Opinion: During Ramadan, Passover and Easter, Let Us Learn from God’s Compassion – Times of San Diego

A Ramadan lantern, traditional symbol of the holiday. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

In a rare confluence of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious calendars, we are heading into a time when all the worlds monotheists are observing major periods of holy time. For Jews, it is the week of Passover; for Christians it Easter, and for Muslims, the Holy Month of Ramadan.

This should be a time to be in awe; and to celebrate the many ways that the One God has communicated His love and his messages to humanity. Instead, it is a fraught time that has the potential of violence from heightened religious fervor.

What shame some have brought to our faiths by distorting the message of love and fellowship that is at the heart of all three of those religions, which purport to worship the same God.

I am a rabbi. I cannot tell my fellow non-Jewish monotheists what their holy times are all about. That would be presumptuous. But when it comes to religious observances, theres always a message in the rites and rituals; some-take away that is meant to motivate and inspire the faithful, through proscribed rituals and the memories they invoke. We are meant to take that inspiration and those memories into our lives and try to cleave more closely to the way we ought to be living in order to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Christian really, a good person.

When Jews gather around their Seder tables to begin the Passover observance, the central memory we will invoke is what happened when the Israelites fled Egypt and stood at the shore of the sea with the Egyptians chasing after them. Two miracles occurred: first, the sea parted, so the Israelites could escape; and second, as the Israelites emerged safely on the other side, the sea closed upon the Egyptian chariots following them.

Why do we tap into those miracles; and how does our Bible guide us in remembering them? The Bible gives us two stories that center around remembering these miracles. The first is the story of King Josiah.

King Josiahs reign spans the years 640609 B.C.E. He is best known for finding a book during a Temple renovation that inspired him to reform much of the Jewish tradition as it had come to be practiced. Scholars believe that Josiah found what we call the Book of Deuteronomy. In that book, he made a startling discovery: there was an astonishing gap between the religious life they were living and what that book commanded.

They had forgotten to observe Passover! In 2 Kings 23:22 we read: And the king commanded all the people, saying: Keep the Passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant. For there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah

Passover hadnt been observed for hundreds of years! During Biblical times, they disobeyed the bible! As you could imagine, that was troubling, and Josiah wanted to close the gap. A major part of King Josiahs religious reforms was to renew the observance of Passover.

At the time of this religious Reform, the kingdoms of Assyria and Egypt were ascending after a period of decline. Thats when Pharaoh decided to wage war against Assyria. To get to Assyria his army would move up the coast through the area now called Tel Aviv, and turn right around Megiddo. This route meant the Egyptians would go through one small corner of Israel. Josiah made a fateful decision at that time: to go to war against Egypt right there.

It was an amazingly foolish decision to go to war against the king of Egypt. The Egyptian leader tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Josiah (see 2 Chronicles 35:21). As a consequence of his decision, Josiah was killed and the independence of Judah was finished. The King of Egypt routed Israel, went into Assyria and then returned to conquer Judah. He installed a son of Josiah to be his governor. Josiah was the last sovereign king of Judah.

Why did Josiah go to war against a military giant? Why enter a war that wasnt originally about him or Israel? Passover reminded Josiah of that time when the Israelites stood in front of the sea with nowhere to go. The people were distraught, but Moses assures them that God will take care of them. God will make the impossible possible. You dont need to do anything: God will take care of this. God will fight for you. God is on your side. So, jump into the sea!

Thats what Josiah, the king who revived Passover, remembers a time when Israel was at war with Egypt at the time of the Exodus and God fought the battle for them. Surely God would be on his side when he led Israel into battle against Egypt. For Josiah, remembering the miracles of the Exodus became inspiration to engage in an irresponsible war. Why not? After all, Gods on our side.

The Bible offers another way to think about how to deal with the memory of miracles performed on your behalf. For that, we look to Moses. How does Moses invoke the miracles Israels redemption?

After Gods direct revelation of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites ask Moses to bring Gods words to them. Hearing them directly from God was too much. Immediately after the Ten Commandments, Moses explains the laws about owning Israelite slaves. It says in Exodus 21:2: If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

Moses is the hero of the Book of Exodus. In Deuteronomy he is the teller of the story. He not only repeats the Ten Commandments, but he directly ties the Israelite redemption from slavery to the commandment to release ones slaves: And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing to-day. (Deuteronomy 15:15)

The 10 Commandments began with an introduction of God to the Israelites: I am the God who liberated you. And then we get the first commandment after that revelation. The Israelites are to liberate their slaves. This commandment teaches, Because God liberated me, Im commanded to liberate others. The meaning of being liberated is to become a liberator. The memory of what happened to you in the Exodus becomes something you are supposed to make happen for others.

Moses and Josiah both tap into memory of the miracles of the Exodus, but with a fundamental difference. For Josiah the memory is one of the Israelites waiting for God to fight their fight and intervene on their behalf. For Moses the memory is about emulating God. The miracle of Passover is not a sign of something to happen; its a norm we have to emulate.

In Deuteronomy, when Moses is the story teller, he emphasizes the compassion that God had on the Israelites. He uses that memory to give meaning to the miracles God performed for Israel: that they should be compassionate towards others and never perpetuate the kind of injustices and indignities they suffered from on others. Dont ever do unto others what was done unto you!

On Passover, we do not remember miracles to tell us that Gods on our side. Rather, we remember miracles to learn not to rely on God to do the justice work were supposed to do. Just as we were liberated; we are to be liberators. Just as we were saved from oppressors, so should we save others from oppression.

In 1994, the Jewish religious extremist Baruch Goldstein was inspired by miracles in his faith as motivation to massacre Muslims at prayer in Hebron. At Easter services Christians have heard messages that inspired them to engage in pogroms against Jews. And Ramadan has inspired its share of terror. All of us have perverted the memory of what God has done for us and the result has been human misery, not glory to God!

I hope that in the days ahead, when we gather in our homes, or in our mosques or churches or synagogues, we remember miracles and Gods love to inspire us to be as loving and compassionate as the God we all say we believe in.

Michael Berk is Rabbi Emeritus ofCongregation Beth Israel, the largest Jewish congregation in San Diego and the oldest in Southern California.