Tag: pesach

Passover and Legacy

As we share Passover at the Seder table this year, notice that it is in the process of change.  We are instructed to remember the Exodus experience and to consider as though we experience it ourselves as we participate in the reenactment.  But this tradition evolves; with each generation, we fashion the Seder into something that is uniquely ours.

I recall the Seders of two generations ago, the seemingly endless table that ran from room to room of the small apartment in the Bronx or the small home in Queens.  These are wonderful memories from long ago and much of those traditions continue on.  But our current Seder will be different from those of my past.  For example, an Orange and Olives will find themselves on our current Seder Plate and Miriam’s cup will be prominently placed alongside Elijah’s. Instead of asking the four questions, I will lead (to the extent my boisterous family will permit).  We will read from a Hagaddah fashioned by my niece with interpretations and questions that resonate with her generation.  For they are the future.

The Seder will continue to progress as the next generation of our family steps into the role of leadership and we slowly cede our positions leadership and authority, hopefully becoming Elders with positions of respect and wisdom.  This is the natural progression of things.  For each of us must embrace our understanding of the Jewish experience not only as a communal experience but as something uniquely our own.  This was the tradition will be a meaningful part of our identity combining ritual with relevance.

At the Seder table, we can each look to either side (figuratively or literally), seeing our parents and what they have bequeathed to us and seeing our children as they fashion and shape Judaism as their own.  This is the blessing of our legacy; family and historic community forming an unbroken chain linking us all together.

Wishing everyone a Joyful Pesach.  Chag Pesach Sameach! and Shabbat Shalom

Shabbat (HaGadol) Shalom

Although this piece was produced last year, it is worth sharing with you now as we welcome Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat immediately preceding Pesach.  This is the Key Tov Orchestra featuring Elliot Dvorin at their schmaltzy best.  It’s a little Vegas combined with tunes from our wonderful holiday.  It seems somehow fitting that this East meets West happens in Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago.  Enjoy!

Wishing everyone  Shabbat Shalom and a zissen Pesach!

Dayenu- as partner in the miracles

Dayenu~

 

Nachshon

It would have been enough for us.

This is our response to each of the many miracles we enumerate at the Seder table. Thank you God for doing each of these great things; if you stopped at any point along the way that should have been enough to satisfy us.

But our response is incomplete.

We celebrate God’s presence in the miracle of the Exodus. However, we cannot forget our role. It is as if God continue to tighten the string, pulling back on the bow further and further until the people are ready to spring forward into action. God is preparing us, inciting us, readying us to take on the challenge that lies ahead. It is as if God is saying, “get ready,” I am handing this off to you as you engage as my partner in the active unfolding of history to create the world that should be.

This message has never been more important.

As we go to our Seder tables next week, we will recite God’s miracles and recount the tale of our liberation from the life of slavery to the hope of freedom. But freedom requires work to overcome the forces that would return us to the days of old, the days of slavery. We must use this modern-day Seder as our rallying point to commit ourselves to pursuing the freedoms that started with a miracle, back in Egypt or here in Philadelphia. The values that we hold dear of life, liberty, and justice are under threat by hostile forces. The miracle of our freedom is done, the time for our action to fight for what our freedom means is at hand.

So at this Seder, when you say Dayenu, mean it; be grateful for the miracles and express your gratitude by becoming a partner in the ongoing work of bringing our values forward so all may be so blessed.

Wishing everyone a zissen Pesach!

 

A Pesach Message

As we prepare to celebrate this time of freedom, may we remember the work is not yet complete. As we call out to all who are hungry to come eat let, may we remember that many remain hungry in body and spirit, Jew and non-Jew alike. Let us work towards the day when all might be satisfied and we move step by step towards a world of understanding and peace.

A zissen Pesach to all and Shabbat Shalom.

Selma- It is our story

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the march in Selma. As Americans and as Jews we are proud of this landmark achievement in our nation’s history and our part in it. Jewish Americans have been on the forefront of civil rights movement and we continue to champion civil rights and social justice for all. But the march in Selma is a seminal moment and we burst with pride, kvelling, at the sight of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel along side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We are deeply moved that so many American Jews stood bravely and fought during the struggle, most notably including those who gave their lives for these ideals.

This was our story. We Jews had found our place in American society and we found our voice. The prophetic ideals that are a foundation of our Jewishness galvanized us to support the civil rights movement because we believed that until all were free, none were free.   So Jews stood proudly along side the African-American community demanding change.

However, the movie Selma does not tell this story. In fact, unless you looked carefully and unblinkingly during the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, you probably missed the man in the kippah off to the side.   The story told in Selma, is moving, but it is not a story that includes us. It is told from the perspective of the African-American community and glorifies the struggle that was theirs. Although the time is the same, the march is the same and the facts are the same, the stories however are different. But that is okay.

The tellers of this story needed to share their perspective, which did not have room for us. Selma was about empowering their heroes to assert themselves. It is not an unreasonable thing to look through a different lens and tell a different story that has meaning even though it is not the telling of the story we might choose. That does not detract from the contribution that Jewish leaders made, nor does it lessen the pride that we might feel for their participation. It only shows that there are particular and more universal stories that might be told about the same unfolding of events.

As we approach the Pesach Seder, this gives us an opportunity to re-examine the telling of our quintessential freedom narrative. What do we emphasize and what do we leave out? Many different versions of the Exodus story will be told this night, each of them valid, each of them part of the larger story. The recollection of events only remains meaningful when we can make the connection to those events in a way that speaks to us. Only then is it more than a recounting of events, but rather a moving story that evokes emotion and prompts us to action. We share at our Seder tables the hope that “Next year may we all be free,” but until that time, may our stories keep the dream alive.

 

 

Remembering- Seders past and Yizkor

Yizkor Pesach 2014

The Seder Table at my grandparent’s houses was one of those interesting affairs.  The table started in the dining room, made its way past the wall into the living room and hung a right turn into the foyer.  This was unlike my great-aunt on my father’s side, where the table started in the living room, ran through the dining room and into the kitchen, where the kids sat.  Now I realize why the two families never got along; I always thought it was because one was Galitziana and the other Litvak…

At Nanny and Grandpop’s house, my mom’s parents, the table seemed to groan under the weight of the Seder Plates and bowls of salt water and bottles of wine and the platters upon platters of food. The table was laden with a stuffed breast of veal and brisket, homemade gefilte fish and chicken soup with dill and soft matzoh balls that my father mocked because they were not hard enough.  My mom made them like rocks, which according to my father who actually loved them, could be used by the Israeli army as provisions to be eaten or if necessary as a weapon to be thrown.  I recall my hand being slapped by my grandfather as I tried to take the Afikomen a bit too early in the affair.  I eventually would get it, but only after an appropriate amount of time and tries had elapsed according to his calculations.  I recall the mixing of English and Hebrew, the raucous noise of talking, singing, laughing and of course arguing, and sharing the story from the Hagaddah. The three major denominations of Judaism were all represented and all joined together to celebrate this mix of religion and family at the festive table.

I can trace my life through my movement along that table.  I moved from the kids table, where I once chanted the “four questions,” to the main table where I chant the Kiddush, and ultimately now to sit at the head of the table to help lead the Seder.  And there I sat this year, with my wife’s family.

They have their own interesting rituals and traditions, as does each family.  But one is particularly worth noting.  At the conclusion of the Seder, my mother-in-law plugs in the cassette player with a very special recording.  They recorded her mother on one of her last Seders at the table, telling stories sharing recollections of times past and a poem.  My mother-in-law sits transfixed, the voice carries her someplace else as she listens to her mother re-tell the telling of the Exodus.  She drinks in her mother’s words and for those brief moments, Rose Mandel comes alive for her.  That is truly the high point of the Seder.  And why we need to commemorate those we loved this Yizkor.

For Yizkor is our time to remember.  It is our time to reflect back on those we loved.  This is our time to recognize how much they continue to mean to us.  Often they fade into the background.  We are so caught up in the day-to-day things that fill our time.  Kids, food, shopping, the house, the spouse and our own selves, just to name the short list.  But now is our time to remember them.  Those we loved, those who we have lost, often too soon.  Oh to have a few more moments of them.  For when we remember them, we remember the blessings they brought to our lives.  The richness that is ours because of them, the history that is uniquely our individual own because of the way they shaped and influenced our lives.  We remember to offer gratitude for their being in our lives.  We remember their best as a means to help propel us to be our best.  And therefore we remember them as we strive to create the memories for those who come after us as the legacy we leave to them in an unbroken chain of loving and caring.

Pesach- A Message of Freedom

Soon we will gather around the Seder table and recall our redemption from the suffering of slavery we endured in Egypt.   We ask “Why is this night different from others?” This is a particularly profound question for us in this place and time.

 We enjoy many blessings.  We have prosperity and education; we can live our lives as we choose.   We are free.  But there are many who are not.  What does our freedom mean when there are so many, Jew and non-Jew, who still suffer?

 Our tradition teaches us that we are not truly free until all are free.  The oppression of slavery comes in many forms including physical, spiritual, and economic. It comes from a sense of hopelessness, the despair that arises when people believe that things cannot get better, that there is only suffering.  We are exhorted to help those in need and those who are oppressed to break the shackles that bind them.

 We are not truly free until all are free. God’s promise to us is not fulfilled until we deliver on our part of the bargain using our blessings to help others.   As we share our prayer “Next Year in Jerusalem,” let us commit to doing our part to help others also reach that profound and great place.