The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Rabbi Pinchas Taylor Explains History, Power of Passover

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Passover begins with a Seder meal to “remember what our ancestors went through,” Rabbi Pinchas Taylor says. “You do physical actions and experience physical tastes and motions and whatnot to … not only tell over the story, but reexperience the story as it took place,” says Taylor, the author of “Pillars of Faith” and “A Jewish Guide to the Mysterious.” Passover begins at sunset on Wednesday, and in addition to celebrating the Jews’ deliverance from the Egyptians, Taylor says Passover is also a time to reflect on how we can each leave our “own inner-Egypt.” “What are the things that are holding me back?” Taylor encourages all to ask during the week of Passover. “What is constraining me? What is limiting me in my life? And how can I make the proper steps to liberate myself? Because when a person takes that first step, God helps them along the way as well. God will split seas for those that walk courageously forward.” Taylor joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss how the Jewish community continues to celebrate Passover and the symbolism behind the traditions. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Sickle Podcast for Wednesday, April 5th. I'm Virginia Allen. Tonight at sundown, Passover begins. The holiday lasts about a week and commemorates the Jews' freedom after more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Generations later, the Jewish community continues to celebrate Passover and remember God's saving hand upon them. But whether you are Jewish or not, Rabbi Pinjas Taylor says anyone can take time during Passover to seek freedom from the things that we allow ourselves to be enslaved to. On today's show, Rabbi Taylor and I discuss how the Jewish community continues to celebrate

Passover all of these generations later and the symbolism behind the traditions. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. The reading clerk will now call the role. Beds. It's money and power that control this town. Bishop of North Carolina. All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats do. Crane.

It's like this cul-de-sacca greed and corruption and it just keeps going around and around. Gates. I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists. Luna. I had a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff. stuff. Perry. One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me. Roy. So maybe the American people need to know the truth. And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town. People go, what the hell are you doing? Why would you do that? The fact is, what we want?

Because we were telling the truth. What you've just listened to is our brand new, exclusive documentary about the 20 House Republicans who fought against the Washington establishment. We sat down with representatives Chip Roy of Texas, Eli Crane and Annie Biggs of Arizona, Anna Paulina Luna, and Matt Gates of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and Dan Bishop of North Carolina about the speaker race and why they chose to take a stand. The documentary is now available on the Daily Signals YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram pages. We are joined today by author, speaker, and faith leader, Rabbi Pinjas Taylor. Rabbi, thank you so much for your time today.

We really appreciate you being with us. Thanks so much for having me. Well, sunset on April 5th is the beginning of Passover. Let's talk a little bit about Passover and the history and the tradition of Passover for a few minutes. Explain if you would, what are Jews celebrating when they celebrate Passover? So it's interesting. We're kind of celebrating two things at once. one of the

primary thing that we're celebrating is the exodus from Egypt. We were enslaved in Egypt for many generations and God had mercy on us and took our ancestors out from Egypt, afflicted the Egyptians with ten plagues,

escorted us across the sea, and brought us to liberation. And that's really what we're celebrating that night. What we're also experiencing or we're also celebrating is sort of the recreation and the re-experience of our own inner slaveries, our own personal slaveries today. And that takes place on many levels, whether they're physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual slaveries. We are combating those and directly

hitting them and knowing with confidence that God is going to liberate us from them when we put the effort. That's really beautiful. And how long does the celebration last and what is entailed? How does the Jewish community go about celebrating Passover in a practical sense? Sure. So the holiday in full lasts eight days outside of the land of Israel. In the land of Israel, it lasts for seven days. We always add an extra day for holidays that are outside of the land.

But the main observances of Passover actually begin before Passover. So one of the things that many people might know is that we don't have any leavened product. We call it chomits in Hebrew. Any leavened products, we don't eat them or own them or have them. And so what we actually do before Passover is we spend sometimes weeks before sort of scouring the house of any leavened products. So all the churios that my kids are dropping in every single room have to be found and cleaned out. And we try to rid it as much as possible out of all of our possession, any trace of leavened products. And so when we come into Passover, for that seven or eight day period, we are completely leaven free.

And the way in which, once we enter into the holiday, the main commemoration of Passover, in a practical sense of the Exodus, are the Seder nights. the first night and the second night outside of the land of Israel, we have a Seder. And the Seder is really a pathway towards freedom. It sort of reenacts the entire experience from slavery to liberation. And we also have the anticipation of the final liberation, the final redemption that will come when Meshia comes during the times of the messianic redemption. And I'm really curious by something that you said. you said that an extra day is added to not only Passover,

but to any Jewish celebration when it's held outside the land of Israel. Why is that? Back in biblical times, the way in which the month was established, there was this whole reporting system of when they would see the moon. It would be based on when the new moon period begins and witnesses would come, and they would testify that the new moon has arrived. and it would be this whole process of, okay, that would be the day of declaring the first of the month. In the Hebrew calendar, a new month is determined by a new moon.

It's not sort of, you know, in the English calendar and secular calendar, it's sort of arbitrary. You know, July 31st and November 2nd, and it's kind of arbitrary names and numbers. Each Hebrew month is determined by when the new moon comes. and so being that in the olden days, it could take quite a while. We didn't have internet to upload right away and phone calls. So sometimes it would take a bit of time for the news to travel when the new month actually was declared

for those places that were outside of the land of Israel or outside of the immediate jurisdiction. The news could take a while. And so people would kind of say, well, either the new month was declared today or yesterday. And so they would keep an extra day outside of the land in order to,

based on the doubt of when the new month was actually declared. Now we kind of maintain that because once you add holiness to your life, you don't just dismiss it. You don't say, ah, well, we don't need any more. We have internet or even if we could be perfectly in sync with when the day began, it would be irrelevant.

because once we've accepted as a world sort of Jewish community that this is how we do things and we've integrated an extra layer of holiness, we're not so quick to just get rid of that. Yeah, that's so fascinating. And what is the significance of removing all of the leaven down to that last chiro from your home? So it's interesting because the difference between leavened bread and unleavened bread, what we would call chameats and matzah, Hamets is leavened products and matza is the

sort of unleavened bread The only difference between the two Is not ingredients But in one doesn't have time to rise And so the really the difference in ingredients you could say Is air And what the air represents Or the deflated

The not the the the Mazzo which doesn't have air inside of it, which is not able to rise. It symbolizes its deflation of ego. And because one of the things that prevents us a lot of a time from experiencing inner freedom is the ego. The ego is something that traps us. The ego is something that enslaves us. And so if part of Passover is trying to sort of leave your personal Egypt, that's the thing that's a thing that's starts with the scouring of your ego and the eradication of your ego. And embedded in those days of Passover is that energy that if you can sort of nullify your ego, your selfish drives, your,

the air within you, then you will experience, you'll have a greater susceptibility to experience freedom. It's a physical reminder of what you hope is happening within you spiritually. That's, that's really beautiful. What beautiful symbolism is. and how important. During those Seder meals, what are some of the passages that are read from the word? So we actually read this book called the Haggada, and Haggada means to tell over. And the commandment of that day from the book of Exodus is to tell to your children and to your children's children, the story of what happened. And it's important for us to always understand where we came from and understand how we got to where we are, because only from framing knowledge of where you came

from, knowing what your life and what your worldview is based upon, can you have a healthy experience of that nowadays? If you're completely disconnected with your past, you don't learn from your mistakes. You don't see the whole process. You don't see God's hand in the story. And so in the Haggada, there are different passages from the Book of Exodus in particular. We really kind of track the whole story of how our ancestors originally came into Egypt to begin with, with Jacob's children. And they migrated there and they lived under Joseph. And then they were enslaved to Pharaoh and we go through the whole process, little passages here and there from the Book of Exodus, recounting the story of our liberation, and then following the telling over

of the story, we actually experience some of the matters that went on. So, for example, because the Egyptians embittered our lives, part of the Seder is to eat. bitter herbs. Because of the unleavened bread that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt, we also eat unleavened bread. We also eat matzah at the satyr. And that's actually specifically when there's a command in the book of Exodus to eat matzah is that night of Passover. So we do things and we eat things to re-experience to a degree as a reminder what our ancestors went through. And so it's only just telling over the story, it's kind of reliving the story in a real way. You had mentioned earlier when we were talking about getting rid of the chummets in your house,

getting rid of the leavened products in your house, that it's sort of like a physical manifestation of what you hope is happening on a spiritual level. And that's sort of what the Seder nights are also about. You do physical actions and experience physical tastes and motions and whatnot to re-experience. not only tell the over the story, but re-experience the story as it took place. I was really honored and privileged last year to be invited by a Jewish family to celebrate Seder with them, and this was my first time going to a Jewish Seder. And one of the things that struck me most and that I found so beautiful was the value

that was placed on question asking, specifically among the children. There were specific times and really throughout the meal where it was very encouraged to ask questions and kids were asking questions freely and there was so much time given to that. Why is question asking not only a great value during Passover and the Seder meal, but why does Jewish culture put so much value on asking questions? It's interesting that you ask that because usually when people think, of religious faith, they think of the opposite, they think of, oh, you can't ask any questions. Questioning is bad.

And Judaism actually looks at things in the exact opposite way, that questions are a good thing. Dialogue is a good thing. And the idea of asking questions is because, first of all, that's how you understand and treasure what you have, because you can't get to the meat of a matter without asking questions. You can't understand something or someone. in this world without asking questions. If I want to get to know you or you want to get to know someone, whatever it is, what do you do? You ask them questions about themselves, and the deeper the questions, not in a prying way, but the deeper the questions, the more you get to know the person.

And so the idea of asking questions about why things happened the way that they did, about the exodus story, about God, and about God's hand in our lives, is something extremely encouraged and vital towards the preservation and the proliferation of Jewish knowledge, of Torah knowledge. I love that. It's really beautiful. Now, if myself or someone who's listening who is not Jewish, but values and loves Jewish culture, if they wanted to hold a Seder meal in their home and celebrate Passover, is that something that they could do? And how would they learn how to do that? Sure. I mean, there are plenty of resources online. I wouldn't necessarily encourage anyone who's not of the Jewish faith

to do a full sort of Seder experience in the same way that the Jewish community does. Because, again, everyone has their customs and their understanding of things and doing it the way that the Jews do it. There's no real reason to sort of reenact it in the same specific way. At the same time, I think it would be worthwhile if a person was interested in Jewish culture, Jewish knowledge, and wanted to sort of implement that in their lives. I don't see anything wrong with eating matzah to sort of understand the experience and reading the book of Exodus to sort of reimagine what was taking.

place in God's hand in creation, and also thinking in our own lives. How can I be a more connected and more liberated person? Liberated in the sense that I'm not enslaved to my own passions, but I'm instead a servant of God. I think it would be more fitting for someone outside of the Jewish community. If they wanted to experience really the message of Passover would be to think and to think to themselves, how can I leave my own inner Egypt, if you will? What are the things that are holding me back? What is constraining me?

What is limiting me in my life? And how can I sort of make the proper steps to liberate myself? Because when a person takes that first step, God helps them along the way as well. God will split seas for those that walk courageously forward. Rabbi Taylor, with the last few minutes we have here, I would love to ask you a little bit about a book that you have coming out soon. And just to share, you've written several books in the past and you're currently working on a new book. And I would love for you to just take a few minutes to share a little bit about that book and what the mission of it is.

Sure. So my prior books seek to clarify matters of faith. in different areas that are widely misunderstood, both in the secular world and even in the religious world. So my first book, Pillars of Faith, seeks to really delve into why we believe things that we believe, why it makes reasonable sense to believe in God, to believe that the Torah was given at Sinai,

to believe in the coming of Mshia, the Messianic redemption, and so forth, the sort of primary fundamental ideas of our faith. The second book that I wrote, a Jewish guide to the mysterious, is sort of clarifying a Jewish understanding, a spiritual understanding of a lot of the topics in the realm of the paranormal. So dreams, astrology, angels, demons,

that sort of, those sorts of topics from a traditional religious or traditional Jewish perspective. This upcoming book, God willing, is going to sort of trace the faith roots of the American founding. I love America, and I love what America stands for and pray for this country every single day. And one thing that unfortunately is getting lost

as the generations continue is the idea, it is the recognition that the American experiment was founded, was premised, was built on the idea of God, and built on the idea of faith, particularly with influence of the Hebrew Bible, which is a part that we all sort of share, what some people sometimes call the Judeo-Christian values, the idea that the Hebrew Bible, what it represents, the themes that are embedded in it, and the themes that are ultimately then embedded in our country. So it kind of goes through that throughout the course of what led up to the American founding, and I hope to also

include certain ideas as to how one from a traditional sort of biblical model with a modern lens might look at some of the issues that face our country nowadays. Rabbi Taylor, if anyone listening wants to either buy your books or follow your work, how can they do that? Sure. So as far as buying the books, they're all available at Amazon. You can just Google my name. P-I-N-C-H-A-S, Taylor, T-A-Y-L-L-O.

I'd be more than happy. And you can certainly visit my website, pincas taylor.com, which is, again, P-I-N-C-H-A-S-T-A-Y-L-R. Excellent. Rabbi, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. And we hope that you have a wonderful and very blessed Passover. Thanks so much. It was really a pleasure.

And that's going to do it for today's episode. For all who are listening in our Jewish community, we hope that you have a very blessed Passover. And for all of our Christian community listening, we hope that you have a very blessed passion week or holy week that it's full of the presence of the Lord. But thank you for joining us today for the DailySitil podcast. And if you haven't had the chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. We'll go ahead and note today on the show that Friday, for Good Friday, and we are not going to have any podcast. There won't be a morning show and there won't be top news in observance of

Good Friday. But we will be right here back with you tomorrow. And of course, we'll see you at 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. please visit daily signal.com.