Go Down, Moses

If you read last year’s “Good Pesach!” post, you know how we feel about Passover: a truly bad-ass Jewish Holiday. The God of the Old Testament rains His wrath on those who enslaved His people, plagues fire from His fingertips, blood flows in the rivers, frogs pour from heaven, boils erupt on the skin of the oppressors, an avenging angel sweeps across the land in the dark of night, the very earth rises from the bottom of the sea to carry Israel to freedom and, finally, walls of water crash back together to drown the pursuing army.

Mortal Kombat: Exodus! How come nobody’s touched this since Cecil B. DeMille?

What makes Passover more than just an action-adventure flick, though, is that it’s all about liberation from slavery. As told, of course, it’s literal enslavement, but, in Judaism, every story, every word exists on many levels, and it is core to the practice to explore them all. At the Seder, we don’t just tell the story of Passover, we turn it on its side, regard its many aspects.

What are all the kinds of slavery in our world? The social shackles that chain us to the goals of others instead of our own; the petty slavery of our own fears; the daily indignities that beat us and keep us down?

And that theme is captured so beautifully in the old spiritual, Go Down, Moses:

When Israel was in Egypt’s Land,
Let my people go,
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.

Chorus
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s Land.
Tell ol’ Pharoah,
Let my people go.

There are hundreds of versions, but it moves me the most when it’s a slow build. It starts like a low moan, a lament: “Oppressed so hard they could not stand”. It makes me squint against the blinding sun, feel the sweat stinging my eyes, the smell of the clay, the dust of the cotton field.

But the refrain is like thunder rumbling in from the horizon, ozone smell on thick summer air. It’s the God of the Old Testament rolling His shoulders, cracking His neck. “Let my people go” isn’t just a plea to Moses, hoping he’ll beg Pharaoh to release the Israelites. It’s a low, clear warning, a challenge from a thunder-crackling, wrathful God: “No more in bondage shall they toil,” “if not I’ll smite your first born dead.”

The tempo builds and the story unfolds:

The Lord told Moses what to do,
Let my people go,
To lead the Hebrew children through,
Let my people go.

(Chorus)

O come along Moses, you’ll not get lost,
Let my people go,
Stretch out your rod and come across,
Let my people go.

(Chorus)

As Israel stood by the waterside,
Let my people go,
At God’s command it did divide,
Let my people go.

From hopeless oppression to determination to freedom. Epic.

Tonight is the first night of Passover, and we’re having Harley, Cathy and their new baby girl, Eden Peach over. We’ve been spending Passover with friends out in West Seattle for years now, in long, raucous and rambling seder, but Baby Z’s bedtime has conspired to keep us in Wallingford this year, so we’ll be muddling through our own, small celebration.

I wonder if Harley and Cathy sing?

That’s Louis Armstrong’s version. A bit more festive than my vision, but you get the idea.