- [Announcer] This program is made possible by a grant from the Meyer Crystal Memorial Fund.

(gentle music) - [Edward] "And you shall explain to your child on that day it is because of what the Lord did for me when I, myself went forth from Egypt.

(gentle music) And therefore, when a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him.

You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

- We praise you God... - Each year in early spring, Jews throughout the world gather in their homes with their families to experience the Seder, the ceremonial feast of Passover.

(speaking in foreign language) For thousands of years, Jews have fought for life with an almost hereditary tenacity.

The Jewish people have survived and their history is a story of continuing deliverance.

Passover, more than any other holiday, draws the Jewish family together.

Children ensure that the thread of memory will be unbroken.

And at the Seder, a child asks the emblematic question that allows the Passover story to unfold.

(singing in foreign language) - Why is this night different from all other nights?

- We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

Had not the Holy One delivered our people, then we, our children, and our children's children would still be enslaved.

Therefore, it is our obligation to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

(gentle music) - The Egyptians embittered their lives with harsh labor of mortar and brick, and on all sorts of work in the fields.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased, so that the Egyptians came to despise and dread the Israelites.

(gentle music) Through the centuries, illustrations in the many editions of the Haggadah, the Passover prayerbook have depicted the well-known story.

(gentle music) Pharaoh ordered that every male child born to the Israelites be drowned in the Nile, but one baby boy was placed in a basket at the river's bank then found by Pharaoh's daughter and brought up as a prince of Egypt.

(gentle music) This was Moses, whose destiny was to lead his people, the Israelites, out of the land of bondage.

Pharaoh refused to free the Hebrews and God visited upon Egypt plague after plague.

(ominous music) Still, Pharaoh refused and brought upon Egypt the 10th and final plague: the death of the first born of every family in Egypt.

But the Israelites were not harmed, for God had commanded them to take a lamb, slaughter it, and mark the doorposts of their houses with the blood.

This is the origin of Passover.

For when the Lord goes through to smite the Egyptians, He will see the blood, and the Lord will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter and smite your home.

And Pharaoh freed the Israelites.

(singing in foreign language) At a Passover Seder in Israel today, Hasidism, a devout group that traces its origins to 18th century Poland, sing "Ma Nishtana," "Why is this night different?"

(singing in foreign language) The 3000 year old drama of the Israelites' deliverance relates to every Jew today.

It relates to all people.

Passover reminds that freedom is never guaranteed, never permanent, always precious.

Each year at the Seder table, we remember as symbols illustrate the story of deliverance.

Among others, there is maror, a bitter herb often horseradish reminding of the bitterness of slavery.

Haroset, a mixture of chopped nuts, apples and wine made thick to represent the building mortar used in Egypt.

And matzah, recalls the unleavened bread.

the Hebrews baked as they hurriedly left the land of oppression.

The Passover deliverance is more than history, something that happened to an ancient people to be ceremonially recalled.

It is real, ongoing, and lived by every Jew today.

The Haggadah reads, "in every generation each person should feel as though he himself had gone forth from Egypt."

When American Jews remember their Egypt, the countries they escaped, and the freedom they found in America, they feel the meaning of Passover.

(gentle music) - This is the bread of affliction, the poor bread which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

- [Group] Let all who are hungry come and eat.

Let all who are in want share the hope of Passover.

- As we celebrate here, we join with our people everywhere.

- In Israel today during the week before Passover, an immigrant from Yemen on Arabian peninsula, prepares to bake matzah for the Seder.

The wheat is cleaned of any impurity.

(speaking in foreign language) Matzah must contain no leaven, and the dough was constantly shaken so that it does not rise.

(speaking in foreign language) Finally, the matzah is baked, and haroset containing cloves dates and many other exotic ingredients is prepared on a traditional stove.

(singing in foreign language) During the holiday week, this dance celebrates the Passover deliverance.

To the Yemenites in Israel, deliverance is very recent and real.

(singing in foreign language) In 1949, just after the state of Israel was born, they were living in Yemen, persecuted for their faith.

Project Magic Carpet rescued them.

An airlift that flew thousands to a new home in Israel.

It was a modern day Exodus.

(singing in foreign language) (drums playing) (singing in foreign language) And on the night of the Seder, the Yemenites recreate the night of Exodus from Egypt.

(singing in foreign language) This family from the Soviet Union, like the Yemenites, escaped to Israel oppression.

(speaking foreign language) During their Seder, some of the family goes outside then knocks to seek re-entry.

After determining that they are Jews, the father admits them, an enactment of their ancestors' entry into the Promised Land.

(speaking in foreign language) Falashas, Jews from Ethiopia, at Passover recall the sufferings of exile and the exodus to freedom.

(speaking in foreign language) Before immigrating to Israel, the Falashas has had been totally cut off from other Jews.

With them is preserved the ancient biblical Passover ceremony.

(singing in foreign language) As evening arrives, the community begins the Passover feast.

It is held outside because the Falashas feel no house can be so clean as it should be for Passover.

(singing in foreign language) In their isolation, they had forgotten Hebrew.

(singing in foreign language) And the service is performed in an ancient ritual language: Ge'ez.

(singing in foreign language) In their prayers, they express a longing for Jerusalem.

Most Falashas remain in Ethiopia, where they are persecuted still and await the completion of their Exodus.

The Haggadah reads, "for redemption is not yet complete."

(singing in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) A family returns from synagogue to the Seder.

They are Bukharian Jews from Samarkand, in the Soviet Union.

They fled to Israel from communist persecution abandoning their possessions, often caught and jailed, walking thousands of miles to a new home in Israel... as did Moses and the Israelites.

(crowd speaking in foreign language) (gentle music) "I take you to Me for a people, I am the Lord, your God."

(gentle music) The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai saying that the children of Israel offer the Passover sacrifice at its set time in accordance with all its rules and rights.

Remember this day, when you came out of Egypt out of the house of bondage.

(gentle music) The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert.

They became a people who would bring into the world the belief in one God.

And with that, a new cycle of history forged in the events surrounding their historic deliverance into the Promised Land.

(gentle music) The Lord said to Joshua, "T oday, I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt."

In the steps of Jericho, the Israelites offered the Passover sacrifice on the 14th day of the month.

(gentle music) The Bible tells of Passover in the times before King Solomon's temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and thousands of Israelites sent into exile in Babylon.

Then as now, the Passover deliverance was more than memory.

The exiles were allowed to return and according to the book of Ezekiel the prophet, celebrated their freedom with a joyous Passover.

A second temple was built and became the center of the Passover observance for all Jews.

(gentle music) When Jesus was a boy, according to Luke 2, it was the practice of his parents to go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival.

And when he was 12, they made the pilgrimage as usual.

Passover has always figured dramatically in history.

The upper room, Jerusalem, site of Jesus' last supper, described in the gospels as the Passover Seder.

(bright music) The Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, all that remains today of the second temple.

(gentle music) This is the holiest site in Judaism.

(gentle music) When the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, Passover became a family event, celebrated in the home.

Today, Jews do not offer sacrifices at all.

Instead of shank bone recalls the first Passover night.

- And you shall say, this is the Passover sacrifice, offered to the Lord because he passed over the houses of Israel in Egypt, smiting the Egyptians and sparing us.

Preserving a bond with the observance of our ancestors, we observe the precept.

They shall eat the paschal lamb with matzah and maror together.

- [Group] Together they shall be the matzah of freedom, the maror of slavery.

- For in the time of freedom, there is knowledge of servitude and in the time of bondage, the hope of redemption.

(accordian music) - A special Passover dance performed on kibbutz, the communal farms of Israel.

(bright music continues) The Passover story is in many ways a capsule history of the Jewish people.

The holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur evoke the spiritual heart of the faith.

Purim and the Hanukkah celebrate single triumphs.

Passover alone is a mirror that reflects both the past and future of the Jewish experience.

A modern Haggadah reads, "Our history moves from slavery toward freedom.

Our narration begins with degradation and rises to dignity.

Our service opens with the rule of evil and advances toward the Kingdom of God.

(gentle music) There are thousands of Haggadahs, written in virtually every language.

Some hundreds of years old.

All tell the same story of the ancient Israelites and their deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

(gentle music) But in so doing, they describe the pattern of Jewish life since that time.

Sometimes Passover is celebrated in a land, and time of freedom.

But at other Seder tables, the deliverance that Passover promises seems distant, and often death is very near.

- God's promise of redemption in ancient days sustains us now.

- [Group] For more than one enemy has risen against us to destroy us.

- In every generation, in every age, some rise up to plot our annihilation, but a Divine Power sustains and delivers us.

- 1947, the survivors of Hitler's death camps waited in refugee camps.

They had no home.

From the refugee camps, many survivors sailed secretly and illegally for Israel, a conquered land.

The latest in a long series of rulers were the British.

At Passover, Seder services were held on the clandestine ships as they sailed toward the Promised Land.

They arrived, but were not allowed to enter.

The survivors will return to refugee camps to wait and wait.

(gentle music) Jews have been waiting for almost 2000 years since the time when Rome conquered Israel and destroyed the second temple.

A band of zealot Jews still fought the Romans from a captured fort, Masada.

The Roman forces gathered for a long siege.

(gentle music) In the Passover services that must have been held at Masada, the ancient deliverance would have seemed very distant.

The Romans were about to break through the fortifications.

Looking down on their encampments, the Jews knew that the next morning would bring defeat and slavery.

(whooshing) That night rather than live in slavery, the 960 Jews at Masada killed themselves.

(whooshing) Throughout the rest of Israel, many Jews continued to live in their conquered country.

Others left to become part of the diaspora: the communities of Jews in every part of the world.

There've been times when the Jew lived in freedom, allowed to contribute, share, prosper.

Then capriciously and regularly, edicts, and writs and laws have withdrawn Jewish rights.

Restricted professions the Jew could enter.

Limited areas where the Jew could live.

Reading their rulers' intentions from the letter of the law, mobs fulfilled its spirit by harassing, beating, killing and the Jew moved on.

In the diaspora, Passover would again prove to be often a pivot of history and a time of tragedy.

(chimes twinkling) One fateful Passover Seder intensified the Spanish inquisition.

Many Spanish Jews called Marranos had converted to Christianity, but still held Judaism in their hearts.

In 1478, a Spanish cavalier visited a house and by chance found in progress a Passover Seder.

Hearing of this, fanatical churchmen charged that such Seders were blasphemous.

Thousands upon thousands were tortured and burned at the stake.

(gentle music) In Eastern Europe and Russia, through the early years of this century Passover became totally absorbing both an escape from present pain and a celebration of the ancient deliverance.

At the Passover, everything was new, special and wonderful.

(gentle music) The art of Mark Chagall captures the forever lost spirit of that time in Jewish life.

(gentle music) How often has the Jew found himself stranger in the land he called home?

How many times has the deliverance that Passover promises failed to come?

Warsaw, Poland.

The Nazis evicted the Jews from their homes, walled them into a ghetto and began a systematic extermination.

From the diary of Chaim Kaplan 1941: "We are faced with a Passover of hunger and poverty without even the bread of affliction.

For eating and drinking, there is neither matzah nor wine.

For prayer, there are no synagogues.

Their doors are closed and darkness dwells in the dwelling places of Israel.

Every day the Nazis selected their quota of victims.

For every Jew in the ghetto, life became a horror of waiting.

Hunted down on the streets, taken from their homes daily, they disappeared.

Finally, Kaplan's time came.

He was captured, transported to a concentration camp, and along with millions of other Jews, died there.

The next Passover, the Jews remaining in the ghetto launched a desperate attack on the Nazis.

For three weeks, they fought against incredible odds.

Finally, there was nothing but silence.

The Holocaust.

The murder of millions of Jews has forever changed what it means to be a Jew.

But with all of history's persecutions, and exiles, and murder, the spirit of Judaism has not changed.

Judaism still embraces life, does not seek vengeance.

(singing in foreign language) While the plagues gained them freedom, there was sorrow for the pain of the Egyptians.

In the Seder, a drop of wine is spilled as each plague is described.

So Jews can reduce their joy by at least 10 drops.

(singing in foreign language) Every Jew alive today has come out of the darkest of Egypt.

The Bible reads, "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great compassion will I gather thee."

In spite of, perhaps because of the obstacles, Jews have measurably enriched commerce, science, the arts, in spite of perhaps because of the pain.

Humor is a signal expression of the Jewish people.

It would seem with all the trials that faith would fail in the Passover promise.

But the holiday holds a special power.

And the Passover deliverance is extraordinarily real today with the tragedies have come miracles.

(gentle music) The state of Israel today is a prayer answered, a home for the stranger.

(crowd singing and cheering) (crowd clapping hands) (soft upbeat music) (clapping hands) In America too, Jews have found an end to wandering and exile.

Here they are free to practice their faith and celebrate their deliverance with a joyous feast.

Family closeness is basic to Jewish life and the entire Seder centers around the special Passover meal.

After the meal, children search for the afikoman, a piece of matzo the leader has hidden.

The matzo is needed for the service and the child who finds the afikomen receives a present for its return.

- Here it is.

(gentle music) - The Golden Gate, Jerusalem.

To which it is written.

"The Messiah will come and bring that last an end to all Persecution."

His final deliverance would be heralded by Elijah the prophet, hence the Haggadah reads, "He has a place in every Seder."

(gentle music) - Elijah opens up for us the realm of mystery and wonder.

Let us now open the door for Elijah.

- [Edward] The door is opened and a cup of wine is set for the prophet.

(gentle music) - From beyond, Elijah's spirit enters in these walls and shares again with us, the wine of endless promise.

(gentle music) - [Edward] "I will bring you into the land, I the Lord."

(gentle music) - Peace.

- [Group] Peace for us, for everyone.

- For all people, this is our hope, next year may all be free.

(speaking in foreign language) (gentle music) - [Announcer] For a transcript of this programs, send $2 to PTV Publications, P.O.Box 701, Kent, Ohio 44240.

The preceding program was made possible by a grant from the Meyer Crystal Memorial Fund.

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