Passover 5785: Steadfastness and Empathy

Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday. It combines so many things I love: history, tradition, music, asking questions and, of course, a delicious feast. All of these elements play out each year to create core, Jewish memory-making experiences as we gather to tell our ancient story of freedom and seek to place ourselves among the drama, intrigue, and miracles of the Exodus. 

Another aspect of Passover that I love is the seder itself. I love its modern additions: including the custom of placing an orange to the seder plate to mark the indelible role of female leadership in modern Judaism, and the flexibility of the haggadah to feature superheroes, like Harry Potter or Taylor Swift, to maximize relevance in every generation. I also find that the further you dive below the surface of the form of the traditional Passover seder, the more you begin to discover the genius behind this rabbinical innovation. 

When closely considered, the enduring power of the seder is revealed in its demand that we hold concepts, ideas, and approaches in tension with each other. The seder juxtaposes freedom and slavery. We are meant to recline and imbibe as royalty, yet we eat bitter foods to remind us of our painful past. We sing songs of thanks in the form of dayeinu and of praise during hallel, yet we pour out drops of wine as we recall the plagues and suffering of the Egyptians. 

There is a long list of internal tensions. Yet there is one that, in light of the last year and a half of the Jewish story, feels like it is the most timely, the most resonant in this moment. That tension exists between the values of vigilance and steadfastness and the value of empathy. Said differently, the Passover seder both imbues us with an urgency of the perineal threats against the Jewish people and calls us to be diligent in our awareness of them while simultaneously commanding us to radically engage with our responsibility to usher in the freedom of all people from tyranny. 

These values are both front and center throughout the seder. We learn vigilance when we sing the liturgical poem Vehi Sheamdah, which reminds us that in each generation there are those who rise up to destroy the Jewish people (a beautiful version of the song and its lyrics can be found here). This value is also similarly reflected in the Torah narrative of the Exodus. As the Israelites waited with baited breath on the first Passover as the final, most brutal plague was about to descend upon Egypt, that evening is referred to it as leil shimurim - a night of vigil. We are meant to be on watch, ever vigilant knowing that the next chapter of the story is far from assured. 

Empathy is similarly present. The Haggadah calls for ‘all who are hungry’ to come eat, without differentiation between who those hungry may be. As we recall the Ten Plagues we remove a drop from our wine, the symbol of our joy and celebration, as a reminder that even as we celebrate our freedom, we are forbidden from rejoicing at the suffering of others. 

Perhaps the juxtaposition in which this tension is clearest is found in the texts that accompany opening the door for Elijah during the seder. The traditional text, shefoch chamatcha - pour out Your wrath - expresses a clear longing for divine retribution against those nations that have persecuted the Jewish people. It expresses most explicitly the desire to see that suffering avenged. Written in response, shefoch ahavatcha - pour out your love, an innovation first found in 16th century haggadot, asks for God to shower divine favor on the nations and individuals who have shown acceptance and kinship towards the Jewish people throughout the generations. 

Each text reflects a natural impulse to periods of uncertainty and fear. Both are deeply human. They are also, particularly in the new reality we as a people have faced over the past year and a half, deeply Jewish. I can say for myself, and I imagine many of you can empathize, that bouncing between these two feelings has been a weekly, sometimes daily or even hourly experience. 

Though, at other times, I have found myself deeply mired in one or the other. There are days where the desire for safety for me and my loved ones in the Jewish community completely obscures my ability to find empathy for those who carry ill-will or ill-intention towards us. On others, that same empathy has obfuscated my commitment to ensuring that safety I so desperately wish for us. 

I am so looking forward to Passover this year because the seder is our tradition’s brilliant innovation that forces us to break out of binary thinking. It calls us to hold both impulses as true, urgent, and necessary as part of being a Jew. Its message this year is that both an unyielding commitment to our people’s safety and future as well as an abiding conviction to ensuring the redemption of others must be our abiding watchword. 

This is no small task. In Ecclesiastes we are even taught that there is a time for everything under heaven, that each emotion has its place and can be experienced separately. The modern Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, challenging Ecclesiastes, posited that perhaps for God, who lives above and beyond time, there is a season for all things. But for us humans, for whom time is so finite and limited, we are tasked to carry human experience at once: “A man has to hate and love all at once/ With the same eyes to cry and to laugh/ With the same hands to throw stones/ And to gather them/ Make love in war and war in love.”

Passover reminds us of the burden and the blessing of being human, of having the capability and, therefore, the responsibility, to carry all of our human experience simultaneously. Most powerfully, as you look around the Passover table into the eyes of your loved ones who have gathered to practice this ancient ritual, let them be a reminder that none of us are meant to undertake this monumental task alone. 

Wishing you and yours a Chag Pesach Sameach. Next year in Jerusalem, in a world that is better than the one we inhabit today.