On Passover

It's the time of year when Jews forgo bread in favor of its flatter, more tasteless cousin.  It's the time of year when we sweep our houses of crumbs, scrub clean our homes, air out our lives.  As a child, Passover meant singing songs, telling stories, and eating more sugar than I was normally allowed.  But as an adult, what does Passover mean?  How do I, an American, a White, college-educated male from a comfortable background, celebrate liberation?  From what have I been freed?

We are commanded to tell the Exodus story as if it happened to us, as if we are the ones who walked from Egypt into the sea, into the desert, into Israel.  And aren't we?  Have we all faced our fears, taken a leap of faith, and headed off into the unknown?  Perhaps it was not God's mighty hand and outstretched arm that liberated us, but maybe our own arms will do.

I told the Exodus story last night and Friday night, surrounded by friends and family from all kinds of backgrounds.  Together, we asked questions.  Together, we recalled that we are at once slaves and free.  We remembered that as we were once liberated from the land of Egypt, so too are those in Mitzrayim - the narrow place - currently striving for freedom.  We told the stories of Moses and Miriam, of Shifrah and Puah.  This morning, we told the story of Jesus, another flawed individual who walked through his own desert and who did great things for his people.

I have cleaned my home.  I have told the story.  I have eaten bitter herbs and sweet charoset.  I have roasted a lamb shank and an egg.  But what are all these actions, if they don't come with a call to something bigger?  If I can spill wine drops for Pharoah's fallen army, surely I can spill tears over Trayvon Martin, over those protesting in Syria, those bombed in Nigeria, those Tibetans detained in China.  Can we really declare "Dayeinu" - it would have been enough?  It's never enough.  Not enough to be comfortable in our own freedom while others suffer.

This week, as I cook without wheat, without oats or legumes or yeast (and any number of other ingredients forbidden during Passover), I will remember being a slave.  And I will remember freedom.  And I will remember the journey that brought me from one to the other, the journey so many are on or have yet to begin.  In one mouthful, I can taste the bread of affliction and the bread of liberation.  But the taste will be bittersweet until all are free.

We are all Yisrael.  We are all coming from Mitzrayim.  And we are all headed towards Yerushalayim.

Freedom.  It isn't once, to walk out
under the Milky Way, feeling the rivers
of light, the fields of dark -
freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine
remembering.  Putting together, inch by inch
the starry worlds.  From all the lost collections. [Adrienne Rich]