Shalom everyone,
First of all, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a happy Festival of Unleavened Bread! May you enjoy a joyous and happy Passover Seder! Hag Matzot saméach!
The story of the Exodus is the foundational birth-story of the nation of Israel. It is a story of liberation and redemption. In ancient times, various versions of it were recited almost like a creed (eg Neh 9:9-15, Ps 136:10-16). The northern kingdom of Israel had one version, and the southern kingdom of Judah had another. When the Assyrians took the northern kingdom into exile, some refugees from the northern kingdom saved themselves, by fleeing to the southern kingdom. They brought their traditions and stories with them.
After the return to Judea following the Babylonian Exile, when it came to creating the Book of Exodus, these two traditions were melded together, to form the story we have now in the Torah.
Once you have fully converted to the Israelite faith – or even if you are a Godfearer, once you have reached such a point where you have fully committed yourself to the Israelite faith – Hag Matzot is the first of the pilgrim festivals that you participate in, in your new role as an Israelite or a committed Godfearer.
In the Talmidi community, there is never any pressure to convert. Your journey is at your own speed, and if it turns out that you are more comfortable remaining a Godfearer for life, then that’s OK too. The Israelite faith was meant to be the spiritual home, not only of the descendants of Jacob, but also of anyone who worshipped Yahveh exclusively, and committed themselves to God’s Covenant.
In preparation for the festival, we remove all leaven from our homes. The spiritual overlay onto this, is that we remove everything from our former status that is not conducive to our new mission as Yahwists. We remove all our former beliefs, all our former attitudes and mindset, and whichever of our former cultural practices which are unhelpful to realising the Oneness and Holiness of our God. It is often said that the Exodus was to take Israel out of Egypt, and the 40 years wandering was to take Egypt out of Israel.
At this point, I’d now like to address the Godfearers and converts among us.
In Rabbinic mythology, the first convert to the Israelite faith is said to have been Jethro. However, a careful reading of the text helps us to see that Jethro already believed in Yahveh – he was the Midianite High Priest of Yahh in his own land. If we want to find the first converts, we have to look a bit further back in the story.
During the plagues, at MT Ex 9:20-21, it says, However, those among Pharaoh’s court officials who feared the message of Yahveh, hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside; but those who cared nothing for the message of Yahveh, left their slaves and their livestock outside in the fields.
Here we have an intimation that certain Egyptians began to take notice of the power of Yahveh in their midst. Having seen the power of the God of Israel through the plagues, and how ineffective their Egyptian gods were at protecting the Egyptians, some Egyptians began wondering, ‘Perhaps we are worshipping the wrong God.’
By the time of the tenth plague, this doubt had sufficiently spread to the wider Egyptian population, that some of them joined the Israelites when they finally left Egypt. In addition, by the time of the Exodus, there would have been a significant minority of Hamitic Egyptians who had married into the Israelite people. Together with other Egyptians and Nubians (a neighbouring, black African people, who are known to have lived amongst the Egyptians), these formed the ‘mixed multitude’ that departed from Egypt with the Israelites.
So the first full converts were those who had already married into the Israelite people, and the first Godfearers were the Egyptians and Nubians who left Egypt alongside the Israelites; the very first Godfearers were Africans. Their descendants became part of the people of Israel, along with the Semitic Kenites from Midian (Jethro’s tribe), whom the Israelites met while still in the Sinai wilderness.
Wherever Jews have gone to in the world, local peoples have become attracted to the ways of Yahveh. There are Jews who are, in their appearance, Chinese (such as the Kaifeng Jews), South Asian (such as the Cochin Jews of India), African (such as the Lemba), in addition to various European communities. There are, of course, those who have direct genealogical ancestry back to Jacob son of Isaac, but there are also peoples from all continents who have felt the calling of Yahveh on their souls, and have either intermarried with people of Jewish descent, or converted fully to become ‘as one native-born’. Godfearers – those who have not gone through any conversion – are still part of the House of Israel, if they have chosen to commit themselves to God’s Covenant, and to worship only Yahveh.
In the Massorite Talmidi community, we recognise that all human beings on earth are sons and daughters of God. Gene-scientists have shown that we are ultimately descended from one man, and one woman (although these two individuals did not live at the same time). Therefore, all human beings are related, however distantly; we are all cousins. In our community, there is no place for the sin of racism.
In ancient times, the idea of ‘race’ by descent was unknown. Your ethnicity was whatever culture and people you identified with, by way of culture and language. The idea of a genetic ‘race’ is actually a fairly modern concept. Massorite Talmidaism holds to the ancient way of looking at culture, nations and peoples. If you look at the history of the Israelite faith in the Hebrew Bible, many ‘foreigners’ left the customs and ways of their ancestors, and joined the people of Israel.
For those who have never been to Israel, and have only ever seen Israelis on TV News, they may be forgiven for thinking that all Israelis are of white, European Caucasian descent. However, anyone who has actually been to Israel will know that more than half are not Caucasian – there are Middle Eastern Jews (who, in their appearance, are absolutely indistinguishable from their fellow Semitic Middle-Easterners); there are African Jews, there are South Asian Jews, there are Jews from the Far East, and so on.
Retelling the Exodus story each year is a way of giving us all a common origin story, no matter where we have come from, and no matter what our genetic or geographical ancestry. Once you no longer feel the pull of the people you were born into, and consider that the pull of Yahveh and Israel is stronger, then you are ready to enter the conversion process.
The Exodus is a story of birth. For those of us who are not actually living in the Land of Israel, Israel can still be a state of mind. As a state of mind, it is a state where all peoples are free; no one is to be a slave to anyone. All Jews are to be held equal, regardless of what percentage of Jewish ancestry you have. We are all one under Yahveh, who called us all to belong to Yahveh. You are a Godfearer or an Israelite, because Yahveh has called you, and no rabbi can overrule the calling of God!
I pray you all enjoy a wonderfully happy Seder, and may each day of the Festival bring you closer to Yahveh.
Blessed be Yahveh, our Saviour and Redeemer!
Blessings
Shmuliq