Reflections on Passover in the shadow of current world events compiled by Mike Rosenberg.
Jewish households in Bedford and throughout the world begin the major festival of Passover on Monday evening, and some will be striving to reconcile lessons from the ancient past with the drumbeat of breaking news from Israel.
The tradition is to experience a Passover seder – the Hebrew word means “order.” The ritual, which can unfold for several hours, is an amalgam of narrative, prayer, food, symbolism, song, and discussion. Scholars say it was modeled after the Greek symposia popular among philosophers like Plato and Aristotle.
The guidebook for this ancient ritual celebration is called the haggadah, which means “the telling.” But it’s not a line-by-line recapitulation of the liberation of the Hebrew slaves and their departure from Egypt. The framework of the story is in its pages, but the digressions, metaphors, melodies, and Talmudic exposition leave a lot of room for expansion and interpretation.
Chronologically in the haggadah, “We begin with degradation and end with exaltation.” That’s an assertion “to start with the theme of hope,” said longtime resident David Ezekiel.
“This will be the hardest seder I’ve ever led, and I’ll be focusing on hope and compassion,” said Louis Stuhl. “The exodus story really illustrates hope and lack of hope, compassion and lack of compassion.” The slaves cry out, but “have problems with the whole idea of being delivered.” Pharaoh is “the epitome of the lack of compassion;” his daughter, who rescues the infant Moses, is “a prime example of compassion.”
“The paradigm of slavery to freedom, sadness to joy, despair to hope, have so many parallels with what’s happening this year on so many different levels,” said Rabbi Susan Abramson of Bedford, who has been the spiritual leader at Temple Shalom Emeth of Burlington since 1984. Thus, the seder “gives us an opportunity to consider all the hardships which our people are facing, which everybody in the world is facing.”
For Dan Brosgol, the barbarity of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli civilians overrides the need for symbolism. “Passover’s narrative of escaping slavery and being redeemed by God is inspiring, but that celebration must be counterbalanced with a solemn commemoration of the war and its victims, a prayer for the hostages, and the hope that all of this will be over soon,” he said.
Brosgol, a Select Board member and a Jewish educator, added, “The events of Oct. 7 and the ongoing war in Israel necessarily color every conversation, holiday, and Jewish experience that has happened since that terrible day. It is impossible for me to do anything Jewishly without thinking about the war and its trauma.”
“It’s an incredibly complicated situation,” said Stuhl. “This is the tone that the holiday is in this year.”
The seder format, Abramson observed, provides “many opportunities to symbolize and to spark deep-seated emotions and discussion.” The rabbi said she is informing her congregants of “all the ways they can make this relevant. I’m sure many are thinking about it.”
Even the way furniture is arranged for the ritual can symbolize many things to many people – for instance, an empty chair at the table, which she said can be “a much more powerful symbol than any words we can say.”
An empty chair not only can represent an obvious absence, such as the hostages kidnaped on Oct. 7, “but also part of us that is not here right now because we are feeling so traumatized,” she said. “And we are missing some of our friends or colleagues who used to join us, but from whom we have separated because of this conflict. It can represent all of the people who died on Oct. 7 and since.”
Individuals and institutions are sharing resources that can add meaning to the seder during this distressing period for Jews around the world. “I have been developing a file for the past few weeks,” Abramson said. “I have a stack of too many extra materials to use,” said Stuhl, as well as a personal collection of haggadot.
Last weekend, Iran launched 300 missiles and other lethal projectiles at Israel, almost all of which were intercepted before they could do any damage. Does that assault have a place in next week’s Passover presentation? “It’s hard to prepare too far in advance because anything could happen,” Abramson acknowledged. “It’s like trying to hit a moving target.”
“Some feel it is important not to bring up something controversial, to keep the peace,” Abramson said. “But it is our responsibility to bring it up in a way that everybody’s opinions can be respected. Give people the freedom to say what’s on their minds in ways that don’t tear people apart.”
Brosgol said “one of the most frequently quoted parts of the Haggadah” that he said continues to resonate: “Not just one enemy has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, Blessed Be He, saves us from their hands. “This year we will have a poignant and painful reminder that our enemies are always at the gates, or in the terrifying events from last fall, the enemies were, in fact, inside them,” he said. “The most important message I will share with my fellow seder-goers is that yes, our struggle is eternal, but so is our survival.”
The views expressed in Opinions and Letters to the Editor are those of the writer, not The Bedford Citizen.
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