This Pesach, we are living through our own Covid 19 plague. Like our Biblical ancestors, we shelter in our homes, protecting ourselves and our loved ones from our plague of illness and death that hovers outside our doors.
Because of the coronavirus, our sedarim will be filled with a new unique understanding of some of our key, long standing values—community, freedom, enslavement, saving a life, and hope. Each of these words, that encompasses so much theologically and historically, take on a new twist and depth as we celebrate Pesach this year.
As we sit down at our Seder Zoom tables, I have written four new questions to help us find meaning in the confluence between Pesach and this time of being bound in our homes. Feel free to use them at your Seder or simply reflect on them. We will include them in our communal seder on Thursday night.
1. We search for small bits of chametz (leavened products) in our homes before Pesach begins. Why? The attention to detail in the search for chametz is meant to wake us up.
What are we awake to this year? What have we learned about ourselves during this virus time that will help us when we emerge from it?
2. During the seder, we wash our hands without a blessing. I have written a blessing for washing our hands during the seder, for this unusual year.
Baruch Ata Adonai, Blessed are You oh God, who makes us holy and commands us to be responsible for each other. We hold each other in our hands, so we wash our hands now. May we lift up our hands to help others at every opportunity. May our washing bring healing. Amen.
What new blessing would you create and add to this year’s seder?
3. Our normal is broken, like the middle matzah. Our world is no longer puffed up like leavened bread. It has been dampened down, silenced, slimmed down to the bare essentials to sustain life, just like matzah.
How else is our world or our lives like matzah at the moment?
4. We put different foods on our matzah during the seder- Maror for bitterness, charoset for the mortar and the sweetness of freedom.
This year, what new food would you put on your matzah to represent your experience, or hope, or prayer during this time?
Hag Pesach Sameach, May we find sustenance in our traditions, and hope in our prayers.
