Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik
Congregacion Kol Shearith Israel
The Seder as an Invitation to Reaffirm Who We Are
The Torah tells us (Ex. 12:7 and 13) that God ordered the children of Israel to perform a sacrifice before leaving Egypt and to use that blood to mark their doors in order to avoid the last plague befalling on their homes:
“They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they are to eat it… And the blood on the houses in which you dwell shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
With this text, the reader might ask: If God knows everything, why does he need a sign on the doors to identify the houses of the children of Israel? Did he not know? However, if we read carefully, the same text gives us the answer: “And the blood on the houses in which you dwell shall be a sign for you.”