What is Passover?
Festival of Liberation
Passover, or Pesach, marks the Exodus of the Israel from Egypt and the end of Israelite enslavement. Beginning with the full moon of Nisan (15th of Nisan), Passover is the quintessential liberation festival celebrating the birth of spring. The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, literally means “the narrow places.” Commemorating our Exodus from Egypt provides a powerful opportunity to free ourselves from the narrowness that enslaves us in our daily lives. The symbolism of Passover is unmistakable – once slaves, we move to freedom through the parted Red Sea – a birthing process that we can embody each spring.
Celebrating the First Barley Harvest
Passover is the first of the Shalosh Regalim, the three Jewish Pilgrimage Festivals (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot). In ancient times we made a pilgrimage to the Temple to give thanks for harvests that we received from the earth. We planted barley seeds after Sukkot with the first fall rain. At Passover, we celebrated the ripening of barley, the first grain, by offering a special measure of barley called an omer.
Counting the Omer – From Liberation to Revelation
Passover begins the holy process of “counting the omer.” Between the second day of Passover (16th of Nisan) and the day before Shavuot (6th of Sivan), we undergo a forty-nine day spiritual accounting process that prepares us for the Revelation of Shavuot, the second Pilgrimage Festival that commemorates receiving the Torah in the wilderness (and celebrates the first wheat harvest).
Our Journey In the Desert Wilderness
At Passover we recall our journey towards freedom and we envision our liberation– from enslavement in Mitzrayim (“the narrows of Egypt”) to the expansive freedom of Midbar (“the desert wilderness”). Midbar, literally meaning desert and wilderness, also means the place that resonates. It is in the desert that we hear G-d’s voice, receive our sacred teachings, and undergo our deepest healing. When we return to the desert for Passover, we have access to this potent energy, we can recover our ancient wildness, and we can heal our community and ourselves.
Well, we’re not in the Sinai desert anymore, but today, half way across the world in California, we can still draw from our ancestor’s wilderness journey. We travel far from home – making a pilgrimage of sorts – into unfamiliar surroundings to experience the holiday in its original desert context and release ourselves from the mitzrayim (which means narrow parts or Egypt) that we are ready to let go of in our lives (“Let my people go”). Each participant will be in a tribe that prepares for each person to experience a short but powerful time of introspection and solitude in the desert environment. Register now!
