Why is this edition of FriendWithoutBenefits.substack.com different from all others? Because, it’s hitting your inbox at 8am on Friday morning and not at its usual time of 8am on Sunday morning.
And that’s because this Sunday is the Jewish holiday of Pesach, in Hebrew, or Passover, in English, and I will be unplugged, so to speak.
Passover is the holiday that tells the story of the quintessential quest for freedom and liberation. It recounts the story of the Exodus from Egypt by the Hebrews or Israelites, as Jews were called back then.
They endured hundreds of years of harsh slavery until Moses, with God’s direct intervention, with ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, freed them.
You remember The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston as Moses? Yeah, that was the Hollywood version.
Moses was def a revolutionary of his time, a real shit-stirrer, who went against the Egyptian establishment, going staff to staff if you will, with the all-powerful Pharaoh.
Moses pressured the Egyptian strongman to let his people go and to eventually get to the promised land.
That story of the Exodus, that story that taught for the first time in history that even the fate of a slave can be changed, that there can be hope for a better and brighter future even in the darkest of circumstances, has resonated for centuries with other peoples and nations.
Many early American settlers viewed their flight from religious persecution in Europe to their “free” lives in the new world, as a new exodus.
Some of the founding fathers of the United States took inspiration from the Exodus story as they battled for freedom from Britain, the world’s most powerful nation at that time.
Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin actually suggested that the Great Seal of the new nation they helped create, be that of Moses leading the Hebrews through the Red Sea.
The Exodus saga gave African American slaves in the United States hope their liberation would come one day as well.
Go down Moses, way down in Egypt land.
Tell old, Pharaoh, let my people go.
The words from that famous spiritual, was sung by Black slaves quietly, night after night in their slave quarters, hoping for a “Moses” to liberate them from their bondage, just as the ancient Israelites were liberated from their bondage in Egypt.
Some slaveowners feared that powerful message of freedom so much, they printed bibles for their slaves with the Exodus story deleted.
For centuries, in prosperity and in peril, in penthouses and in ghettos, in the barracks of Auschwitz and on the beaches of Miami, the Jewish people have told and re-told the story of Passover at a gathering, called the seder.
They debate and discuss the finer points of the Haggadah, the book that lays out the Pesach narrative and sets the order of the evening.
Of course, the evening also includes a sumptuous meal, because that’s what people can do when they are free and because, hey, we gotta eat!
The Haggadah also reminds us that in every generation, evil arises to destroy the Jewish people.
For decades, since the end of World War II, most of the time those words were read, in half-belief. After all, antisemitism in the United States, in Europe, in Australia was kinda kept under wraps after the horrors of the Holocaust.
After all, we had the State of Israel to protect Jews from evil.
Sadly, that’s not the case anymore.
Since October 7th, 2023, that reminder, that warning, about the genocidal enemies of the Jewish people, is no longer a reminder from a bygone era. It is a cold, excruciating reality.
On that day, Hamas crossed into Israel and tried to destroy the Jewish people. They slaughtered, raped, and burned Jews. They killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. They swept up hundreds of hostages and carried them off into slavery.
So, this weekend, it will be difficult to celebrate the story of freedom and liberation, when there are Jewish hostages still being held captive in hell, in Gaza.
Twenty-four hostages that are still thought to be alive, are in the Hamas tunnels, enduring endless days torture, starvation, humiliation and deprivation.
It’s been more than 550 days. Their liberation is long past due. Their Moses is long past due.
So, if you’re attending a seder this weekend, please do something, say something, to remember the hostages.
If you’re not religiously observant or not even Jewish, please take a brief moment this weekend to think about the hostages and how they are suffering and what their families are enduring.
Please, wear a yellow ribbon, say a silent prayer, just remember them in some way because they so desperately need to be in your thoughts.
Remembering them this weekend isn’t just a Jewish thing, it’s an American thing and it’s a human thing.