Our foundational story – the story of the Exodus from Egypt is a story of redemption. What makes Pesach so special is that we engage this story on three different levels – past, present, and future. We tell the story of our ancestors, we examine what redemption and freedom mean to us in our lives today, and imagine what is possible in the future.
On the last day of Pesach, the great spiritual master, the Baal Shem Tov had a meal in the late afternoon called a Seudat Mashiach – the festive meal of the Messiah – something that many Chabad communities still observe. The Baal Shem believed that there was something special about this 8th day of Pesach that created the possibility of redemption in the future. Some have connected this auspicious time to the number eight – signifying that it is above the natural order of completion which is embodied in our tradition by the number seven. While seven is the natural cycle of time through the week, eight transcends what is natural – opening up to infinite possibility.
In addition the haftarah that was read on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat immediately before Passover, from the prophet Malachi shares this messianic vision when he writes:
See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers…(Mal. 3:23-24)
Where our Passover seders are about exploring redemption in the past and present, on the 8th day, on the final day of Passover, we are invited to tune into what it might mean in the future and to orient our lives today to guide ourselves and others to that vision.
When we redeem something, we buy it back. We pay it off. We exchange, recover, or convert something, transforming it into something we control from something we once lost. In the Torah, God redeemed us. With an outstretched arm, God brought us back under divine loving care from slavery. We were once God’s small tribe in Canaan; we emerged from a family and became a nation, but in the process, lost our anchor and our autonomy. God redeemed us, recovering us from a culture that had engulfed us and isolated us. In the process, to achieve a truer freedom – God brought us to Sinai so that we could become redeemed yet again.
Together, with God, we wrote this story. And on so many levels, we were active participants and partners in the process of our freedom. Our present redemption continues on personal and societal levels. Personally, can we uncover who really are, how we are meant to live, and what our purpose is in this life. Societally, can we work to create a world where each and every person is recognized as a Divine expression and therefore we need to actively create socio-economic systems and structures that truly recognize the inherent dignity of every human being and this living earth that we are a part.
On this 8th day of Pesach we orient ourselves towards this messianic time – towards this time of possibility through reflecting on three elements – wait, hope, and act.
Wait – redemption is not only about possibility, it’s about patience, the emotional fortitude required to wait for the small, interconnecting pieces of a story to come together organically. Patience demands the capacity to tolerate delay, to accept trouble, and often suffering without anger or retaliation. But waiting is hard work. It can exhaust our patience and fill us with doubts and uncertainties.
So the second element is hope – staying open to the possibility of a redeemed world. In one of Maimonidies 13 principles of faith, he states “Ani Maamin – I believe in perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, that even though he may delay, I will always wait every day.” This hope is not a blind faith, it’s one that notices that human consciousness is evolutionary – that even though we experience evil and suffering, the great arc of human development bends toward greater awareness of Divine Presence. This hope is the awareness that our Exodus story is not just a historical account, but a template for how God operates in the world – that there is a reality greater than evil – that maybe even the evil and suffering that we experience are great evolutionary growing pains on the road to greater connection and depth.
And finally the third element is act – we are partners with God in creation – we have the potential to be expressions of God in the world. Rabbi Shlomo Katz teaches about Maimonidies 12th principle of faith about believing in the Messiah: Even though he may delay, achakey lo b’chol yom – I will wait for him every day. He teaches that when achakey spelled with a khaf – it means wait, but when it is spelled with a kuf – it means emulate. So then we read it as: Even though he may delay, I will always emulate him every day. I will be the messianic time that I want to see in the world. I will act toward others the way that I wish that the world will act. I will work for values that I want to see everywhere around me.
Wait, Hope, Act.
To close with a story about the great Hasidic master Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl:
You can tell a lot about a person about the way they talk about Mashiach. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they sing about Mashiach.
One motzei Shabbat, the Chernoblyer rebbe was singing Eliyahu HaNavi on his porch. While he was singing this, his top Hasid, disciple – Reb Laibl walked past, and the way that he heard him singing this niggun – it wasn’t as if Mashiach was going to come sometime soon – the way that he heard it was that Mashiach had already come – that we they were already living in a transformed world of God’s presence. And Reb Laibl was so happy, he knocks on the door and the Rebbe let him in and they sat down and drank some coffee, and it was already as if they were living in the reality that Mashiach was here.
Reb Laibl went home, wakes up his wife and children and says: My family – mashiah is here!! Only to realize the next morning that it was the way his Rebbe sang about Mashiach coming that made him feel as if it already happened. And the deepest truth is that true experience that Mashiach was already here brought the future reality that much closer.
If we are able to sing about Eliyahu Hanavi as not some time in the future, but as already here, we are bringing that reality one step closer. Why? Because the living in the reality that Mashiach is here requires that we emulate that reality – that we emanate God’s presence. And that is the greatest gift we can give each other.