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The Lamb, The Stars, and the Illusion of Power

by Ram ben Ze’ev


The Lamb, The Stars, and the Illusion of Power
The Lamb, The Stars, and the Illusion of Power

The Torah in שמות (Shemot) commands something extraordinary on the eve of redemption: each household was to take a lamb on the tenth of Nissan, keep it for several days, and then slaughter it on the fourteenth, placing its blood upon the doorposts. This was not a quiet act. It was deliberate, visible, and defiant.


To understand this moment, we must understand the world in which it occurred. Egypt was not merely a political superpower; it was a civilisation steeped in idolatry and governed by a deep belief in astrology. The ram—Aries, the zodiac sign of Nissan—was revered. It symbolised power, beginnings, and celestial authority. The stars, they believed, dictated fate.


And then came the command of G-D.


The Jewish people were instructed to take that very symbol of Egyptian belief—the lamb—and tie it to their beds. For four days, it remained there, a silent but unmistakable declaration: this “god” is nothing. Then, on the fourteenth of Nissan, it was slaughtered openly.


This was not merely preparation for a meal. It was a rejection of the entire worldview of Egypt.


Pharaoh himself had looked to the stars and declared that bloodshed awaited Israel in the wilderness. According to the constellations, their fate was sealed. Yet what followed shattered that illusion completely. The firstborn of Egypt fell, while the homes marked by the blood of the lamb were passed over. The sea split. The decree of the stars dissolved.


The message was unmistakable: there is no power in the stars, no authority in the constellations, no independent force in creation. There is only G-D.


This is not simply history. It is the foundation of how a Jew understands the world. The belief that something else—fortune, nature, markets, politics, or even “timing”—holds independent power is a subtle echo of Egypt. Pesach uproots that illusion at its source.


On a personal note, this idea has always carried a deeper resonance for me. I was born on Shabbat HaGadol, the very Shabbat on which the lamb was first taken in Egypt, on the eighth of Nissan, 5721. My parents gave me the name Ram. Whether consciously or not, they named me after the very symbol that was taken, tied, and ultimately stripped of its supposed power.


That name is a reminder.


It is a reminder that what appears powerful in the world is often nothing more than perception. It is a reminder that what people fear, revere, or believe controls them may, in truth, hold no power at all. And it is a reminder that redemption begins the moment we are willing to confront falsehood openly and without hesitation.


Pesach is not only the story of leaving Egypt. It is the story of leaving behind every system of thought that places power anywhere other than in G-D.


Just as He overturned the decrees of the stars in those days, so too He does in our days. And just as the Jewish people once stood in Egypt and declared the emptiness of false power, so too are we called to do the same—in our lives, in our choices, and in our understanding of the world.



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