Temple Beth-El’s Tanakh Study Group, which meets most every Wednesday, has been studying the book of Ezra, and we are about move into the book of Nehemiah. Before that, we had completed a two-year study of the entire book of Isaiah.
The Jews who left their temporary homes in Babylonia, to where they had been exiled around the time of the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem, were elated at the possibility of returning to Judea to become a people in their land once again. They saw their journey (around 538 BCE) as a second Exodus, leaving their captivity to travel to the promised land. They were grateful that the Persians, who had conquered Babylonia, provided them with an opportunity to return home.
Once they arrived, they found that people who had not gone into exile held their motives under suspicion. Eventually, the returnees were able to fulfill their wish of building a new Temple and reestablishing their society.
It wouldn’t be as before. Some Jews remained in Babylonia. These Jews in Judea, under the leadership of Ezra the Scribe, gathered for public Torah readings. They heard about —and studied—the experiences of their people entering Canaan after wanderings in the wilderness, establishing the kingdom of Israel that, unfortunately, split in two after the death of King Solomon.
I wonder if they were saddened by the fact that their march to freedom had ended in division. Psalm 133, the source for “Hinei Mah Tov/How good it is,” seems to express a longing for the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, to reunite.
The Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom, around 720 BCE, resulted in refugees from the north seeking safety in the south. It wasn’t exactly a fulfillment of the wish of Psalm 133, but it did demonstrate that descendants of the people who had originally left Egypt together still saw themselves as family.
Jewish history includes all too many examples of divisions between people due to ideology and theology, where some groups see themselves as the only ones who are dedicated to God’s true message and the right approach to living as a minority in many countries, and as a majority in the State of Israel.
Passover/Pesach has its own way reuniting us. Through disagreements and challenges to our well-being, we gather at the Seder table to recount a story of moving from slavery to freedom, interpreting liberty according to our own perspective.
Emma Lazarus, author of “The New Colossus” poem associated with the Statue of Liberty, once stated what she considered to be an essential view of freedom: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”
It is incumbent on each of us, as the Haggadah says, to see ourselves as if WE were freed from Egypt, and to answer Emma Lazarus’ challenge of working for freedom everywhere.
May we address that task every day, inspired by the prayers, songs, readings, and rituals of Pesach.
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