by Rabbi Sari Laufer
This week, my social media feeds filled with images of middle and high school students nationwide taking to the streets, marking the end of shloshim for the victims of the Parkland tragedy. First, they demanded 17 minutes of silence—one for each of the victims; then they demanded a national conversation. (If you want to be a part of it, come hear two teenage survivors speak next Friday night, March 23 at Shabbat Services, and/or join us at the March for Our Lives.
And amidst all the inspiring pictures, a colleague of mine posted this teaching, taken from the Talmud: Resh Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Yehudah Nesiyah: The world only exists because of the breath of schoolchildren. And, to acknowledge the cliché, the quote took my breath away.
As Shabbat enters this week, so too does the new month—Rosh Chodesh Nisan. Nisan, the month in which Passover begins, is a month of rebirth, of new possibilities. And this year, it would seem, it is bittersweet. We, each of us, may be celebrating potential—joyous things to come, new hopes and new dreams. But collectively, many of us are cognizant of those 17 breaths, for whom there is no longer possibility. For their families, who must now plan a new future, one they could never have imagined, one that they would never want. Maybe in our own family, we are grieving, we feel lost.
On the other extreme, perhaps, this Shabbat marks the 3rd Annual Infertility Awareness Shabbat, created by Yesh Tikvah, and noted by synagogues across the country and across the denominations. Asked to write about it, I struggled to find a connection.
The world only exists because of the breath of schoolchildren.
Nisan—the month of rebirth, of new possibilities—and for many in our community, around our seder tables, another month of heartbreak. You shall tell your children, the Seder commands us again and again…but what if we have been trying for years to have a child? Why is this night different from all other nights—as you wonder when, if ever, you will have a child who can recite the 4 Questions. What does it mean to speak of liberation, of escaping the narrow places, while fertility treatments squeeze you socially, emotionally, financially, and spiritually.
The parents of Parkland are, in the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, walking through the unimaginable. There is no comparison between their pain and the pain of the 1 in 8 couples who struggle with infertility; nor is it a competition.
And so as I sit with this week, with the week of student walkouts and the end of shloshim, and the week that will bring Infertility Awareness Shabbat, I find myself asking: What about those for whom Nisan, this dawning of a new month, the dawning of a new future, does not feel joyous? Is there room for them—is there room for us—at the Seder table.
I know that at my seder, when I recite the words Let all who are in need come celebrate the Passover with us—I’ll hold them in my hearts. The parents whose hearts have been pierced, lives torn apart, by the death of a child. And the not-yet-parents whose hearts ache in their quest to become parents, whose lives and dreams feel uncertain and unclear. I’ll make room for new stories; of pain and loss, and also of hope and possibility.
And if not this year, if not next, may they soon journey from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from pain to praise. And may we be blessed to take that journey as well.
Chodesh Tov.