Rabbi Knopf's Blog

The Talmud teaches that 30 days before Passover, we should start learning about the holiday and its meaning. In that spirit, I humbly offer "30 Days of Liberation." For each of the next 30 days, I will offer a brief message drawn from the wisdom of Passover. I hope you find these messages meaningful and inspiring. Feel free to share/forward.

30 Days of Liberation: Day 5

When Pharaoh decrees that all Israelite baby boys be cast into the Nile, Moses’ mother hides him in a reed basket and sends him downriver to spare his life. Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the basket, opens it, sees a baby crying, and declares, “This must be a Hebrew child!” How did she know baby Moses was a Hebrew just by looking at him? In his recent book, “Here I Am,” Jonathan Shafran Foer suggests that she recognizes Moses as a Hebrew because “he was crying in Jewish.” How would one cry in Jewish? Maybe, Foer suggests, Moses was laughing. Perhaps laughter is how one cries in Jewish. It’s not so much that our tradition forbids sadness, or that pain is taboo. It’s just that we prefer to turn grief into giggling, sadness into song. Maybe that’s what saved Moses. And maybe that’s what will save us. 

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