Rabbi Elana Zelony: Understanding redemption and renewal at Passover
This episode begins a three-part series on redemption and renewal. Rabbi Elana Zelony unpacks the historical significance of Passover and its role in forming the Jewish consciousness, how it has become part of the rhythm of Jewish life. More broadly, she explains how the spiritual practice of rituals is a reminder and celebration of her faith’s core values.
Rabbi Zelony has been the senior Rabbi for Congregation Beth Torah in Richardson, Texas since 2014. Her rabbinate emphasizes pluralism, inclusion, interfaith work, spirituality, and involvement with the community. She is the first female rabbi in the Conservative Movement to lead a synagogue in the state of Texas.
Watch the video, here.
[00:00:00] George: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and we begin in this episode a three-part series on redemption and renewal. As it turns out, the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all have holy days during the course of one month.
[00:00:27] Not coinciding with the month of March or April particularly, but over the course of a month, in fact, Ramadan began on March the 22nd and stretches for 30 days. And for Jews, Passover will be on April the 6th, which coincides with Maundy Thursday in the Christian tradition, and a Good Friday the next day.
[00:00:59] And then Easter, of course, on that weekend, that Sunday. Passover in the Jewish tradition is an eight-day festival and is mostly a home event, a meal, or a Seder, as it's called. And we're gonna talk more about that in a few moments, but it's rooted in the biblical story of Israel, the deliverance of the Israelites from captivity.
[00:01:29] And what is the significance of it historically and in forming the Jewish consciousness and how is it part of the rhythm of Jewish life? These are questions that we'll be talking about, including the larger question in each of our traditions of what redemption means and how it relates to renewal more generally.
[00:01:55] The renewal of what? The redeeming of what and how. And so we begin this with welcoming Rabbi Elana Zelony. She is going to talk with us about the Passover Seder and its significance of it, and what it means in redemption and renewal. Elana is the rabbi for Congregation Beth Torah in Richardson, Texas.
[00:02:26] She is the first female rabbi in the conservative movement of Judaism. Something we'll learn more about in a few moments as well. She has been very active in interfaith work as part of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance. She is a great friend to the Dialogue Institute community in Richardson, and she is involved in local actions when we joined together for social justice causes in the Dallas community.
[00:03:01] So it's a delight that we get to welcome to the program Rabbi Elana Zelony.
[00:03:08] Well, it's a privilege to welcome you to Good God. Rabbi Elana Zelony, thank you so much for being with us.
[00:03:16] Elana: Oh, thank you for inviting me to join you.
[00:03:20] George: Well, you've been involved in lots of interfaith work as part of Richardson Interfaith Alliance and the Dialogue Institute, and so you understand what it's like for us to have these conversations that are focused not only on our own particular traditions but how they relate to the traditions of other faiths, right?
[00:03:44] Elana: Yes. Finding common ground...
[00:03:47] George: In doing so, we're not trying to say that all religions are the same or that underneath it all there's one theme that pervades because that would be to rob each tradition of their own particularity and the contribution that can make.
[00:04:04] But I think it's interesting, of course, to note that. Ramadan in the Muslim tradition began on March the 22nd and will go on for a month. And Passover is coming up in your tradition, which coincides roughly with our Good Friday, Maundy Thursday period of time just before Easter. And then and I say our being Christian of course and then Easter being sort of the.
[00:04:38] The important link between the two of those things for the Christian tradition. But let's focus today on Passover and its significance in the holy days of Judaism, what it is, how it's celebrated, and what meaning we find from it. So would you do us a favor, and for those who are somewhat uninitiated about Judaism and Passover, would you tell us the story and, begin with us?
[00:05:08] Elana: Yes. So the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and God sent Moses as his prophet to tell Pharaoh to release the Israelites so that they could make the journey back to the holy land. And it didn't go well. But after a series of 10 plagues, Harrow finally released the j. And the night before they left, they made a sacrifice of a lamb, one for every household, and they ate it with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.
[00:05:47] And this was the first Passover Seder when they were wandering through the wilderness in commemoration of this night of Liberation. They continued to make the Passover s. And over time, what we do for Seders has meta morphed because it's a, it's an ancient tradition. We think it's at least 2,500 years old.
[00:06:15] And so each generation added their layers of understanding the themes of Passover and added on to the liturgy that we used to accompany us through a ritual meal on the first night of pass.
[00:06:30] George: So Passover, and when we say Passover Seder, we just mean a meal, right? Seder. But there are a lot of components to it.
[00:06:41] So it starts out with this sacrificing of lamb and, but you and you mentioned the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and that sort of thing. There's also for cups of wine and all, these sorts of things that, are all Symbols that take place in, in, the meal that you continue to this day to employ.
[00:07:03] Elana: So in the Greco-Roman period, Jews decided to imitate a Greek symposium. Which was a multi-course meal at which discussions of philosophy would happen. But they as a lay leader of mine, says they jud it up. And so they took a tradition from the contemporary contemporaneous culture and they made it Jewish.
[00:07:31] And so instead of talking about Greek philosophy, They discussed Jewish theology and instead of dining on Greek delicacies, they decided to use symbolic foods that would represent parts of the story, sort of like props in a play. And today we have kept that tradition. So now this is about 2000 years ago, we added something called the Seder plate.
[00:07:58] And on the plate they would put the shank bone of a lamb to remind us of the Paschal offering. They would put bitter herbs to remind us of the bitterness of slavery. They would put green first spring kind of plants. The most common one used today by Jews of European descent is parsley to show a ring renewal of hope.
[00:08:27] life is coming back again. They would prepare a dish called haro. Which represented the mortar between the bricks when the Jews were constructing fortresses for, ferro, and depending on where you were from, you would use different ingredients for your hosa to make it look like a thick brown paste.
[00:08:52] So the Jews who come from Europe, for example, commonly use apples and walnuts, and the Jews that come from the Middle East and North Africa commonly use figs and dates and apricots, and pistachios. What am I missing on the Seder plate? There's a bowl of salt water representing the tears of the slaves.
[00:09:15] And so you dip the, spring green into the salt water at one point in the Seder. To remind us that while we are weeping and, feeling despair, there's always the sign of hope and new life. So you eat all these symbolic foods, including matza, the unleavened.
[00:09:35] George: And the unleavened bread, of course, was a reminder that this had to be done quickly.
[00:09:40] You couldn't wait for the bread to rise before leaving Egypt.
[00:09:45] Elana: That's exactly right. When Pharaoh finally relented and said, you can go, they they just took their bread bulls with them. They weren't gonna wait to punch out the dough and let it do a second rising and bake it in an oven. They right, they fled.
[00:10:00] Right. And so the bread ended up being very, And in commemoration of them, not only did Jews eat matza, but they avoid eating leavened foods for the entire eight-day festival.
[00:10:14] George: Okay. And it is an eight-day festival. But there is really more of an emphasis on the first and second nights, wouldn't you say?
[00:10:24] Elana: Yes. The first and second night, most Jews have these ritual meals. Although the other nights of the festival are a great opportunity to. Have themed seders. So you might invite your neighboring church and use it as a conversation piece about what does the Seder mean in Christian culture and what does it mean in Jewish culture?
[00:10:49] Or the women in your synagogue might have a women's Seder that emphasizes the roles of the heroic women in the Exodus story. Nice. So the first two nights are definitely seders for people, and then a lot of times people get creative on the other nights and have a voluntary Seder with a theme.
[00:11:09] George: Well, so we should also say that this is a little unusual in the Jewish Holy Days in the sense that it's really a family meal, right?
[00:11:18] It's, that this is done at home. Not as much emphasis on congregational worship and Passover beyond the normal Shabbat services and the like. Is that correct?
[00:11:33] Elana: Yeah. And Pew did a poll May a decade ago, and it learned that 70% of American Jews will celebrate a sed. And to give you a comparison, 30% of American Jews will go to synagogue on the high holidays, Rashana and yo Kip.
[00:11:52] So the Seder speaks to the Jewish people, I think, because that is the night that we became a nation. Ah, the Jacob, our ancestor Jacob, went down to Egypt with 70 members of his house. And they were very successful in Egypt and they became a people, but they were enslaved. And so it wasn't really until that night that they got to establish who they were as a culture, what their faith would be.
[00:12:22] And I think that's why we keep telling the story. Part of the Seder says, every generation should tell the story, and every generation should imagine that they were freed from.
[00:12:35] George: Which, which brings us to the liturgy of the Passover meal, the Seder, which is called the . Right. And so there's, a kind of story and a drama that plays out.
[00:12:50] And you, are mentioning that this this notion of every generation should consider themselves to have been there. There, there is that beautiful moment when it, says, when we were in Egypt, right? When, so in other words, there's this collective sense of identification. Historically. There's not only a story to tell about the past, but this sense of identity is really tied in the Jewish tradition to this story of redemption.
[00:13:22] Elana: Yes. And when I was speaking earlier, Each generation adds onto the liturgy. One of the stories we tell in the HAA is during the Roman takeover of what was ancient Judea they made Jewish rituals illegal. And one of the pieces that got put into the Haat at that time is the story of five Rabbi. Who went and celebrated the Passover meal in a cave.
[00:13:54] And they were telling the story of the exodus all night long to the point where one of their students had to come and tell them, Hey, the sun is rising. It's time for morning prayer. And that's how we know that they were in a cave or some sort of hidden spot. Right. And they were echoing the story of LiberationLiberation and redemption.
[00:14:16] By doing this clandestine Seder. They were saying, we are not going to give into Roman oppression. We have the freedom. We are not slaves to the Romans. We have the freedom to have our Seder. Okay,
[00:14:32] George: so you've already then moved us into the question of redemption and how. Foundational this story is to a Jewish larger notion of redemption.
[00:14:47] But I think that you know that in interfaith conversations, and especially when Jews live among a more dominant religion of, Christians, when we talk about redemption or salvation There, there is a kind of cultural assumption that we mean the same thing, right? And, so I think it's really important to distinguish among our religious traditions what each tradition.
[00:15:18] Sees or understands about the concept of redemption. So would you talk about what redemption means to a Jew and how the Passover helps to interpret? Yeah,
[00:15:31] Elana: so the text tells us that Torah tells us with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, or an outstretched arm in a strong hand, depending on how you wanna translate, God freed you from.
[00:15:44] So that's the initial redemption, but the Seder also alludes to the ultimate redemption, and for us, that's the arrival of the Messiah. So one of the traditions towards the end of the Seder is to dream about those Messianic times. And there are a couple of rituals we use to do that. One is to have an additional cup of wine or grape juice on the table, and that's called Elijah's Cup because in our tradition, Elijah is the messenger who will arrive and let humanity know the Messiah is coming.
[00:16:17] And we have a tradition that may be on Passover night, that's when Elijah will. And there's a sweet tradition with young children. We say, why don't you get up from the table and open the door just in case Elijah's there to let him in. And the little ones get up and then one of the adults drinks from Elijah's Cup and the children come back.
[00:16:36] We say, oh look, I think Elijah was here and the Messiah is becoming this year. Oh, that's crazy. He we're still about three or four.
[00:16:44] George: Yeah, that's great. A little like leaving cookies for Santa Claus. Exactly. Christmas.
[00:16:52] Elana: And then the final thing that you say at the Seder is next year in Jerusalem, which of course can be a very complex idea given the political history of Jerusalem.
[00:17:03] It can mean a few things it, for Jews, it might mean physically immigrating to Israel and having your next Seder in, in our people's homeland. But it can also mean. The Messianic times when Jerusalem is what it should be. Not that I physically have to be there. It's right the word Jerusalem contains the word for peace.
[00:17:29] And it's our hope that in the Messianic times, all of the political tensions will have melted away. And those who claim it as a holy site and a holy land around it will be able to coexist.
[00:17:45] George: When Christians and Muslims speak of redemption. There's often a sense of this being an afterlife, sort of redemption.
[00:17:56] So what happens when we die individually and and, the sense that we are saved in that sense from the grave forever or that we are re rewarded and are given. Everlasting. But this is, you are describing a more this worldly concrete sense of redemption that is always striving more toward an i a world in an imagination that is, promised for creation.
[00:18:33] I am I wrong in reading those two things, different.
[00:18:36] Elana: You're correct. Judaism has a variety of ideas about the afterlife, but it's not emphasized in our theology and and it's not really connected to redemption at all. Redemption is when there's justice and peace on earth. Oh,
[00:18:55] George: there you go. Okay. Very good.
[00:18:57] So you also use language of anticipating Messiah. And I think for Christians listening to this this obviously is one of the challenges in interfaith relations between Jews and Christians. Muslims also talk about the Messiah coming and and Christians obviously have a sense that we. That the Messiah has come.
[00:19:23] And yet in our conversation with Jews, especially, well, if Messiah has come, why is the world not different? Why, are we still waiting for this Messianic world that has been promised? So all Jews don't necessarily. View the concept of Messiah even in the same way or the, Messianic age to come, whether it's a personal individual Messiah, or more collectively.
[00:19:53] Could you talk about those different ideas in Judaism
[00:19:57] Elana: about a personal Messiah versus a Messiah for the world?
[00:20:00] George: Right. And what a messianic age to is in, in, in the anticipation we see in the Seder.
[00:20:08] Elana: Well, the Messianic age is that all of humanity will be redeemed in the sense that there's no more war, there's no more poverty.
[00:20:19] There's no more racism, okay? Right. But there's not a sense of individually being safe.
[00:20:27] George: Correct. Okay. And how about the personal Messiah that like, we would identify Jesus as the Messiah but some Jews do anticipate an individual, do they not and others? Not so much.
[00:20:41] Elana: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's alluded to in, in our prophet prophetic books which, we share with our Christian brothers and sisters.
[00:20:51] But it's not a very clear image.
[00:20:54] George: Right, right. So there is a sense that even for Christians the idea what happens for Christians is this gets conflated with the idea of the second coming of Jesus. And the idea of the Messianic age would be more. For Christians like this notion of what happens when the Messiah comes again and finally is there.
[00:21:28] But even for us, there's, for some Christians, there's a literal personal coming again of Jesus, and then there's. For others, the coming to be of the promises of the Messiah, which means that finally the world looks the way the Messianic age is supposed to. And so there, there are two different ways of understanding it coming again or coming to be, you might say, but Jews maintain more of this sense that God's promises about the future that begin.
[00:22:07] With Israel in the Passover meal finally come to fruition, not only for Jews, but also for the whole world. Do I understand that correctly? Yes. Okay. So so now there's a kind of political aspect to that often in our other religious traditions, We skip right over to a more personal, spiritual aspect of, religion.
[00:22:38] And you mentioned this when you talked about next year in Jerusalem, right? So and, the idea of peace prevailing and that things are different in the world. W how would it be fair to say that you begin that Judaism begins with a more of a social political understanding of things that create a people and a nation and, that becomes the beginning of a kind of spirituality where to a certain degree Christians.
[00:23:22] Particularly tend to start with more personal spirituality and more problematically struggle to get to the, political is, that a fair way of, yeah. Talking about the differences
[00:23:37] Elana: there, there is a movement of Judaism called Hasidic Judaism. Which is rooted in the more mystical side of the tradition that has ancient.
[00:23:48] But Hasidic Judaism became popular in the 18th century in Central and Eastern Europe. And that branch of Judaism examines one's personal relationship with God. A lot more than the rest of Judaism. I see. And I wouldn't say it's mainstream, I wouldn't say the majority of Jews are not Hasidic.
[00:24:13] George: Right, right. But, this is an important thing for others to recognize, and that is that like in every tradition where there are different takes on what the faith means, Judaism is not one thing, right? There's, there are many, different ways of interpreting Judaism. And you, for example, are a conservative Jewish rabbi in, America.
[00:24:41] And I think it would be helpful maybe for people to understand just simply what would be the difference between orthodox, conservative and reform traditions in, America. Sure.
[00:24:54] Elana: Well a first clarifier is the word conservative doesn't necessarily mean politically conservative. Right? Right. It means one who conserves the traditions of our people.
[00:25:07] Okay. So until. Until Napoleon had the vision of emancipated Europe, you were just Jewish and Jews lived in segregated either villages or sections of cities. But with Napoleon, he said, you know, actually you can own property now and you can enter universities. Now, these things were not available to most Jewish people in Europe.
[00:25:36] And so as Jews came out of their. They're very insular communities. They started to interact with other cultures and some of them said, well, I don't really wanna keep the Sabbath because I can. It's much more profitable if my store is open on Saturday and I don't really wanna keep kosher because it's very awkward at a business meal or a social meal to refrain from eating certain.
[00:26:07] And so in the 19th century reform, Judaism started forming in Germany where people said, I can have the best of both worlds. I can be a modern person. I can be as German as a German and then keep some of my traditions at home. And that's how the reform movement started. And the response to it was Orthodox Judaism, which is no, We're going to lose our traditions. We're going to lose our people. We have to keep. What happened in the United States was there were Jews that had immigrated there from Western Europe and had more of a reform practice of Judaism, and as the antisemitism got much worse in Eastern Europe, there were massive waves of immigration of Jews who were.
[00:27:00] More from agricultural places, kind of backwater Jews and peasants. And as these Russian and Eastern European Jews started coming to America, the Western European Jews and the Sephardic Jews that were there said, this is embarrassing. We have to do something. And they founded the Jewish Theological Seminary.
[00:27:21] Where? In New York City? In New York City where they were training rabbis from Europe to. Bridge these two cultures and have these less educated Jews still keep some tradition, but maybe not be so Jewish. Because at this point they, the Jewish community, the leadership that had the wealth wanted to blend in more, and that's how conservative Judaism started.
[00:27:49] It's kind of in between orthodox and reform.
[00:27:53] George: I understand. Well, so I think all of our traditions struggle with the question of how to be faithful to our faith traditions and live in a broader world, and that is of course Easier or harder, depending upon what that more prevailing culture is in, in which we find ourselves.
[00:28:20] So the, Passover meal, in a sense has a, kind of diasporic feeling to it because, you know it's still always looking forward next year in Jerusalem, so to speak. So I guess another question about that then. How is it different in Israel to celebrate the Passover when you have now Israel as a Jewish state?
[00:28:52] Also supposed to be a democracy. Another conversation we can have at the time. Yes. Especially the way things are right now. Right now, yes. But, nonetheless there is there is a sense that some still are living away from Jerusalem and have more of a diaspora feel to it, and others are at home in the, this, the homeland, so to speak.
[00:29:14] And so what does it mean to Jews living in Israel? How does it different for them to celebrate the.
[00:29:22] Elana: Well the, there is a technical difference, which is Jews in the diaspora celebrate the festival longer than Uhhuh, than Jews who live in Israel. It's vestigial, it's leftover from a time when you knew when the new month started because.
[00:29:40] Someone would witness the Crescent Moon and go to the San Hadron the scholars in Jerusalem and say, I've seen the New Moon. And they said, great. The month of Nissan has started and 15 days from this evening we will have the Passover Seder. Right? And the further away that you lived from Jerusalem, the longer it took to get the message.
[00:30:02] The month of Nissan has started, the Passover Seder will be 15 days from. And so Jews who live in the diaspora would add an extra day just to make sure that we covered the holiday. Right. So Jews in that diaspora still have two Seders. Jews in Israel only have one. Right, right. But that's a technical difference.
[00:30:24] I think. There is a geopolitical country called Israel where a lot of the Jewish population lives over half the world's Jewish population lives. And then there's the Nation of Israel, the people of Israel, and they live all over the world, and they don't necessarily always agree about everything. And so another idea of the Seder is that the disagreements within the Jewish community will be resolved eventually, that we'll learn to care for each other and respect each other and, be able to coexist.
[00:31:07] George: Not just as Jews who have disagreements, but also with neighbors Palestinians, for instance. And yeah. And this is also something that happens when you invite, even in diaspora communities, when you invite your neighbors who are not Jewish to join the Seder and begin that process of understanding.
[00:31:32] Elana: Yes. So for example, the Jewish Community Relations Council, which is part of the Jewish Federation here in Dallas, they do an interfaith Seder every year. And it's an amazing event. There were over 300 people there and the haa that they used, they took out the traditional last line of be liturgy next year in Jerusalem.
[00:31:54] I think that was a sensitive and wise choice for this particular sed. Because with 300 plus people, we're not going to be able to have, first of all, we haven't built trust with one another to start a conversation about a topic that people have passionate feelings about. And there's just too many people to have the conversation with in a really sincere way about what does the statement mean to you?
[00:32:21] How do you hear it, right? And what can I learn from you? So, but in a more intimate setting, so our synagogue hosted a Seder with Impact Church, which is a predominantly black church in Richardson. We did leave that statement in and we had, there were only 50 people at the Seder. So we were able to, in small groups, talk about what does this mean and what's controversial about it and what's important about it, and how can we just listen to each other's different points of.
[00:32:57] George: Well, this is all so helpful and fascinating. Elana, thank you for all your work in the Dallas community and for The joy of seeing you show up in places sometimes. I've been there, sometimes I haven't. But you have been a great presence in interfaith life in Dallas. We know you're leaving you're going back to California where you were, you were reared, and we wish you all God's blessings in your transition and your new ministry there.
[00:33:33] Well,
[00:33:33] Elana: thank you so much and it was a real honor to participate in this podcast.
[00:33:38] George: So if I could ask you one more closing question that I'm going to ask each of the three. And that is if you were speaking to Christians and Muslims who are watching this and maybe even people of other faiths or no faith, what is it about the Jewish observ of Passover or Judaism generally that you would like to.
[00:34:05] Make sure people understand one thing that you would like to encourage them to think about in in their relationship to Jews.
[00:34:16] Elana: I think sometimes Jews, we adhere to God's commandments and sometimes people think we're concerned about rituals that aren't important or ossified in traditions that are ancient, but our commandments.
[00:34:36] Following these rituals lead us. That is our spiritual practice. It leads us into the spiritual. And so when I sit down at a Passover Seder with the same foods on my table that my grandmother's, grandmother had, and that God willing, my great grandchildren's, great-grandchildren will have, and we use it to tell a story that has a theme I think is important to humanity, which.
[00:35:01] LiberationLiberation and redemption and being an upstander and not allowing oppression it's, through the rituals, through the commandment of keeping the seder and eating matsa for the week that I can celebrate those core values.
[00:35:19] George: Lovely. Well, thank you so much for representing on this addition of good God and this conversation about redemption and renewal, and we pray that we will all find more renewal in this holy season.
[00:35:34] Amen. God bless you. Take care.
[00:35:38] Thank you for joining us for this episode in Good God redemption and renewal, especially focusing on Passover in Judaism and its significance more broadly, not only for Jews, but even for the world as. It's imagination of a messianic age in which peace finally prevails peace with justice for all.
[00:36:01] This is the goal and it is a universal vision that is shared in different ways, of course, across our traditions that, that gap between what is and what we believe. Should be is finally filled. And the dream of God for creation comes to pass at last. So we've talked about Judaism and Passover today we'll be talking about, about Good Friday and Easter in the Christian tradition next. And then the significance in Islam of Ramadan. And the practices of fasting and the breaking of the fast and the conclusion of it, the feasting that comes after that month of Ramadan.
[00:36:48] You can go to the faith Commons website that is faith commons.org, O R G and you can also find there not only former episodes lots of information where you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter, but there's also a religious calendar there. If you're curious about the holidays of different religious traditions and their significance, you can go and find each month of the year when those are taking place because they don't always fall on the same days of the year.
[00:37:25] They, follow the particular traditions within each religious community and the significance of them. That's faith commons.org. , we thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time.