Passover is one of my favorite holidays, and the seder is one of my favorite Jewish rituals. Each year, we have the opportunity to dramatically recreate our story- we ask big questions, eat crunchy dry Matzah, sing songs, and leave a door open for Elijah. In the Passover Haggadah, we read a phrase that has always inspired me to feel connected to my ancestors.
בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם
B’chol dor v’dor chayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatzah mimitzrayim.
In every generation, a person is obligated to see oneself as if he/she/they had left Egypt.
As I sit around the table with family and friends and we move through the Passover story, this phrase reminds us to try to relive the journey that our ancestors took from bondage to freedom. However, reclining at our tables over brisket and soup, we can feel grateful that this story, though important to retell, is over. It happened long ago, and in a place far away.
This year though, retelling the Passover story is not a distant exercise. We don’t have to use our imaginations to imagine the fear and pain our people felt, as we know that 133 of our people- siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, children, and friends, are currently held in captivity, a mitzrayim of their own.
When we talk about mitzrayim in the context of Passover, we are of course referring to Egypt, but the word mitzrayim is also connected to the Hebrew root letters that make up the word for narrowness, meitzar. Perhaps many of us feel that our hearts are in a narrow space right now, in the straits with the 133 hostages and their families. How can we celebrate a holiday all about freedom when our people call out to us from the narrow and when the calls of “bring them home now” and “let my people go” feel intertwined?
As challenging as it might be to find meaning in moments of our seder this year, we are obligated to look up from the narrow, and to carry the important tradition of retelling our story forward. The raucous singing of Dayeinu, the spilled drops of wine as we acknowledge the painfulness of the plagues, and the sweet promise- L’shana Haba’ahb’Yerushalayim, can serve as a pathway through the narrow. May we all be together next year in a world rebuilt, a world where we have come through mitzrayim to the light on the other side.
Shabbat Shalom, Chag Pesach Seameach, and Am Yisrael Chai.
