which concludes:
"Ended is the Passover Seder, according to custom, statute and law. As we were worthy to celebrate it this year, so may we perform it in future years. Oh pure one in heaven above, restore the congregation of Israel in your love. Speedily lead your people to Zion in joy. Next year in Jerusalem!"
Cairo columnist Tarek Heggy has been a frequent contributor here at Winds of Change.NET. In the wake of his 2004 Passover greetings, we had an interesting email exchange around the story of Passover, the role of the Egyptians, and one specific part of the Passover Seder: the spilling of 10 drops of wine, as the plagues visited upon the Egyptians are recited.
Why do we do that? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if perhaps the standard explanations were missing something - something that goes right to the heart of this holiday of freedom.
Here's what Tarek wrote:
"Once again, my warmest Passover greetings (it is heartily meant while I would have preferred if Egypt would have been able to accommodate happily this wonderful expatriate community and motivate them not to flee to Sinai some 34 centuries ago and deprive us from their wonderful skills and peerless talents!!)."
It would have been nice if it all could have been settled pleasantly... but absolutist despotisms of any stripe are rarely good at that sort of thing. Which brings us to the central points of Passover.
The Point
In one sense, Passover is really about preparation for the giving of the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai. Abraham is the first major break: belief in the existence of one G-d, without shape or form. His acceptance of G-d's existence creates ethical monotheism, the belief in a single G-d who is goodness and who demands goodness - but its real impact is not felt until the second major break. For the corrollary of ethical monotheism is the idea that good and evil are real, and can't be set or altered by human authorities at their whim. They are things to discover and understand, rather than things to invent.
This idea will change the world - and the Passover story is both its grand entrance and its clarion call.
Which is great, but how does that relate to the Egyptians?
The Egyptians
Some Jewish sages believe that G-d wished to make a serious example of an absolutist earthly ruler, to convey with utmost clarity that now and forever, no human was equal to or above G-d, and that moral law was not something dictated by societal conventions or the pronouncements of human "authorities."
In other words, Egypt's Pharaoh was simply being used to make a divine point. A very very important divine point with enormous future implications, but one that could also have been made anywhere else in the world at that time. Slavery? Almost universal. Belief in idols? Ditto. Cruelty? Then, as now, the rule not the exception. Absolutist rulers claiming divine descent or status? Pharaoh isn't the first, and won't be the last by any means.
We focus on the Egyptians during Passover (and both Islam and Christianity made it part of their stories too), but really, there was nothing especially blameworthy about Egypt as a society that didn't apply equally to most of its neighbours.
Which brings us to the spilling of the 10 drops of wine.
Drops of Freedom
I've always seen the spilling of the 10 drops of wine while the names of the plagues are recited as being about basic human compassion for anyone's suffering. That still applies, I'm sure, but the more I talked to Tarek, the more I wondered if I was missing something. Something big.
As noted above, the 10 Plagues could have happened to so many other societies. Most of humanity was like that at the time... and many people even today live under systems that are just as absolute. Yet all Egyptians suffered in the Plagues, because of decisions that many had no part in. Granted, many Egyptians would have been involved in enslaving the Israelites. The thing is, without a moral framework that separates morality from a God-King's dictates, it isn't even possible to talk about complicity or blame. How can one say that enslaving the Hebrews is morally wrong, when a divine Pharaoh says that it's right?
Unless and until there is a touchstone for good and evil that is beyond earthly authority but within earthly grasp, we cannot have anything approaching real morality - or a standard for responsibility and blame that means anything.
That's why it was not Israel alone who was redeemed at Passover.
Indeed, it's only after Exodus and Sinai that the world can even begin to talk about the prospect of a different future - for the Israelites, for the Egyptians themselves, and for all mankind.
And so we spill the drops of wine in sorrow every year. Not only for the Egyptians' suffering, but also for the lack of freedom that led to it - and which remained after the Israelites has left. Because after the 10th Plague, Israel went free. But the Egyptians, too, were slaves, subject to Pharaoh's absolute authority. Their lives remained his even after Israel's Exodus, to be snuffed out at a whim or a word.
Who cries for them? We do. Every year.
We drink the Passover wine to commemorate our freedom, and - and yes, we spill it in compassion. But maybe we also spill it to remind ourselves of those we left behind, unable to share in the wine of freedom because they were still unfree.
And as long as that remains the case, our cup of freedom is never really full.
And of all the people that still cower in fear in the world today, no where is it as black as the land ruled by kim jong il.
We hear of attrocity in iran to zimbabwe, but the greatest suffering is born from where we get no news at all.
ponder your blessings and fortune, that your not a child of the unfavored, entering a family gulag.
Another one of the many that will perish unknown in the secret state.
Two disparate elements I have heard point to the biblical mentions of proper treatment of slaves. One thought it indicated God approved of slavery. Another thought it proved that the Bible is written by men and is not the word of God. I'm still thinking about it.
Ruth.
Investigate the difference between a slave and a bound servant.
We had bound servants come over as immigrants to the early US even, a practice as old as civilisation, the us abolished the practice.
ie indentured servants.
Even JR Tolken put it in lord of the rings
"This creature is bound to me, and I to Him"
On the other hand, the 10 drops of wine could harken back to an ancient pre-monotheism ritual. A form of libation in which the gods were given a bit of the vine to encourage their continued presence in the life of the household.
Official accounts tend to leave out the good stuff.:)
I don't recall that Charlton Heston cared much about the Egyptians that were left behind. And neither does my Haggadah:
Raymond,
Your distinction is valid, but incomplete. "Indentured servitude" can indeed become slavery, as Winds documented in our piece on Slavery in the 21st Century. The challenge of biblical times was how to accomodate indenture without crossing the clear line that had been drawn in the sand (a line so clear that thousands of years later, it would inspire both American Negro spirituals and a Christian uprising in the Anglosphere that would end the practice in much of the known world).
Hence ancient Jewish biblical practices like the 7-year Jubilee et. al., which ensured that the common institution of indentured servitude could not become a permanent treadmill of debt and so constitute de facto slavery - as it does in the modern world.
Interestingly, the modern counterparts to those concepts are usually found on the Left, where complaints about 3rd World debt as an endless treadmill and the need for a formal release from its obligations are in fact echoes of this old religious argument. Expect to see that idea crossing over to the American Right in the coming decades, as growing 3rd World missionary work by evangelicals, coupled with a deep background in these ancient ideas, produces a predictable conclusion in many of them.
The only other example of "slavery" I've heard of re: biblical entries has to do with bride prices. Rabbi Lerner has a good piece on that.
Finally, re: Tolkien... the binding Frodo referred to went far beyond servitude, and invoked the Norse concept of "doom" as well as the shared experience of the Ring's will. The tie was not one of legal obligation (though Faramir may have so interpreted it), but of fate - and of course that would ultimately prove so, at the end of all things.
LTEC,
Many sages have commented on the fact that the potential and past victims of a wrongdoer may certainly rejoice in the wrongdoer's destruction or defeat. Yet, at the same time, there are clear stories and commandments around the Seder which demand thought and compassion re: the Egyptians.
This piece on praying for the downfall of the wicked takes a good crack at the issue.
Joe, yup, there just isnt room to go into it.
Would require the digging up of materials etc.
Suffice to say, the son of a villager that is bound to you in exchange for learning a trade or put to work to pay a debt, is not the same thing as property.
And that the Jews of the bible and the torah would have found chattle slavery offensive.
Joe, two posts in a row, heh o well
A lot of the right is already there, in fact they look at our monitary system, as a form of slavery.
Heres how it works, every fiat dollar is a unit of debt, it was loaned into existence. with interest due.
So every bill in circulation, is owed to the fed, with interest, that means that if we collected every bill and returned it there would still be interest due, and no money in circulation.
Think about that one.
The only reason the system works at all, is because when you turn raw material into tangible goods, grow food and pump oil, you are creating wealth.
The economy of wealth creation, a creation of product of tangible value, not fiat paper.
Something the man that jump started the german economy understood.
Untill his currency exchange, to reset the money supply to the size of the economy, and the removal of price controls the germans suffered Jimmy Carters stagflation.
In any case, they see the debt based fiat paper as a form of slavery, a debt that cant be repaid, making it perpetual, and every time the fed prints more money, the dollars you already hold are worth less.
There are those that want to return to the gold standard, but there is not enough held gold to back a money supply the size of our economies.
But in there is also a warning, when we no longer make anything here, the currency will have no backing.
Therein is another reason why leftism is always a failure, but that would require a but too many off topic paragraphs.
Still, interesting sidebar Ruth brought up.
JK:
You say: "The only other example of "slavery" I've heard of re: biblical entries has to do with bride prices. Rabbi Lerner has a good piece on that."
Thanks, and i read Rabbi Lerner who has a lot of info on how treatment was required which involved personal respect. And I realize that as he says, it was a great leap forward from practices around them, for Israel.
In the story of the prodigal son, when he returns, he says that he 'would be treated better as one of his father's slaves' than he had been after he had spent his inheritance.
And in Ezekiel 36: 12. "... and they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance..." (Amplified Bible).
It was a concept that was part of life then, but as I noted, something to reflect on. When I get to the point I'm telling anyone how scripture ought to be read, please tell me i'm overreaching.
It was on point ruth, the Jews knew the difference between being in service for debt or to learn a trade from what they experience in Egypt or babylon or under the rule of Rome.
Its one ot the things that made chattle slavery particulary offensive, they was sold into slavery as property by african muslims the moors and the slave mercantile used mostl portigese shipping
Its why all those islands with imported slave populations, even Porto Rico and Cuba, speak spanish.
They was not looked on as humans, but beasts.
As for the biggining of the end of all slavery, chattle, perpetual bound servitude or otherwise, you can look to a certain German called Martin Luther.
The man caused all sorts of troubles ;=) ... for the old order.
Ben franklin was the first to denounce slavery in the newly formed congress. and all the early abolisonists quoted Jefferson who had said it would be a stain on America (words to that effect)
American is still the only country on earth, where all power belongs to the soverein individual, and what power the govt has, is on loan.
The individual, not groups, not society, but the single person.
A constitutional fact that the left have gone thru cycles of ignore undermine deny about since the left existed.
In Washingtons letter to and from the Jews, you can see those who understood what this new form of freedom meant.
For the final abolishment of slavery, you can look to Martin Luthers ethic behind it in the Christians that started the abolishion movement, but Martin was not its author.
This concept that man must be free comes out of the old testament, that Martin said we should read for ourselves, and that came to us, From the Jews.
I wonder how many know now, that when those old scribes made copies of their Torah, and added another set of books. that it would be the foundation of the first real freedom they had tasted for 2000 years.
Not subject not slave not serf. but a Freeman.
a condition they had not known since the Crowning of Saul. which is probably a good indicator why God kept refusing them a King.
God finnaly let them have a king, I wonder if they regret it now, Should have taken Gods advice, I suppose :)
The story of Exodus can be taken as proof that God wants everyone to be free. As far as I know there is no endorsement of "divine right of kings" anywhere in the Bible. But there is one very important story about a people being aided by God in their struggle for freedom.
Moreover, I think this puts an interesting light on why God "hardens Pharaoh's heart" whenever he seems about to relent and let the Israelites go. It's not just gratuitous sadism on God's part, messing with Pharaoh's head just to whack him with more plagues. No, it's more than that.
Pharaoh was the most powerful man in the world. He was absolute, Divine ruler of the largest and oldest state. God used the plagues to show Pharaoh what it's like to suffer cruelty and be deprived of freedom.
God wants us all to be free. God hates tyrants. And sometimes war is the right answer.
"As far as I know there is no endorsement of "divine right of kings" anywhere in the Bible."
Saul, David, and Solomon might disagree! It doesnt get much more divine right than God directly telling you your his guy.
Mmm, Saul et. al. had a very qualified right of rule, NOT as G-d's representative but rather subject to withdrawal of divine favour from king and country if one's conduct doesn't live up to the standard and the pact.
The "divine right of kings" as it's generally known and understood from European history does not in fact exist in the Bible, and Pharaoh is more or less the ultimate reverse lesson/ cautionary tale for kings everywhere. It certainly does not exist in Jewish history, being a Christian concept developed by Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages.
This quick briefing traces the doctrine's development within the European sphere. While even the original Augustinian concept was very different from anything Saul or David would have known, what it became was very far afield - essentially, the legitimation of Pharohnic-style rule.
Some comments from another point of view...
First, from an Egyptian point of view, as recorded and dug up by archaeologists, none of this happened. There never was a Pharaoh who knew Joseph, there were no Hebrew slaves, there was no Moses, there were no plagues, there was no exodus, and nobody lost their army or their own life in this manner.
Which means, from an Egyptian point of view, according to the religion of the Egyptians as they recorded it in stone, the Jews are not a problem. They are off the hook, and so is their God. If anybody in this story other than the Hebrews / Jews could claim "victim" status it would be the Egyptians, and they never made any such claim. I don't know why people are apparently willing to take almost any lesson from Jewish sacred history except "and that means the Jews are off the hook" - but in this case they are and always were in the clear.
Whatever the drops of wine mean, they are not a blood debt, or any kind of guilt.
Nor is there any indication they are they a relic of an Egyptian practice. For the Egyptians, the divine beverage was beer. (For good reason - by a happy accident Egyptian beer, brewed the traditional way, really was medicinal, and warded off infection in a world where getting a serious infection probably meant you were going to die.) And devotions at home were not "set" in this manner. As far as we can tell they were practiced extemporaneously and officially ignored, rather than codified, as, to an unhealthy extent, the focus was on the priests, the temples and Pharaoh.
When a Jewish family at Pesach thinks of the great Jewish religious innovations, they should first remember themselves as a family in a Jewish home. The Jewish family and the Jewish home as a holy institution, with major rituals and rights that aren't just a byproduct of temple practice and general religious education but the main game (after the destruction of the Temple), is a magnificent innovation, one worth recalling "unto the tenth generation".
Exodus is another great and saving innovation. I refer to the religious portability it represents. For the Egyptians, Egypt was their land and the world's sacred place. Their religious calendar, based around the sky as seen in Egypt, and the flooding of the Nile, made sense in Egypt, not necessarily elsewhere. Religious world domination, Christian style, much less Muslim style, was not an Egyptian dream. When every last inch of their land was dominated by irremovable foreigners implacably intent on obliterating their religion, the Egyptians - as the people they had been - could not and did not survive. But the Jews survived situations like this repeatedly.
Exodus is national life. Whatever else it is, the celebration of Exodus is a celebration of survival. That is a good thing to celebrate.
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Joe Katzman: "For the corrollary of ethical monotheism is the idea that good and evil are real, and can't be set or altered by human authorities at their whim."
Not from a traditional Egyptian point of view. (I emphasize the "traditional" as those who favor Akhenaten would tell the tale differently.) Just the opposite. Ma'at - truth, justice and harmony - was a divine given. (Literally divine, she was a goddess, with no secondary functions.) Displacing her and every other god in favor of one god, likely Pharaoh's God (which in Egypt historically was the Aten or sun disc), was a calamity that meant (while it endured) there was no standard of truth, order, morality or even valid tradition other than what the ruler willed.
Changing that to be "truth, proper order and morality are whatever the God of the prophet and / or the prevailing bandit ruler wills" does not look like an improvement. Having just one God, the God of "our" tribe(s) or "our" faith / orthodoxy vs. all others, and no other God, no moral authority outside that, is potentially a monstrous idea. It is like a shadow that blots out every star.
I have seen in my own lifetime things that have made the phrase "ethical monotheism" about as bitter as possible. I feel we have had enough "ethical monotheism" for millions of years. But anyway, that is not relevant to Exodus, so I'll let it go.
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Joe Katzman: "How can one say that enslaving the Hebrews is morally wrong, when a divine Pharaoh says that it's right?
Unless and until there is a touchstone for good and evil that is beyond earthly authority but within earthly grasp, we cannot have anything approaching real morality - or a standard for responsibility and blame that means anything."
That part I agree with.
The thing is, we have yet to get beyond that basic impasse.
After the lack of the giant population base that let Hinduism (a comparable religious tradition) survive, and after the lack of iron mines (which meant Egypt's chances to do as well in the age of iron as it had in the age of bronze were reduced), Pharaoh in his worst aspects was one of the main weak points of Egypt, practically, morally and religiously. The arrogance of Pharaoh devoured even the spirits of the gods. (I refer of course to the Cannibal Hymn.) And yet it wasn't possible to do without Pharaoh or his army. No national life was possible on the basis of permanent and total defeat. The consequences of the Battle of Actium proved it.
Human sacrifice was uncharacteristic of Egyptian religion - except that what Pharaoh wanted, Pharaoh got - and in my opinion, that one exception is enough to degrade your morality. If Pharaoh wanted all his servants buried with him, so be it. What about fairness, what about the value of human life? Well what about who had the army and who ruled? And that was that.
Have we really gotten beyond deciding whether human beings (or which human beings) have a right to life based on power political grounds rather than on true moral grounds? Obviously not, and I'll refrain from rehearsing the debates.
Is that one exception, that you can redefine human life as not human, or as not life, when it suits the powerful to kill the powerless, enough to degrade our morality? Again, I think so. It's the same as it ever was.
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Anyway, anyone who respects the antiquity of civilizations as a good in itself has to give some respect to the Jews.
And if you think the mark of a good civilization is to last for a long time while not obliterating other real, decent civilizations needlessly, or preferably at all, then again, the Jews must be on your list of good guy civilizations, along with Egypt and China and Hindu India among others. The Jews know what patch of land is theirs, and it's enough for them, as it always was. That's commendable.
And if you heed common sense and the plain words of the Jews themselves, the foundation of their persistence is the yearly celebration of the Exodus, and how their God saved them to be His own people for all time.
So here's to the celebration of Pesach. May it be celebrated perpetually, and may it always be celebrated by numerous, happy, prosperous, learned and faithful Jewish families.