#626 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday April 5)
Good morning,
This week is Passover, my favorite holiday, along with Thanksgiving. While one might note that these both are holidays that culminate in a lot of food (and wine), this is not the primary reason I love the holidays (although they are reason enough!). Both are celebrations of gratitude and aspiration.
Both holidays look to a mythological story for their foundation. Thanksgiving remembers the feast that the Pilgrims shared with the indigenous Indians while Passover reflects on the central story of the Jewish people—the Exodus from Egypt. Both are stories of strangers in a strange land. In one instance, it is the story of arrival and hope. The other is one of departure and hope.
TELLING THE STORY
One of the most beautiful parts of the celebration of Passover is that the holiday is part religious and part communal. It is the one holiday whose primary celebration is conducted in the home. There is no Rabbi or other religious leader directing the service. While there is a “leader” to keep things organized and flowing, everyone around the table participates in telling the story.
The telling of the Passover story brings the sacred into the home and the historic journey of ancestors into the lives of family and friends around a communal table.
Over the years, many people have taken the Passover Seder and modified it to include various different “themes.” There are LGBT seders, feminist seders, social justice seders, ecological seders, and everything in between. Many of these are shared online. The resources are seemingly limitless. For those interested, there are hundreds of Haggadot (the booklets passed around the table) available at haggadot.com.
OUR SEDERS
The Sonnenberg seders typically include the basics of the Passover seder, with the addition of special readings on the subject of freedom (both of the body and of the mind), as well as our version of Jeopardy! Yes, I prepare a Jew-pardy, which is played at different “breaks” in the program. It includes serious questions, humorous questions (is the person Jewish or not, Jewish sports heroes) and more personal questions about family lore and humor.
In the past, we have celebrated Trumpian seders (with a “bigly” Haggadah), a COVID remote Haggadah for the 2020 seder, and various other specially themed seders.
My favorite part of our seders is the sharing of stories of freedom that express the universality of the themes of the holiday. We discuss freedom fights throughout history and among different peoples. We discuss not only physical slavery but also the dangers of surrendering one’s mind to intractable points of view and tribal connections that are dictated by others.
AN EXPANSIVE EXAMPLE OF LIBERATION
This is a reflection of a great abolitionist that I like to share on Passover:
“The story of the coming out from Egypt is not just the story of the Israelites coming out from Egypt. Its message is universal; others who achieved their freedom didn't stop just with their personal story. Frederick Douglass, among the most prominent of abolitionists, did not limit his work to his own cause. Frederick Douglass’s vision of freedom was expansive. He fought for far more than just the eradication of slavery. He was one of the few men to attend the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, an event that many historians identify as the symbolic beginning of organized efforts to attain voting rights for women. Douglass exemplified a commitment to a version of freedom that recognized citizenship, promoted equal justice, and respected voting rights. Likewise, he also supported equal rights for immigrants, universal public education, and the end of capital punishment.”
AMERICA AND CIVIL RIGHTS
This is a seminal quotation by a great American we often share on Thanksgiving:
“And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of
California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
UKRAINE
This is a poem that we added last year after the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine:
By Serhiy Zhadan
Translated from the Ukrainian by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps
Take only what is most important. Take the letters.
Take only what you can carry.
Take the icons and the embroidery, take the silver,
Take the wooden crucifix and the golden replicas.
Take some bread, the vegetables from the garden, then leave.
We will never return again.
We will never see our city again.
Take the letters, all of them, every last piece of bad news.
We will never see our corner store again.
We will never drink from that dry well again.
We will never see familiar faces again.
We are refugees. We’ll run all night.
FREEDOM OF THE MIND
And these are quotations about freedom of the mind:
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking...” ― Leo Tolstoy
“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
Have a great day and (if you so observe) a Chag Sameach (a happy holiday),
Glenn
From the archives: