How We Tell the Passover Story in Year 3 of the Pandemic

Two years ago, as the pandemic began, I felt like the simple child of the Passover seder.  “What is all this?” was my question.  What does Passover look like with the Angel of Death loose in the city?  I kept the story simple:  We can do this.  I created spreadsheets to give me a sense of order: what to cook, who to check in on, who was going to lead which part of our Zoom seder.

Last year, Passover felt like the period just before liberation.  I was vaccinated and while it didn’t feel safe enough to fly out to California to be with my family for the seders, I believed the end of the pandemic was in sight. Last year the story was that we were standing on the shores of the Sea just as it was splitting.  We hadn’t crossed over, but we were on our way to freedom.

This year I am writing this on the airplane on my way to California, finally to observe the holiday with my family.  But to be honest, it doesn’t feel like a carefree celebration.  And how could it, with the Covid numbers going back up, the horrific war in Ukraine, the rising hunger in East Africa and elsewhere, the renewed violence in Israel? 

And I am surprisingly emotional as I read the memories that pop up in my social media from the past two years.  We had no idea what was in store for us, which, of course, is always the case.  But I also find that I am touched by the way we created our narratives and then we changed them, as events unfolds in their unpredictable ways.

Perhaps creating our own narrative is part of the enactment of liberation that Passover invites us into.  Tell the story, Passover urges us, even now, when we say, “This year we are slaves.  Next year we will be free.”  There is only so much control we have over our lives, but we always have the choice over how we tell the story.  In NARM, the developmental trauma healing approach I work with, we call this agency.  As adults, we can choose how we relate to the things that happen to us.  Recognizing this capacity is an essential part of healing and reconnecting to our most authentic self.

So it is worth while considering this year as we get ready for Passover:  How do we want to tell the story this year?  How do we relate to the things that are happening around us?  Because telling the story is more than passing the tradition down from generation to generation.  It is an aspect of liberation itself. 

Chag sameach!  May you celebrate with people you love and may we all move towards greater freedom.