Passover begins this year on the evening of April 1, April Fools’ Day. It’s known as the day when practical jokes and hoaxes are perpetrated on unsuspecting victims, with the pranksters usually exposing themselves by shouting “April Fools!” This year’s timing is curiously coincidental, but arguably not without significance.
The theme of Passover is succinctly stated in the Haggadah itself: “We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt, and God took us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, Blessed be He, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children and children’s children would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.”
We recite these words because long ago (so we are taught) our ancestors chose to trust God’s promise of liberation communicated to them by Moses. But according to one view, not all of us made this choice. According to Exodus 13:18, “[T]he Israelites went up chamushim out of the land of Egypt.” The word chamushim is usually translated as “armed.”
However, a midrash associates the word chamushim to chamesh (the number five) and boldly suggests that only one-fifth of the entire people, just 20%, trusted the promise and chose to leave. In other words, 80% of the people did not believe it and perhaps some thought it was a hoax. Ultimately, they preferred the familiarity of slavery over taking risks for freedom.
Perhaps this is why the first sentence of the Ten Commandments specifically mentions not just being taken out of bondage, but out of the house of bondage. Why? Because a house represents familiarity and safety. And human beings often will choose the safe familiarity of the status quo, no matter how deleterious to their well-being, over the risk of making major changes to improve their lives. Just ask any therapist.
After so many years of enslavement, it is not surprising that our ancestors might have been a tad skeptical regarding a promise to liberate them by a God they had only heard about from stories of their ancestors. Understandably, they might have initially thought it to be a hoax. Which is why God may have chosen to show His powerful bona fides not just to Pharaoh, but also to the people, via the Ten Plagues.
But as the narrative relates, doubt and mistrust plagued even those who chose to leave. More than once they kvetched, “Why did God bring us here, if not to die in the desert? Why did we believe Moses? Why did we trust God? How could we have been so gullible?”
Notably, their panic began right before they were saved at the sea. Three days after God had performed a miracle through manipulating water, the people complained distrustfully when water wasn’t immediately available. God showed Moses how to provide water for them, adding that if they would just listen faithfully to His voice—if they would just trust Him—then He would not bring upon them any of the afflictions suffered by the Egyptians.
Water was provided.
But right after this, they complained about the lack of food, accusing Moses and Aaron of bringing them out of Egypt to die in the desert. God’s response was the manna, which was their steady diet for the rest of their journey.
Despite the empirical evidence in other similar episodes that God was working on their behalf, their distrust and unbelief never abated. Each episode was characterized by a variation of: “We were fooled. It was a hoax. Why did we leave Egypt?” Finally, God had had enough, and the two-year journey to the Promised Land became 40.
It should be noted that those who believed that they had been fooled were the actual eyewitnesses to the miracles themselves. Given that they doubted despite what they had witnessed, it’s no wonder that we, who only read and hear the story millennia later, would have our own doubts regarding the reliability of stories affirming God’s reliability, particularly after Auschwitz … or Oct. 7.
And yet, at our seder tables, we will recite the Haggadah, with its plethora of praise to God. Predictably, we will most likely sing “Dayenu” enthusiastically—the song that recounts not only our rescue from Egypt, but also a host of other deeds done by God, all to remind us of God’s reliability.
But even as we sing and perhaps bang on our tables, nevertheless, for many of us, the lyrics will still just be words sung without conviction—much like our prayers, often recited without conviction.
Why? Because for many of us, doubt and cynicism have eclipsed trust and belief.
Given the ideas and ideologies of modernity that have promoted such doubt and cynicism, it’s not surprising that some might cynically ask: “At the end of the day, isn’t all this ‘Jewish stuff’ really just a hoax? Couldn’t the last 3,000 years have been one big April Fools’ joke?” Indeed, one can imagine such sentiments being accompanied by the declaration immortalized by the English rock band, The Who: “We won’t get fooled again!”
On the other hand, the current 20% will insist: “Despite past challenges and no matter what ideas/ideologies that have succeeded in seducing some of us into doubt and cynicism, we will continue to trust and affirm the prophetic promise: Netzach Yisrael lo y’shaker/“The Eternal One of Israel does not lie.” Thus, “WE won’t get fooled again!”
At a crucial moment when Jews again face existential challenges, like our ancestors in Egypt, the question is put to us: Is our thousands-year-old legacy true, or merely a longstanding April Fools’ prank?
Once again, it’s time for the chosen ones to choose.
