Monday, April 5, 2004 | 3:42 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
A TRIP to the promised land has many twists and turns.
Tonight the Jewish people around the world gather together for the traditional Passover Seder, which is a dinner celebration at which the story of Passover is shared between the older family members and the youngest ones. Ever since Moses led his people out of Egypt and a life of bondage to Pharoah, Jews have shared this story from generation to generation.
For the few people, Jewish or not, who do not know the story of Moses and his difficulties in persuading Egypt's leader to let "his people go," it is a fascinating account of a people led away from slavery, through a parting of the Red Sea, to the gifting of the Ten Commandments by God directly to Moses and the Jewish people, and the wandering around for 40 years looking for that special place in God's plan for his chosen people to live.
There have always been a few questions, to be sure, like "Why did Moses turn left instead of right when he reached the land of Israel?" One way had plenty of oil -- think about a world free of al-Qaida and $3 a gallon gas, courtesy of the president's friends in Saudi Arabia -- and the other direction had Gaza and the West Bank! But, by and large, the story of Passover has always been one of renewal and commitment to a better life for all people.
Just last month, however, I heard a much broader interpretation of the Passover story that has a far greater application to my life and, therefore, I believe, to the lives of most other people. It was shared by a Rabbi who, in the greatest tradition of Judaism, takes pleasure in finding meaning in biblical stories that have more currency in today's world.
It is said that life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. In other words, things never happen the way we think they will or the way we might wish they would. Nevertheless, most people accept the twists and turns that life throws our way and move on. Without really knowing why.
That is the point of the expanded Passover story I heard a few weeks ago.
Life is never about doing things the easy way, as much as we might want it to be that way. It is a journey that starts in one place and ends in another. How long it takes to get there and the route we take is what makes the whole thing so interesting.
Anyone who knows the map of the Middle East understands that the distance between Egpyt and Israel can be measured in mere miles. It should not take more than a few days to walk from one place to the other, even with time out for parting the waters and climbing a mountain to receive the word of God. And, yet, it took Moses and his group 40 years to make that very short trip. Why?
Because life is about the journey and this particular trek had to account for a lot of people who weren't quite ready to believe in the world as Moses saw it and who weren't content to cede ownership of their lives to one person, no matter how grateful they were for his assistance in showing Pharoah who was boss.
In this case, it took the best part of a full life to reach the end of the journey for Moses, which, not coincidentally, was the beginning of the trip for the Jewish people. It was the journey itself that defined the road toward the Promised Land and the hopes and dreams of an entire world that went along every step of the way.
To put it another way, life isn't necessarily easy. There are always challenges to be met and detours to be taken. But it is the trip itself that provides the reward for having lived.
In the context of the Passover Seder that takes place tonight, celebrating the story of the Jews being delivered from Egypt to a land of promise, if it is to have meaning for the Jewish people it must also provide guidance to the rest of the world.
And that lesson must mean that life cannot be lived from one quarter to the next, from one election to the next and from one birthday to the next. To live the life that the grand planner intended for each of us, we must consider the entire length of our journey and, most importantly, the honorable way in which we choose to make the trip.
Now that is a Passover message that should have meaning for all of God's people.
archive
