I PURELY COMMENTARY I

Itabbenu Moshe' Symbolizing Passover

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

W

hile Jewish tradition does not
deify personalities and the
name of the Lawgiver Moses
does not appear in the Seder Hagadah
as was explained in this column a week
earlier, Rabbenu Moshe, our Teacher
Moses, rules predominantly over the
total Passover theme.
Moses, the dominant name in the
story of mankind, is universally
embraced.
He is even included, together with
the dominant name in Christianity, by
Islam and is thus recorded in the Koran
by Mohammed.
Moses is recognized as spiritual
leader by Christianity's affirmation of
its legacies acquired from Judaism.
Passover would be incomplete in
observance if the echoes of the centuries
and the affirmation of the debts to
Moses expressed in Jewish scholarship
were not continually spoken and
thought of. They are numerically
endless and memories of some will add
to the inspiration of the idealism
thereby perpetuated by Judaism and by
all mankind.
There is among such records the
devotional tribute by one of our greatest
scholars and philosophers, Ahad HaAm
— Asher Ginsberg (1856-1927). To quote
him briefly:
It is not only the existence of
this Moses that is clear and in-
disputable to me. His character
is equally plain, and is not liable
to be altered by any archeo-
logical discovery. This ideal — I
reason — has been created in the
spirit of the Jewish people; and
the creator creates in his own
image.
Then there is the Confession by
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). Heine
abandoned Judaism in order to acquire

benefits accorded to converts. In his
time, this was a path to recognition in
the then dominant Christian ranks. It
was an escape from persecution. He
always regretted that step. He express-
ed it.
In an admission supplementing his
confession, Heine wrote in Thoughts
and Fancies in 1859:
"The baptismal certificate is the ad-
mission ticket into European civiliza-
tion?'
In one of his last written
statements he displayed emo-
tion, alluding to his Jewish at-
tachment, when he deplored an
anticipated fate — that no
masses would be sung for him,
that the Kaddish would not be
recited in his memory. This is
how he asserted it:
Keine Messe wird man
singen
Keinen Kadosch wird man
sagen,
Nichts gesagt and nichts
gesungen
meinen
Wird
an
Sterbetagen.
It is important to note that Heine
defined Moses as "the master artist."
He paid this honor to the Lawgiver he
affirmed as his "master" in his
Confessions:

Michelangelo's Moses, with horns.

I did not particularly like
Moses at first, I suppose,
because I was under the com-
plete sway of the Hellenic spirit
and could not forgive the Jewish
lawgiver his hatred of all im-
agery and plastic art. I did not
realize that Moses in spite of his
enmity for art was, nevertheless,
himself a great artist endowed
with the artist's true spirit. His
art, however, like that of his
Egyptian countrymen was
directed to the colossal and
indestructible.

But he did not, like the Egyp-
tians, mold his masterpieces out
of brick and granite, rather did
he build human pyramids. He
carved human obelisks.
He took a poor shepherd
tribe and out of it created a peo-
ple, that even like the pyramids
defies the centuries, an eternal,
holy people. God's people, that
might serve as model to all other
peoples, indeed, as the pro-
totype of humanity; he created
Israel! ... The writer of these

pages might well be proud that
his ancestors belong to the no-
ble house of Israel, that he is a
descendant of those martyrs
who gave the world a God and
an ethic, who struggled and suf-
fered on all the battlefields of
ideas.
Most memorable and most unforget-
table dedications to the nobility and
humanism of Moses is from one of the
world's most respected personalities. It
is one of the great contributions made
by Henry George in his Moses pub-
lished in 1878. The story of it needs
perpetuating. It follows in the details of
its initial utterance:
"Perhaps the most inspired
of all tributes to Moses — with
the exception of a few by men
like Ahad HaAm — was the one
that was uttered in 1878 by the
founder of the Single Tax move-
ment, Henry George (1839-1897).
The Young Men's Hebrew
Association of San Francisco
had invited Henry George, a
Protestant, to deliver a lecture,
and he chose as his subject
"Moses:' George was then com-
pleting his Progress and Pover-
ty. He must have been greatly
influenced by Mosaic principles.
Therefore, in his address, he
spoke of the dignity of the in-
dividual, the land tenure and
related questions.
George's lecture attracted
such wide interest that he was
asked to deliver his "Moses" lec-
ture in other parts of the United
States, in Canada, Great Britain
and Australia. In the course of
his lecture he said:
"It was not an empire such
as had reached full development
in Egypt, or existed in rudimen-
tary patriarchal form in the

Continued on Page 38

Rejoicing In The Humanized Passover

C

ontinuing the Passover obser-
vance, having been inspired by
the Seder, now we mark the
festival with a clear conscience that it
was not for us alone that the human fac-
tor is perpetuated.

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Vol. XCV No. 8

2

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1989

April 21, 1989

We have a basic principle that our
fellow beings are not to be ignored
while we rejoice. Therefore the
humanizing of a great occasion on our
calendar.
Moos Chitim as an ideology
enhances the Passover tradition.
In Gateway to Judaism, the en-
cyclopedic collection of Jewish concep-
tual principles edited by Albert M.
Shulman, we have an especially well-
defined explanation of the Moos Chitim
practice. It asserts:

Wheat money is a charitable
fund that enables people in un-
fortunate circumstances to
receive matzot and other
Passover necessities.
There is added value to the defini-
tion of the Passover concept. The com-
piler added to this an evaluative con-
sideration of the manner in which our
other festivals and the Sabbath are con-
secrated. It asserts:

The Jewish holidays em-
phasized charity through their
ceremonies and traditions.
Purim is associated with
Shalach Manot — the sending of
gifts, particularly to those in
need. Passover enables the Jew
to participate in the Moos
Chitim — wheat money (Charity
Fund) whereby Passover sup-
plies may be made available to
those who otherwise would be
unable to observe the holiday.
The holy days of Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur
always provided opportunities
for Jews to make special con-
tributions to synagogue support
and worthwhile causes. Very
characteristic of Jewish spirit
was the baking of challahs and
cakes for distribution among
friends and neighbors.
The Sabbath day in the
traditional Jewish home is

marked by a complete cessation
from work. It is a day of rest,
prayer, and study and all the
members of the family must
abide by its sanctity.
All the cooking and baking
for the Sabbath must be done
the day before. Everything per-
taining to the secular life is for-
bidden, such as marketing,
traveling, business transactions,
cleaning, amusements, etc.

The morning of the Sabbath
is for prayer and meditation.
The early afternoon is for rest,
receiving of visitors, or calling
on the sick. The late afternoon
is for study and worship.
There is rejoicing in the festivals
and observances that elevate the
Jewish spirit from occasion to occasion,
from festivity to festivity. There is pride
taken in a specialized Passover commit-
ment. ❑