Rabbi Mira B. Wasserman: Moving
This year my preparations for Passover are different than in past years. I'm scouring my home and office not just for crumbs, but inpreparation for a move. As I try to get organized, I'm sifting through a decade of accumulated memories. In my files, I have programs from baby namings for kids who have now reached double digits. I have notes written by dear friends and congregants who have since died. I have learned so much, and lived so much in this community!
Anticipating a new life some place else is exciting, daunting, happy, and sad. This is what life feels like when I pay attention -- bitter and sweet, at the same time. No ritual captures the contradictions of our lives better than the Passover Seder, with its invitation to taste the
bitter herbs and sweet haroset in a single bite. The Seder is full of striking juxtapositions of happy and sad: springtime greens dipped in salt water; our brimming cups of wine diminished as we recite the plagues. At the Seder, we sing our thanks for freedom, relishing the joy and comfort that freedom brings, even as we eat "the bread of affliction" and declare, "This year we are slaves; next year may we be free."
At Seder time, are we meant to be happy or sad? Are we meant to give thanks for redemption, or focus on the persistence of oppression, scarcity, violence, and slavery in the world? At the Seder table, as in so much of life, grief and joy, pain and hope, anguish and gratitude are mixed and mingled.
Today when we sit around the Seder table, we recline on pillows, settling in. The first Passover was very different: our ancestors ate their ritual meal standing, with their packs on their back, and their walking sticks in hand. Some Jews re-enact this first Passover by rising from the table and walking around it, holding matzahs on their backs. Here is another contradiction that the Seder captures: life moves us forward, even when we are sitting still. And, Jewish ritual offers us shelter and connection, even when we are on the move.
May the joy of our shared celebration overwhelm our individual sadnesses this Passover. May our observances move us to new insight
and action, to new hope and connection
Hag Sameach!!
