Passover celebration turned around life of future rabbi

Stacy Willis

Wednesday, March 31, 1999 | 10:22 a.m.

An 8-hour Passover celebration changed Rabbi Yitzchak Wyne's life.

"I walked into my rabbi's house as one kind of person, and I walked away a very different kind of person," Wyne, 32, said about a Seder dinner he attended when he was 18. "I appreciated my life so much more.

"He had us focus on all the blessings we have in our lives. When you spend hours focusing on the smallest details -- when you say 'I really do appreciate my eyelids, or my second grade-teacher' -- when you focus on appreciating your freedom and blessings -- I walked away with a new understanding of who I am."

Passover, or Pesach, begins tonight at sundown and lasts eight days. The Jewish holiday commemorates the liberation of Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

Gathered in synagogues, hotel conference rooms, and each other's homes, many of the more than 75,000 Las Vegas Jews will spend tonight and tomorrow night celebrating freedom at traditional, ritualistic Seder dinners.

"Passover is contemplative and celebratory. It really is a celebration of life and gratitude for one's blessings," said Wyne, rabbi at Young Israel, a traditional congregation devoted to Jewish education.

The saga of slavery, liberation and entry into a collective covenant with God through the Ten Commandments is central to the Jewish identity.

According to biblical history, the Israelites were enslaved by Egyptians for 86 years. Moses was instructed by God to go to the pharaoh and demand freedom for his people. When he was ignored, God released 10 plagues on Egypt -- blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, blight, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and finally, the slaying of first-born sons.

As the final plague approached, Israelites marked their houses with lamb's blood so that the Angel of Death would "pass over" their homes and spare their first-born sons.

When at last they were freed, the Israelites left their homes so quickly that there wasn't enough time to bake the bread, so they packed raw dough and baked it in the desert sun on their journey out of Egypt -- causing Jews today to forego leavened bread during the eight days of Passover.

According to the Bible, the Red Sea parted allowing the Israelites to escape. From there, the Israelites journeyed to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

"The Jewish concept of freedom is not freedom 'from' something, but freedom 'for' something," said Rabbi Mel Hecht of Temple Beth Am, a reform congregation in Summerlin. "That is, freedom is a commitment to making a better world. The purpose of the freedom was to make a better society for all of God's children, and it still is today."

Hecht's Passover celebration will be held at the Luxor Hotel tonight at 6 and limited to 300 people. This is the third year Beth AM has held Passover celebration in the mock pyramid.

"I can't think of a better place for this celebration than an Egyptian pyramid," Hecht said. "It is in keeping with the Jewish tradition of experiential worship -- it makes the past come alive today. We re-live that experience."