Pesach
For the week of April 22, 2000 / 17 Nisan 5760
Torah: Shemot / Exodus 13:1-16 and
Bemidbar / Numbers 28:16-25
Haftarah: Ezekiel 36:37 - 37:14

Remember Not To Forget

Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast" (Shemot / Exodus 13:3).

The other day one of my daughters was reading out of her journal some events that happened to our family over a year and a half ago (it was actually one of the only periods of time when she kept a journal). What a moving experience it was for me to be reminded of the extraordinary happening of those days. How God led us and provided for us at that time! It was amazing! It was so encouraging to hear it all again. Even though I thought I remembered what had happened so well, hearing the details spelled out like that really struck my heart.

We need to commemorate the things that God has done for us. That is why we celebrate Passover every year. God commanded us to take the time to remember our deliverance from Egypt. But remembering is not just an acknowledgement of past events. It is the purposeful recalling of the details. We need to take the time to go over it all again. If we don’t, we forget.

Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we are remembering when we are not. It is easy to turn our commemorations into ends in themselves. How many holidays have gone by where we have celebrated without taking the time to acknowledge the very reason why? It is like singing a song about Matza Ball soup without acknowledging why it is we eat matza at Passover.

Some people don’t think that they have anything to remember. But that is because someone in their past stopped remembering. For so many life has become a task of daily existence. The past means nothing to them. We are a society that has forgotten. We have forgotten that we did not come into being by accident. We have forgotten that we are the creations of a loving Heavenly Father who desires our eternal good. We have forgotten that we have been placed on this Earth for a purpose and God longs to reveal to us what that is. Many of us have had ancestors that knew all this, but at some point they forgot.

We can take the time to remind ourselves of who God really is and all he has done for us. But it is something we have to take the time to do. So let’s remember not to forget this Passover.

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