Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

Pesach is my favorite holiday.  Not because it is our holiday of liberation, although as themes go it is a pretty good one.  Not because of the food we eat.  I know food is a controversial and highly subjective topic.  For me, after I have fulfilled the mitzvah of eating matzah that I accomplish at the first two Seders, I have had my fill.  After that it is an opportunity to celebrate a low-carb diet.

What I like is embodied in both the memories it instills, and the opportunity for meaningful discussion.  As to the former, my memories of our Passover Seder is one of family; parents along with an aunt and uncle - all of blessed memory.  It is also the memory of celebrating a Seder at the home of my Hebrew School teacher and her husband - Tzivia and Joe Gaba, also of blessed memory. Witnessing Joe and son David (Dr. David Gaba) argue fine points of the Haggadah struck me as a quintessentially Jewish exercise, notwithstanding the stress of, and requirement to, perform in front of both teacher and parents.  My father liked to challenge my teacher to see if “he was getting his money’s worth.”

This leads directly into the idea of meaningful discussion.  The primary mitzvah in carrying out the Pesach Seder is in the Magid - the telling of the story.  Yet, for as much as we know of our Exodus story, there is much room for disagreement.  Macholoket L’Sheim Shamayim - argument for the sake of heaven.  

More than any other holiday, Passover opens the door for thoughtful (and yes sometimes contentious) discussion of our most important Jewish values.  What doe it mean to truly be free?  How were we enslaved before the Exodus, and are we still enslaved by something? What does it mean for us to have been strangers, and how does that inform our obligation to both not oppress the stranger, and to love the stranger?

May this year at our Passover Seder be a time for engaging with each other over what is truly important.  Let us connect with our Jewish values, and let our discussion around the Seder table serve as a catalyst to engagement beyond our Seder; to act with courage to have the difficult and needed discussions that move us toward a better world.  May it lead us to a time when peace, justice and compassion be our guides.