Tomorrow is Passover. Each year I think next year. Next year I will have a sedar again. But the tablecloth stays in the closet.
I feel, I think, better with the memory of making matzoh with my daughter, the house filled with people – friends, family, students far from loved ones with no Jewish home to celebrate in – all reclining, talking, singing, eating. We wrote our own hagadah. I even “painted” the lentil red. All who entered, safe. May the Angel of Death pass us over.
We celebrated with song and merriment as a spring holiday. We celebrated it as freedom from slavery. We acknowledged that it was our place, the place Jews are supposed to hold, to make sure the world has justice. To make sure no group is taken advantage of. To make sure no people are victims. That we understand while one is enslaved, all are enslaved.
We celebrated Passover as a holiday of social justice.
Often seders end with “next year in Jerusalem.” We never said that. The work was always here, always at hand.
How long ago was that now, the days of P’nai Or and knowing our neighbours? The days of music and laughter in the house.
Now Passover is a day on a calendar and a bag in the closet I move aside when looking for other things.
Read the poem. pass it around if you like. Let me know what you think. And Happy Passover.
Source: Passover and the Industrial Revolution
Adam Byrn Tritt 