Passover Has Many Faces - April 1998

Shalom!

Passover has many faces. It appears differently to different people, mirroring the needs and interests, sensitivities and sensibilities of each observer. Sometimes the existential realities confronting specific individuals dramatically change the look and feel, the very essence of the festival.

For example, if the Passover Seder was the night you chose to break the news of your engagement to your future life-partner (and your marriage turned out to be gloriously successful in every way) or Passover was the day you received your acceptance letter from the graduate school of your choice, then for you it is probable that the very sound or Matzah cracking or the sight of Matzah balls floating in a sea of chicken soup is enough to conjure up echoes of a Mazal tov, Michael! or A Fabulous, Michelle!...and, for you, your personal history of joyous happenstance has gifted you with an added bonus: Passover will always have a smiling face.

For others, however, the holiday has been transmogrified from holiness to horror - as in the case of those challenged few who have lost their loved ones, i.e. spouses, fiance/es, parents, etc. on Passover or during the Passover week. Forever after, the arrival of spring brings with ;it memories of profound personal loss. T. S. Elliot is for them an unwanted prophet: AApril is the cruelest month rings true. For those who have loved and lost then, precisely then, as crocuses (invisible to all others but these Pesach mourners), heavy with remembered pain, sorrow, anger and loneliness, peek their sullen heads above the snow, as it were, to celebrate is almost impossible. Passover has assumed the face of an enemy, a bitter angel with a scythe, a season not of liberation but depression.

The faces of Passover are as surprisingly real and contradictory as the conditions of life itself. Therefore we must never presume that when a friend or neighbor accepts - or rejects - our invitation to share a Seder, we understand. We don't.

Not unless, that is, we see Passover through the same eyes, with the same memories, with the same hopes and fears. Our images of Passover, inevitably, differ.

To Jewish parents who happen to be An empty-nesters, waiting for their children to come home for a Passover seder - or preparing to visit their children's home for the holiday - Passover means family renewal, a time of refreshing the soul through shared remembrances, finding new reasons to take delight in life through direct, nourishing contact with old roots as well as with new blossoms on the family tree. To parents whose older children have not yet chosen their mates, it is a time of unstated concern, a silent pageant of expectation.

To children it means opportunity, a chance to grow in knowledge and faith, a time to shine in the glow of family and friends; it is also, curiously enough, a structured occasion for challenging authority (with or without fear), for asserting one's own uniqueness, one's independent spirit or even one's painful differences of thought and opinion while at the same time maintaining an empowering sense of belonging and acceptance . A daring time, indeed, to Acome out of the closet politically, emotionally, sexually. Is there not a place set aside at the Seder table even for a A rashah? Why not for those who are testing the horizons of conventional acceptability? But where are the borders beyond which a family member may not trespass without endangering the walls of his/her own home?

To grandchildren Passover means discovering the warmth and strength of belonging to a special people, a family that is more than family, a tradition that empowers and liberates, a doorway that opens into holiness, a cup that overflows with compassion, a bitterness that sweetens the heart, a taste of unique bread that makes one hungry for opportunities to help the hungry, sounds of music that charm the spirit and visions of little goats that always escape the forces of evil in the world.

To the historian, Passover means political protest, a dream of freedom and social justice, the memory of slaves confronting tyranny - and emerging victorious, carrying on their backs a message of hope for all peoples...a page in the unfolding story of human civilization that illuminates all others.

To the theologian, it means spiritual redemption, a beginning and an ending, a time of hearing the cry and healing the wound, transforming the blood of sacrifice into the breath of eternal life, a mingling of now with forever, an ascent of the soul to a place beyond time, beyond pain, beyond not knowing where G-d's love and G-d's power reign in endless wonder.

To the poor and the hungry, to the lonely and isolated, Passover means a glorious evening to reach out and be connected, to find warmth, food, shelter, dignity and respect, perhaps even friendship, a golden night to speak and be heard, to become someone real, to be noticed, to be worthy in one=s own right, to be part of something beautiful and lovely that welcomes and protects all who draw near...if only for a passing moment, an all too brief hour that magically confers humanity as freely and deliciously as the skies provide sun and rain, a reminder of hidden blessing and sacred possibilities waiting like Manna in the desert for all, a gift of grace.

To the rich and famous, Passover offers a way to regain one's anonymity, to put aside the crushing burden of celebrity and rediscover the joy of sharing one's humanity simply and honestly, using the ancient words and symbols as shared jewels, adorning one, adorning all with equal splendor, so that all are precious, without need to intrude into the life-space of others, all are free to be whom they choose to be without the need for masks or roles other than those designated by our Tradition as archetypal symbols, keys to deeper understanding and wisdom. What a relief to be really and merely oneself, safe and sound, alone as one cares to be, yet bonding in ways that satisfy and sanctify, together in a sacred scene whose boundaries are protected and privacies respected, free to laugh, free to cry, free to take into one's heart the challenges and responsibilities of human freedom!

Yes, the rich and the famous, the poor and the lonely, the hungry as well as the well-fed, the theologian, the historian, parents and children, all members of the human family at all levels of social, intellectual and spiritual awareness have their own way of understanding - and misunderstanding - Passover.

Passover has many faces, many facets.

Which ones shall we see this year? How much of ourselves, our deeper selves, will we allow to be seen during the Passover experience? To a large degree, the answer, as often is the case, is up to us.

Rabbi Dr. Hirsch Joseph Simckes