Yes. This one was different than all other ones.
Thoughts about Passover 5780 / 2020
I grew up in a home that was somewhat observantly Jewish, at least by southern, Conservative (Jewish, not political) standards. We didn’t switch out our dishes, and we didn’t search for chametz with a feather and a candle. But our Passover observances included Seder dinners, surrounded by my friends and their parents that felt sooo looonng, hard on us as kids, and peppered with “when will we eat??” (and the subsequent parental shushing and promises of “soon”).
My biggest memory? I REALLY DON’T LIKE THIS HOLIDAY.
I didn’t like it, because Passover made me different. When you’re a little southern Jewish kid…nothing says “different” like being sent to school with matzah in your lunchbox. (Spoiler: I was the only kid in my class with matzah in my lunchbox.) My challenge back then was that I didn’t have the words or the knowledge to explain WHY this was a thing. It just was, it’s “what we did” because we were Jewish and because it was Passover. And it made me feel yucky. And I didn’t like it.
This translated into a young adult ambivalence about Passover. Appreciative of history, annoyed about the rules. Obliged by tradition, irritated that I felt obligated. And this was pretty much my story until my mid-20’s. I finished college, decided to be a smarter, more informed Jew and I started attempting to experience Passover like a grown up person is “supposed to.” The food restriction part was (still is) hard for me. But the liturgy and the symbolism/meaning behind the holiday started to paint itself in a more palatable light. I started thinking more about life cycles; I started appreciating freedom, and the concepts of struggle and perseverance. But one thing never got prettier for me:
The ideas of slavery and redemption so prevalent in the Passover story. The Passover liturgy tells us that one of the primary purposes of the observance is that every individual is supposed to feel like they actually had been enslaved in Egypt and therefore redeemed from slavery.
If you are a nice, Conservative (Jewish, not political) southern Jew of my age…
…there’s no way you can avoid what I now refer to in my head as the Egypt Stick.
The Egypt Stick is prevalent in a significant amount of our liturgy, and not just on Passover. It’s in our daily prayers and our other holy-day observances year-round. The idea that “you were once a slave” is inescapable. It beats a definitive drum. You were a slave…you were a slave…you were a slave. The beat gets so loud for me sometimes that I can’t pay attention to anything else. It makes prayer hard for me. And it made it difficult for me to hear any other part of what I now realize Passover was trying to teach me.
It is not lost on me that at this very time last year, Lisa (my now-dead wife, my PERSON) and I went to the hospital for the first time.
It is not lost on me that at this very time last year, we started down the Diagnosis Road.
It is not lost on me that last year’s first Seder was on Good Friday, the day we got her diagnosis.
It is not lost on me that this time last year…was the beginning of what would be her end.
One small, enormously huge year. And so this year, I had different Passover eyes.
This holiday, this festival, this Feast of Freedom has happened for thousands of years — across continents and political climates, in darkened cellars and in the brightest, sunniest light, on college campuses, in death camps, and on the internet and…
… this year it happened during a legit viral plague.
So this year, I found myself compelled to dig deeper into the liturgy. To go beyond the Egypt Stick. To feel and to learn and to dig for connection because I couldn’t be near my mom, and because my dad is dead, and because Lisa is dead, and because this past year has been…a journey. A personal exodus. A massive departure from what used to be Life.
I took it back to my Conservative (Jewish, not political) southern Jewish upbringing and I got out the hagaddah that my at-the-time Rabbi gave me as my bat mitzvah present. One of the key parts of the hagaddah is what one of the sages, Rabban Gamliel, has to say. He says that whoever does not discuss the following three things on Passover, has not fulfilled their obligation: pesach (the Passover offering), matzah (the unleavened bread, also known as the Bread of Affliction), and maror (the bitter herb).
So…let’s discuss.
Pesach
Gamliel teaches that our ancestors ate the offering to remind us that God passed over the dwellings of the Israelites in Egypt — that the Egyptians were struck with a plague, while the Israelites were spared.
This year is different. This year, the plague comes for all of us. No Egyptians, no Israelites, no marking our doorposts to guarantee that we’re spared. I can pray, meditate, send up vibes to the universe, whatever…that my loved ones are smart, and safe, and that this ends quickly…but this plague’s end depends on the actions of everyone else as much as on them personally. It’s unsettling as hell. And as much as my mind is focused on this current plague, it shifts to thoughts of those who were not saved from others. Cancer (of course), abuse (all the types and ways), depression, loss, injustice…I’m reminded that everyone is battling something, even if it’s not obvious or loud. Right now, no one is spared.
Matzah
Gamliel teaches that we eat matzah because the dough of our slave ancestors in Egypt didn’t have time to rise before they were redeemed, and they didn’t have time to prepare other provisions before they left.
This year is different. Matzah is different to me. If you’ve never eaten it…you’re not missing out. Real matzah (not designer matzah with everything seasoning, or chocolate covered matzah, or matzah pizza) …real matzah doesn’t taste like anything. And the matzah that is arguably the realist, the most authentic (a subject for another time) tastes like…burnt. But to paraphrase a recent song by AJR, even if life gives you matzah, at least it gave you something. I am reminded that I have more provisions than I need; I make the decisions about where I move, and how quickly. Yes, sometimes life just tastes like…burnt. But lots of the time, it doesn’t. I am grateful. I can make do, and far beyond.
Maror
Gamliel teaches that we eat bitter herbs because our ancestors lives were made bitter with hard work; that all of their labor was crushing and that they were worked ruthlessly, in all of the ways.
This year is different. While (thankfully) I don’t live a life of crushing labor, I think I’m allowed to say that life has been ruthless. To me, this is the point of maror. It is a reminder of the way that LIFE. CAN. JUST. SUCK. And sometimes, there’s no way around that. Eat it, and deal with it. In the Seder, the sweeter stuff comes soon after the maror…and hopefully that’s how it works in life, too.
(Don’t get me started on the symbolism of the saltwater and tears…I didn’t know how much a person could cry until this past year.)
Life is a mashup of bondage and freedom, of bitterness and hope…and like the best mashups it’s sometimes hard to distinguish where one part begins and the other ends. This was our favorite time of year, me and my Lisa. It’s the time of our birthdays, our anniversary…and now I’m stuck in our neighborhood, without her. But I live in the most beautiful neighborhood ever. Seriously. It’s gorgeous right now, green and blooming, promising that life continues. I wish with every cell in my body that Lisa was here. (We would have absolutely crushed a quarantine together.) But I am not alone. I talk to my mom at least twice a day. I have real neighbors and we know each other, we’re checking in on each other, we get to walk our dogs and see people. We give each other waves and smiles. And texts. And flowers. And leftover stones for that landscaping project. This year, my neighborhood is different.
The Egypt Stick is different, too. I think I get it. Yes. We are all slaves to something — something that has too much control over us, is too dominant for our own good; a dependency with a start date we can’t quite put a finger on, but its absence from our life gives us an anxiety attack. This Passover, I found myself reflecting more than any other on what I have, what I had, what I’ve lost, what will be in our new reality, what I’ll take for the journey, what I’ll be given, where I go, how fast I’ll travel. What redemption looks like for me, and for all of us.
I am different.
There’s matzah in my lunchbox.
And I’m not mad about it anymore.
