As we come into the end of Passover I pause to think how this started. Where did this story begin? As we learn in the Gemara:

It was taught in the mishna that the parent begins their answer with disgrace and concludes with glory. The Gemara asks: What is the meaning of the term: With disgrace? Rav said that one should begin by saying: At first our forefathers were idol worshippers, before concluding with words of glory. And Shmuel said: The disgrace with which one should begin his answer is: We were slaves. (Pesachim 116a)

According to Shmuel we start the holiday as slaves and we end in freedom. This makes sense if the end of Passover is a commemoration of the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea. Our disgrace was our being subjects of Pharoah living under their power and it send with the death Pharoah and his Chariot by God’s hand under the sea. According to Rav, we start off as idol worshippers with Avram’s father Terach. Where does this story end? Yes, we are no longer living under the hegemony of Egyptian religion, but where are we regarding our relationship with the glory of God. The splitting of the Red Sea is an extraordinary miracle, but we are still over 6 weeks away from the Revelation of God at Sinai.

But maybe there are still other ways of understanding this idea that our story “begins with disgrace and concludes with glory”. If our story begins as our being refugees who came to Egypt for food it does not end until we have returned to the Land of Israel from our exiles in 1948. In this case the end of the holiday of Passover is not the 7th day, but rather in just over two weeks on Yom Ha’atzmaut on the 5th of Iyar.

All of this is to say that there are many ways we could tell our story, but regardless where ever we start to tell the story has implications for where it ends. At its foundation, the story of Passover is the story of the changing of fortune from bad to good. It is the story of renewal and advent of spring itself. To quote Seneca, “Every new beginning comes from other beginning’s end.”

Have a wonderful and liberating end to your Passover holiday.