The Passover story has new relevance in the age of coronavirus

Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?

In a word: Coronavirus.

It's going to change the mood at the table. And it's going to change the number of people seated there — immediate family only, please — when the annual holiday begins at sundown April 8 and ends at sundown April 16.

Of course, everybody's holidays this spring — St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Ramadan, Memorial Day — are affected in this way. But there is something more about Passover — something that is likely to resonate, this year, with many families.

Passover is a remembrance of a plague.

The 10th plague of Egypt — the death of the firstborn — was a single night of terror, in which all the firstborn of Egypt "from the firstborn of Pharaoh on his throne, to the first born of the captive in the dungeon, and the first-born of cattle" (Exodus 12: 28 to 30) dropped dead. 

The children of Israel, meanwhile, had special protection: lamb's blood, painted on the lintels, was the sign that the people within were to be "passed over" (Exodus 12: 21 to 23).

"The parallel that death afflicts some and skips others is a very interesting one — that's what happens with coronavirus," said Shmuel "Shmuley" Boteach, the Orthodox rabbi from Englewood who has achieved fame as an author, TV personality and friend of the famous (the late Michael Jackson sought his counsel).

Ultimately, of course, the night of Passover is a triumph for Israel.

It was the last straw that forced Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves. The Passover seder commemorates the "meal of haste," with unleavened bread — matzo — that was eaten on the eve of the great liberation. 

Still, the image of death abroad in the night, striking some and sparing others, can't help but strike a chord these days.

One estimate — the grimmest — from the Council on Foreign Relations is that 50% of us in the U.S. could get COVID-19, and 1% of those could die (that, to emphasize, is a worst-case scenario).

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Exodus even featured a quarantine. "Nobody may go out through the door of his house till morning," the Hebrews are instructed (Exodus 12:22).

"My only reluctance in pointing out that biblical resonance is that it could lead some to believe coronavirus is a divine punishment," Boteach said. 

"There are so many people who are weaponizing religion, saying that it's a punishment for this thing, or that thing," he said. "This isn't some kind of divine plague."

But was it a plague?

Was the 10th plague, in fact, a plague? In our modern sense of a disease epidemic?

It has certainly been portrayed that way. In the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments," a green miasmic mist is shown descending from heaven and blanketing the land of Goshen. As it swirls around the feet of pedestrians, they clutch their hearts and keel over. 

"If it is not forbidden to look upon the breath of pestilence, then see, for it is here," announces Joshua, played by John Derek.

The Bible's telling is much less cinematic. "By midnight the Lord had struck down every first-born in Egypt" (Exodus 12:29) is as much detail as we get. 

In the original Hebrew, Exodus uses words like "mageifa" — "epidemic" — to describe the event, Boteach said. But Rabbi Dina Shargel, of the conservative Fair Lawn Jewish Center/Congregation B’nai Israel, would be wary of drawing this explicit parallel.

"I don’t think it’s a matter of pestilence," Shargel said. That word might be more appropriate for plagues No. 5 (diseased livestock) and No. 6 (boils).

The real significance of Passover, in the spring of COVID-19, lies elsewhere, she believes.

"I think of of Passover as the festival of freedom, and right now we don't feel so free," she said. "We have restrictions imposed on us. How are we going to celebrate Passover this year? Most of us — thank God — have been blessed with a life of freedom here in America. This is a new reality."

We've seen worse

Passover also reminds us, she says, that we've gotten through worse: The Babylonian exile, the Holocaust. She is reminded of an old saying, later the basis of a Israeli pop song: "Avarnu et par'o, na'avor gam et zeh" — "We got through Pharaoh, we'll get through this, too."

"The message of Judaism I believe to be fundamentally optimistic," Shargel said. "We are always looking forward to the future with hope."

Others may take a kind of comfort in the Exodus story: a message that the Lord will protect his people.

"One of the themes of the Passover seder — by no means the only one — is that the pestilence passed over, from house to house," Boteach said. "That God protected their families, that God didn't afflict them. We need hope at this point."

Only we must be careful, Boteach warns, not to twist the COVID-19 pandemic into some sort of celestial sorting — in which the good survive and the bad are struck down.

That, he said, is absolutely not what the coronavirus is about. Everyone is at risk. So everyone needs to be kind. As we hope, in the end, God will be.

"We need to see God as loving, not vengeful," he said.

Jim Beckerman is an entertainment and culture reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to his insightful reports about how you spend your leisure time, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: beckerman@northjersey.com Twitter: @jimbeckerman1