Tonight is the start of Passover, the eight-day holiday that commemorates the Ancient Israelites’ exodus from Egypt after 400 years of slavery.
Around the world, Jewish people will sit down to partake in a Passover Seder, the ritual holiday meal at which we recount the story of the exodus and the miracles that God performed to redeem our ancestors from the bondage of slavery.
For the first time in my life, this year I will be alone for the Seder. Although I would typically go to my parents house for the Seder, the rabbis of my synagogue have joined with rabbis across the globe in declaring that nobody should go to a seder outside the home where they have been quarantined.
No “outside guests” is the rule — and this includes members of your own family who are not living with you.
The risk of coronavirus spread is too great, and the rules of Judaism are clear that preserving life takes priority above all else.
So it turns out that you can’t go home again. At least not this year.
Instead of having the family around her table, my mom played caterer, cooking up a storm and putting together two boxes of food that my dad delivered to me — maintaining social distance protocols, of course.
Why This Passover is Different
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve seen several articles about the “fifth question” that we will be asking at the Seder this year:
why is this year’s Passover different from other years?
In some obvious surface ways, it will feel very different. For many of us who live alone, we may feel more isolated than usual. Being alone on holidays is never easy, and it’s especially hard in a time of self-quarantine, when you can’t even get together with other people who are alone.
Why This Passover is the Same
But in some fundamental ways, this Passover Seder actually will not be that different from the very first one.
The first Seder was the night of the final plague that God brought to Egypt: the killing of the first born. Moses told the Israelites to stay in their homes and put lambs blood on their door posts — on the inside, not the outside — so that the angel of death would know which homes to pass over.
Each household stayed in its own home that night as they ate the matzah, the unleavened bread, and sang songs of prayer and praise of God. It was a time of heightened uncertainty. Death was in the air. They were hoping for an end to years of slavery, an Exodus in which Moses would lead them to the promised land. But nobody knew what would happen.
They were living in the mystery, wondering who would live and who would die and what the world would look like tomorrow.
Sounds a lot like this year’s Passover.
A New Question
At the Seder we already ask four questions about why this night is different from all other nights.
Although we can learn a lot from differences, we can also learn from similarities.
This year’s Seder bears similarities to Seders in the past, whether the original Seder in ancient Egypt or more recent seders that our ancestors have had in times of war or oppression.
I propose we ask a new fifth question:
How is this year’s Seder similar to Seders in the past?
And what can we learn from those other times about thriving through adversity and challenge?
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