Chutzpah on Pesach

I taught the bar mitzvah kids in my Hebrew High class a new word tonight. Chutzpah! They had never heard of it. Still, it is an important word at Pesach time. In my weekly e-mail I wrote about the connection between Shabbat Ha-Gadol, this (Shabbos) and Chutzpah. But there’s more…

If you went outside tonight you saw a very bright moon a bit larger than half. That’s because tonight we began the 9th night of Nisan. When the moon is totally full it will be time to start the first seder. It was an act of Chutzpah on the part of the Jewish People to leave Egypt under a full moon. Most escapes would be planned for a new moon, under cover of darkness. Not ours.

It was also an act of Chutzpah to put the blood on the doorposts. (One kid in my class said she knew about this story from watching it on the “Rugrats” cartoon. That’s better, is suppose, than not knowing it at all!) Why did Gd need to know which houses were Jewish? Gd knows everything!? Answer: Gd needed the Jewish People to show some Chutzpah by declaring, “This is a Jewish home!” When Gd saw that they had enough Chutzpah, and enough faith, He knew it was time for them to move out. All under the light of a glorious full moon.