Aryeh's Israel Outlook

Passover is the Jewish people’s real independence day The Forward - April 10, 2020 By  Aryeh Green Aryeh Greene The author walks the trail. Standing on a mountaintop three days north of Eilat, I turned around for the first time. I looked back along the route I’d hiked, with its brown and gold hills and valleys, the shimmer of the Gulf of Eilat and the Red Sea in the distance. I was amazed at how far I’d come — and surprised that it all looked new to me. I’d climbed three different mountains, trudged some 35 miles, ascended and descended thousands of feet along the Israel National Trail, yet I couldn’t recognize any of it from my vantage point at the peak of Maale Amram, just south of Timna. In life, as in hiking, sometimes you have to stop, look back, appreciate how far you’ve come, and get a new perspective on where you have been. With most of us sheltering at home these days, it is a good time for this sort of reflection. For me, it has helped to revisit my

So... I had a bit of an insight, and I recorded it for the family  (as we're of course not holding Seder together) ; happy to share here as well. Listen in a quiet moment between now and Seder night – its only 3 minutes long. I’m going to give it over at our intimate Sed er with my wife and two of her daughters.  I haven’t seen or heard the idea anywhere else, so I think it’s pretty original, though I won’t be surprised if somebody else has come out with it recently.  Here's the audio version; b elow is a text version for those who prefer to read. We read in parshat Bo (Shmot/Exodus 12:3 - Heb/Eng here ) "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel...they shall take for themselves - each man - a lamb or kid for each father's house... for the household." And then in verses 6-7: "...the entire congregation of the assembly of Israel shall slaughter it in the afternoon... take some of the blood and place it on the ... doorposts and on the lintel of the hou