What is the Fast of the First Born, Anyway?...and other stories….
In this week’s parasha, Metzora, we read about those afflicted by plague going to the High Priest to tell the story of their illness. They outline their symptoms, and length of time of the illness. This storytelling eventually leads to their healing. Those affected by our plague or COVID certainly have their stories to tell, and will for years to come. I hope our stories will help bring healing to our hearts.
Next week, we will embark on more storytelling: the telling of our Exodus story via the haggadah, over and over during the seder.
On this Shabbat Hagadol, I am struck by the power of storytelling and its power to soften our hearts, and transform us. In our day, since the beginning of the war on Ukraine, the stories of individuals fleeing the country, and of those who are trying to rescue them, have filled our homes, and inspired us toward greater acts of hesed. Every story of one stranger helping another has brought more donations to help free the captive Ukrainians.
Learning anothers’ story enables us to care about them as human beings, not just as strangers.
These stories are vital for our survival as a civilization, because without them, individual people in other countries, or who are different from us, are like shadows, without substance. They are amorphous to us, and we can turn away without much thought. That is when society, and the planet itself, begins to crumble.
In order for humanity to survive, and for us to be fully human individually, we must realise that we are all connected, whether enemy or friend, stranger or loved one. We are all God’s children; all part of the fabric of life on this earth.
There is a ritual that we do during the seder that reminds us that we are all connected. When we recite the 10 plagues, we take out 10 drops of sweet wine, as a symbol of our decreased joy because God’s children, the Egyptians, died from the plagues, in order for us to be free. We take away some of our sweetness to remember their losses.
There is another opportunity to take note of the suffering of others: the Fast of the First Born.
Traditionally it is observed on the day of erev Pesah, so next Friday. It is done by the first born Jewish males, in gratitude for not being killed in the 10th plague.
I wonder if this is the sole reason for it. Fast days, after all, are for remembering bad things that befell us, or our sins (like at Tisha B’av or Yom Kippur). If this were the case, then instead of fasting, we should drink an extra cup of wine to celebrate the sweetness of survival.
I suggest the fast has a different purpose. We fast because we mourn the loss of life from that final terrible plague. The Egyptians were our oppressors, and tragic plagues had to befall them in order for them to loosen their grip on our people. But that doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to their suffering.
The fast of the first born is our way of saying, we do not stand idly by while our neighbor bleeds. We carry the burden of the first born Egyptians in our memories and souls. In order for us to be truly free, to become a nation of righteous people, we have to care about the loss of life among those who suffered for our sakes.
This year, at our sedarim, as we gather with family and friends for the first time in two years, may we celebrate survival, mourn our losses, and tell the stories of people we don’t even know.
This week, before Pesah, look for stories of strangers and bring them to your seder table. Let the stories that fill our world, our TV screens, our newsfeeds, our memories, soften our hearts and inspire us to add healing to this broken world in whatever way we can.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Marcia Plumb
