Seder Night 2020

A friend called me the other day to discuss preparing to lead a Zoom Seder for her extended family. She was struggling. “How do we celebrate redemption when we know that it’s not going to come this Passover? We’re in the thick of things.  Things are getting harder.”

This was a really good question. How do we celebrate in the midst of so much darkness, uncertainty, and fear?

While this may be a new question for our generation, this is not a new question for the Jewish people. Even at times of grave danger, whether from threats of violence or disease, Passover has continued to be celebrated. Our celebration is an act of faith. By sitting at the Seder table and enacting our yearly ritual with song, story and symbolic foods, we practice having faith that redemption will come. There is a sign hanging in my living room, which I had originally printed for a racial justice protest several years ago, that reads, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” (Martin Luther King, Jr). We take first steps by doing what we can to slow the spread of the virus, by sharing our resources, by advocating for the newly “essential” workers who have no sick leave or health insurance, by caring for our family and friends, and yes, by continuing to celebrate even in dark times.

I plan to lead Seder tonight by Zoom for my family in many places around the United States, and we will make space for being real with how we’re feeling, including our grief and fear. Yet grief and fear are not the whole story, even though it sometimes seems that way. We connect with our wholeness by celebrating our blessings—loving relationships, flowers, song birds, creativity, food, and the cycles of the moon that remind us that even as so much is changing in our day to day lives, there is a greater whole that remains steady.

At Passover, we celebrate leaving Egypt, or mitzrayim. From an inner perspective, mitzrayim is a state of constriction. What I have been experiencing during this last 27 days of being in isolation with my family is that I often enter Mitzrayim, a sense of constriction, feeling afraid and sad and grumpy and desiring to pull inward. Yet I am also learning new awareness of how to leave Egypt. Blessed with beautiful weather and living in an area where I can keep my distance from others, I step outside, focus on the beauty and patterns of the flowers and new leaves, listen to the baby hawks nesting near my home, breathe in the fresh air. When I pay close attention to nature, I am restored to an expansive state where I am trusting and ready to be generous. Our Seder ritual supports us in emerging into an expansive state, which is what will be needing to together bring about redemption.