What could Albert Einstein, the big bang theory, and the actor Martin Landau have in common with Passover?
Each, it can be argued, has commented on the storied marvels of God?s nature and the history-spanning mosaic of human memories, discoveries and insights needed to convey God’s involvement in creation.
“Passover is … the central story of the formation of the Jewish people,” Conservative Rabbi Steven Schwartz of Pikesville’s Bethel Congregation said of the eight-day holy period beginning on the evening of April 2. “It?s the story of how the Jewish people entered into relationship with God; how they came from slavery to freedom; and how they received the law and came into covenant with God.”
Schwartz explained that the observance, which commemorates Biblical events from the sheltering ? or “passing over” ? of the Jewish people from the last of the ten, God-ordered plagues designed to force their release from 400 years of Egyptian slavery to the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, is primarily celebrated with a Seder dinner that prescribes Exodus-recalling rituals, foods and stories.
Central to this ceremonial meal is the remembrance of God’s covenant with the Jews and his intervention in history to make them free and “chosen.” It is one way the Jewish people were to preserve for humanity a true ? if incomplete ? glimpse of the creator’s nature and ordinances.
“The Passover story is the quintessential story of freedom ? a story that’s relived in many ways and in many lands over the centuries … leaving us with the message that God is involved in our lives on a daily basis,” said Orthodox Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of Pikesville’s Beth Tfiloh congregation.
So what about Einstein, Landau and the big bang theory?
Einstein purportedly said that “time exists so things don?t happen all at once.” With the big bang possibly being the one exception to this precept, the contrast speaks to why cosmology and evolution may be another way a time-transcending God gradually shares his nature with his creatures.
It’s a proposition echoed by Martin Landau, playing the patriarch Abraham in the film, “In The Beginning,” when he says, “How can we truly know him? Yet to know him is the task he has set for us … What I have done is just a beginning. It is for our son and his sons, and the generations to follow to complete the work.”
