Passover and Resurrection: Second Chances

     When I hear the word, "Resurrection," I immediately think of Christianity, which is appropriate as this-coming Sunday, April 24, is Easter.  It is also still Passover, which will continue through the evening of Tuesday, April 26.
     But Resurrection is originally a Jewish, not a Christian concept.  In its original form, Resurrection was not something reserved to Jesus on Easter Sunday.  Rather, in its Jewish context, it was and remains a very democratic idea, reserved not for just one person, but for every person. 
     In fact every morning, my young girls greet their day at the Albert Einstein Academy, our Delaware Vallley Jewish day school, by singing, Modeh Ani Lefanecha.  They, along with their fellow Jewish students, are each thanking God for reimplanting their souls in their bodies (sh'he-he-zar-ta bee nishmati) after a night of sleep.  Poetically speaking, sleep is akin to death, where God watches over our souls.  Waking up is considered miraculous -- the first of many miracles God will perform for us on any given day.  In Jewish theology, waking up every morning in Resurrection.
     Many traditional Jews also hold on to the idea that at the end of time, every human being who has passed away wil be revived with their soul reimplanted in their bodies, for a final judgement followed by life eternal.  This concept is called me-ha-yei ha-may-tim, Resurrection, and the words are preserved in both the Orthodox and Conservative Movement prayerbooks, in the thrice-repeated daily second benediction of the Amidah, our core prayer which replaces the thrice-given animal sacrifices of biblical times.  The Reform and Reconstuctionist Movements, finding the concept too supernatural, have replaced the words with me-hay-yei ha-kol -- Who resurrects everything.  The idea is that God, working in nature, takes the death-like state of winter, and replaces it with rebirth in spring, and that, too, is an expression of God's limitless powers, and unlike Resurrection of the dead, natural rebirth is emperical -- you can experience it now.
     What inerests me about Passover and Resurrection, is the idea of second chances.  Half way in the Jewish calendar after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Jews are given a chance to re-examine their lives at Passover.  We are invited to expel the hametz in our lives, that which rises, symbolic for ego and pride.  We can make course corrections, and become better people through our observance of Passover.  Likewise, every morning, when we experience Resurrection through waking up, we are also being given a second chance.  In truth, through teshuva, repententance, Judaism, at its heart, is a religion of second-chances -- or constant opportunities for self-improvement.
     So I think it is time for liberal Jews to join their traditional brethren and reclaim Resurrection as a fundamental Jewish concept.  Like our Christian neighbors, it is appropriate for us to view Resurrection as a fundamental hopeful message.  But unlike our Christian neighbors, to whom we wish a Happy Easter, we can view Resurrection as being open to not just one august person, but to each of us, great and small, not just on this coming Sunday, but every day that God chooses to reimplant our soul in our body, and give us another day of life.
     Hag sameach -- Happy Holiday