'Send My People Out': The Real Message of Passover
A few days before Passover, our five-year-old granddaughter joined her preschool classmates in performing a familiar children’s song to honor the upcoming holiday. The lyrics, geared to outline the basics of the exodus narrative for the very young, raise some important questions about the real message of Judaism’s “Festival of Freedom”:
Listen, oh listen, oh listen King Pharaoh! Listen, oh listen,
Please let my people go!
They want to go away. They work too hard all day.
King Pharoah, King Pharoah: What do you say?
"No, No, No. I will not let them go."
No, no, no, he will not let them go.
The words echo the famous text of Go Down, Moses—perhaps the most moving of all African-American spirituals, first published as an anti-slavery anthem in 1862:
Go down, Moses
Way down in Egypt land
Tell old, Pharaoh,
Let my people go!
The only problem with both of these beloved songs in the context of the celebration of Passover is that they similarly and seriously distort the Biblical passage that provides the basis for the holiday.
In the original Hebrew text, the resonant phrase “Let My People Go”, as familiar as it’s become to present-day believers, never appears in the scriptural story of Moses, Pharaoh and the exodus from Egypt. When Moses and his brother Aaron approach the Egyptian ruler in Exodus 5:1, an accurate translation renders their words: “Thus says the God of Israel: send out my people so that they may celebrate for Me in the wilderness.”
The Hebrew word “shelach” always means “send” or “send out”, and that’s the word, first invoked by the Lord Himself, that’s employed each of the nine times that Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh.
This distinction, between “sending out” and “letting go”, may seem trivial, but there is a profound difference between releasing slaves to their own devices and dispatching them on a three-day journey to perform a divine errand. In Jewish liturgy, Passover is designated as “the festival of freedom” but the Torah text insists on the meaningful contrast between freedom from bondage and the freedom to serve the Lord—culminating 50 days after the departure from Egypt in the revelation of the law at Mount Sinai.
This richer and more accurate understanding of the scriptural account helps to resolve one of the contradictions that trouble many observers familiar with traditional Passover patterns in Jewish households this time of year.
If the popular mistranslation “let my people go” serves as your theme, then the rigorous restrictions and rituals of the eight-day holiday may seem incongruous for such a festival of liberation. Religious Jews go through a comprehensive spring-cleaning process in our homes and places of business, employing a special once-a-year set of plates and pots in an obsessive desire to avoid even the smallest crumb of the leavened foods that are strictly forbidden during the festival.
The yearly Passover feast is called a Seder—or “Order”—and proper observance demands the precise fulfillment of fifteen required steps, both before and after the (leaven-free) repast.
In other words, we celebrate our freedom to meticulously fulfill the commandments of the Almighty, not to exalt our opportunities to pursue personal inclinations. That’s why many of the most cherished traditions at the Seder table aim at reaching children with a message of duty, and order, over indulgence.
In our own era, the Jewish people in Israel and the diaspora face an abundance of enemies who seek our persecution and destruction. But we can still feel grateful for the general and enduring absence of all-powerful Pharaohs or other slave masters, who can deny our freedom to serve God and goodness.