Daily Kavanah – Monday, April 3, 2023

You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread—eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I have commanded you—at the set time of Spring, for in the time of Spring you went forth from Egypt.

—Exodus 34:18

Passover, which begins this week on the 15th day of the month of Nisan, is our communal commemoration of our Exodus from Egypt. In Exodus, Passover is referred to as “the feast of unleavened bread” after the food we are commanded to eat for seven days to commemorate our hasty exit from Egypt. But throughout our Torah, Passover is referred to by several other names, including the holiday of spring, the holiday of the sacrificial lamb, and the holiday of our redemption and freedom. No matter the name, Passover is a holiday of rich meaning; there is much to be celebrated and a great story to be shared.

What I have always loved about Passover is the telling and retelling of the story—how it is always essentially the same, the core message never shifting from a celebration of freedom, a degradation of the deprivation of liberty. And still, there are a thousand ways to tell this story, each of us with our own unique perspective, our own naming of the twists and turns of Exodus, our own connections to what might be most meaningful shifting from year to year.

When I was a student at HUC-JIR during my first-year Jerusalem studies, I had an opportunity to hear renowned Israeli author Etgar Keret share some of his writing and speak; indeed, he is as engaging in person as he is on the page. Recently, I enjoyed a podcast that featured an interview with him. On air, he shared the deeply personal stories of his mother, a Holocaust survivor, who herself was known by a thousand different names, having taken on many different identities throughout World War II to stay alive. And as a testament to her survival—her freedom—she chose to tell and retell the stories of her childhood to her own children. Essentially, her story would always remain the same: that she had survived the Nazis through many lucky twists and turns, moved to Israel, and became both a working professional and a mother, always cherishing her people, her children, and her community. And every year of Keret’s childhood, she found new ways—through humor and memory and creativity—to tell her personal story; each year, as he recalls, her tales were even more engaging, sparking Keret’s own imagination and of course inspiring him to become the talented writer that he is today.

Passover is a holiday of many names and one epic story that will essentially never change. And yet, year after year, we add on new ways to celebrate, new ways to retell its events, new ways to find ourselves in the story, new ways to help those who live in spiritual or economic slavery, new ways to celebrate our own experience of freedom. When you sit down to seder with your family and friends this year, what unique viewpoint will you bring and how might you inspire others to see our age-old story in an original light, with a fresh perspective?

As we say each year: ba’shanah ha’ba’ah b’Yerushalayim, next year in Jerusalem. May our seders be meaningful, may our bellies be satisfied, and may our hearts be filled by sacred storytelling, both rooted in tradition and ever-renewed.

—Cantor Emma Lutz