Eternal Song of Freedom: Passover 2016

Eternal Song of Freedom: Passover 2016

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Passover is probably the most work-intensive holiday in our Jewish calendar.  And no wonder!  It is, after all, supposed to remind us of slavery and what that was like!

Except that this time, all the work is done not for someone else, but rather for us.

And the bitter tears we shed—have mostly turned to sweetness, song and laughter.

Yet, despite the fact that our days of slavery are long gone, we are not free to forget our past.   As the Haggadah says, “In each and every generation, it is incumbent on us to see ourselves as though we ourselves were redeemed from Egypt.”  I am sure that for Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, Latin America, Arab countries, and of course from the Holocaust, who have begun new lives in Israel, the United States or elsewhere, their memories are still painfully alive within them.

But even if our own past is nothing like that, even if we come from a comfortable and safe place, it is still our duty to remember that there are millions of people who are crying out today in pain and suffering.  Slavery takes many forms.  Ignorance, disease, poverty, terror and constant war are all that millions around the world see and know every day.  Prejudice, bigotry and persecution bring untold pain to millions more.  Drug abuse and homelessness result in hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still seeking a Promised Land—and the way to get there.

Without a doubt, Pesach is a joyful holiday.  Families and friends gather for festive meals, for singing, for laughter, for eating (and more eating), for a celebration of family traditions.  Yes, there’s a lot of work and preparation involved.  On top of that, there’s only matzah to eat for seven days (eight for the more observant).  But it’s a small price to pay, a symbolic price, for our freedom today.  Freedom always carries a price tag. 

One of the Seder traditions is that as we recount the Ten Plagues, we dip a finger in our cups of wine and take out one drop for each plague. The Rabbinic midrash we tell to explain this custom is that, as the waters of the Red Sea were closing in on Pharaoh’s chariots, the angels in heaven were rejoicing.  “My children are drowning and you are singing!” God reproved them.

So must we pause in our own joyful retelling of our escape to freedom, to remind ourselves that there are yet many who are still held in captivity and misery.  They may be friends or relatives.  They may be children or adults.  They may even be the children of our enemies.  It doesn’t matter. We must never forget or overlook their pain; we must keep looking for a way to ease the anguish they are feeling.

That, after all, is the meaning behind the breaking of the middle matzah during the Seder.  It represents the broken world we live in.  The smaller part is placed back on the plate, despite its brokenness; the larger part is hidden—for our children to find, and their children after them.  What we cannot fix hopefully will find its repair at some point in the future.

Yes, there is much to prepare before we sit at our Seder tables.  There are many “pieces” to our celebration.  Some may be missing, and their absence tugs at our hearts.  Yet, as the Seder begins to unfold, as we help the youngest child sing Mah Nishtanah, as we dip the bitter herbs into the sweet charoset, and even with our cup of blessings diminished by ten drops, still somehow all the pieces join into one unbroken whole.  In the glow of the holiday candles, past and future, what is and what may yet be, unite and become one eternal song of freedom. 

May this Passover give us all hope and strength to believe that the day will surely come when there will be no more crying, no more anguish or misery anywhere around the world.  May Elijah the Prophet come soon and announce the day when maror—the bitterness of life—is replaced by sweetness and joy for all humanity and for all our fellow creatures on this beautiful Earth.  

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman